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Yahoo!A place of natural beauty, a history rich with culture, a town awash in political intrigue and civic drama, the interface of the tremendously wealthy and the staggeringly poor. There are perhaps few cities with as many potential storylines as Santa Barbara. And for those of us who reside in this enchanted place, these stories are our own — we live them, we remember them, we play the starring roles, we dance in and out of the settings.
It’s in that spirit that The Independent launched our Life in Santa Barbara memoir contest, designed to elicit such stories from those of you who’ve lived them. Once the contest was announced on independent.com and in the printed paper in the fall, we received dozens of entries, ranging from first-year college students just tasting the South Coast’s nectar to octogenarians who have had Santa Barbara addresses their whole lives.
Here, in our first issue of 2008, we present the winners of this memoir contest. Our first-place entry is from Joe Cantrell, who wrote about the humorous legacy of Frank’s Rice Bowl, a taste of State Street’s past. Coming in as runners-up are P.B. Rippey’s story of a family shake-up when Reagan came to town and Marjorie Popper’s reminiscence of the organic farm called El Mirasol, located where Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens sits today. And in our younger than 30 category, Miranda Ward cooks up a tasty tale of marmalade, sloe gin, and other fruits.
So curl up by the fireplace and read what your neighbors remember about our town. If you like these, watch out for future editions, when other submissions will get published as part of special issues. And if you want to get in on the fun, check for more writing contests this year from The Independent.
State Street Dining - Remembering Frank’s Rice Bowl by Joe Cantrell
El Mirasol - Life on a Polyculture Urban Farm by Marjorie Popper
Soul Food - Marmalade, Sloe Gin, and the Fruits of a Santa Barbara Upbringing by Miranda Ward
Rooftop Escape - When Reagan Came to Town by P.B. Rippey
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Yes, downtown SB just ain't what it used to be! Eating at Rice Bowl was often the only option available to starving UCSB students who wanted to eat "out."
But funny, my last meal at Casa Blanca was after a cockroach strolled across our table...
I miss it all!
longtimeSB (anonymous profile)
January 5, 2008 at 6:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Thanks for the memories of Frank's Rice Bowl, which predate mine. I was introduced to the joint by an old-time local geologist named Dave Doerner when we worked together at the County Dept. of Environmental Resources in the very early '80s. Now and then we'd truck on down there for lunch, often with another colleague, Larry Jones, and then huff-n-puff on back to the County Admin. Bldg. at Anacapa & Anapamu, working off the MSG along the way. I recall that it was incredibly inexpensive, like, a buck seventy-five, and we never got sick, although the visible sanitation was pretty questionable. I have a picture of a painting by Patricia Childlaw, from the inside looking out, that was reproduced in a UCSB Extension catalog some years ago, and have scanned it as a .jpg and would be happy to share it with the Indy, assuming that no copyright laws would be violated.
GregMohr (anonymous profile)
January 10, 2008 at 6:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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