Remembering Lee

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One morning as I was grunting uphill on my bicycle, Lee and Margaret called to me and invited me in for a tour of their new house. Usually I would wave and keep going –– I was eager to get home at this point in my ride –– but on this particular occasion, I decided to stop. Margaret handed me a glass of cold water and a Chinese pear, and I entered a spacious front room.“

Ah, this is the room of the welcoming embrace!” I exclaimed.

“No,” said Lee, “this is where our guests will sit drinking tequila.”

Next I walked over to a sheltering corner overlooking a panorama of hills and sky. “And this is where you’ll stand feeling humble and grateful,” I said, “it will be a sort of shrine.”

“Not really,” said Lee, “this is where the bar is gonna be.”

Then I noticed an arched doorway that led to an open patio, and all you could see from that angle was the blue of the sky.

“Ah,” I sighed, “and this must be the doorway to the sky.”

“Okay,” said Lee.

Always affable and welcoming, Lee clearly envisioned this place as a setting for laughter and good times with family and friends.  But he was serious and substantial, too, a well-respected advocate for California business and jobs. He had been director of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation and the Southern California Leadership Council, served on many important task forces, traveled the world in a quest to ensure California’s role in the global economy. He did the kind of work that made a positive difference to a lot of people.

He was also a very good neighbor, and that's no small thing. He was someone you could count on to help secure a solar panel in the wind, or lend you his tractor, or pause for conversation in the canyon. He put in countless hours of his time on volunteer committees, untangling sticky issues of ranch governance. He loved the ranch and tended to it.

Lee had a broad face, a broad grin, and a grand view of life. He caught big fish, big waves, and big ideas.  When he grew a beard, he looked a bit like Ernest Hemingway, if Hemingway had been more jovial and fond of cowboy hats. We saw him often at the beach, and he and Monte would talk about the surf, and he was always beaming and exuberant at such times.

At a New Year's Eve party a couple of years ago, Lee pulled out a box of cigars that he had brought back with him from Cuba. “A gift from Fidel,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, and his enthusiasm was so contagious that even Margaret, Bev, and I could not resist giving one a try. It must have been a comical thing to see the three of us with cigars in our mouths and smoke curling around our heads. I remember Lee laughing, a glass of wine in his hand.

And I think of him watching Margaret with pride and affection as she rode her horse, or gearing up with Ryan for a session at Big Drakes. He seemed centered and happy and full of love.Lee made a glorious exit last week, doing what he loved in a place of enchantment. Friends who were present report hearing hoots of joy as he rode two of the best waves of his life.We will miss him.