Love on a Lazy Afternoon

Of all the world’s great meanderers, those who drift through the sunlight of spring with no specific destination in mind, I may be the greatest.

I can set out in the morning and return home in the evening with 110 additional miles on the car, not knowing where I’ve been or why.

I wander through a canyon and then maybe down a peninsula or up a mountain road for no reason at all, except to be going somewhere.

I feel sometimes like my old dog Hoover who trots aimlessly down the street, stopping only to sniff or urinate, and makes a kind of big circle before coming home to scratch at the door.

I don’t do much sniffing or anything else as I meander, and when I come home I don’t scratch to get in. I have a key.

Hoover has worn deep ruts in the door by his scratching, and one of these days he’s going to scratch his way right on through into the front hall.

Old dogs like Hoover and me wander best in the spring when sunlight and the dreamy scent of jasmine fill the warm air.

We don’t know what we’re looking for exactly, but sometimes we find something special that makes all the meandering worthwhile.

Hoover, for instance, found a red female spaniel he trotted with for years until she moved away. I found Joe and Vivian Besbeck.

*

To be honest, I had known about them for a couple of weeks, but for one reason or another hadn’t gotten around to seeing them.

On this particular day, however, I figured the time was right because it was spring, I was out wandering and the city was in need of a love story.

The Besbecks, who occupy an eighth-floor condo overlooking the Westside, are living proof that love is ageless; it’s possible to be warm and romantic and a little giddy even when he’s 94 and she’s 88.

They were married last month after an acquaintanceship that began about 30 years ago when they were married to other people. They both have great-grandchildren.

Joe is kind of a slow-talking man who wears suspenders and lets Vivian do most of the chattering. She’s as pert and snappy as an early autumn and teases Joe when he can’t remember her birthday or how many grandchildren he’s got.

They began dating a year ago, long after their other mates died. “It took right away,” Joe said as we sat in the living room of their home on a day as warm and sweet as a morning in heaven.

“Everyone said we ought to just live in sin,” Vivian said, “but my mother used to say don’t give ‘em the cream until they buy the milk.”

Vivian wasn’t all that sure about marriage, but Joe didn’t have a doubt in his head. “She was the gal for me,” he said, “and we’ll make it last as long as possible.”

He’s been a master jeweler all of his life, just like his dad was, and still goes to an office in Beverly Hills twice a week.

Joe was married to one woman for 68 years until she died. Vivian was married twice before, and both husbands died young. It was a lonely time for both of them until they found each other.

*

It is a mantra of spring that everyone needs someone, no matter how old they are. I think even Hoover has the idea that one of these days he’s going to meet someone like the red spaniel again so they can trot down the street together on lazy, meandering-type days.

Joe and Vivian enjoy just being together, sometimes in absolute silence, knowing that the other is there. Love isn’t always expressed in words.

When I wrote about the cold remoteness of romance on the Internet I got messages saying what a fool I was not to realize how much company that kind of communication affords.

“When you’re alone,” one man wrote, “e-mail fulfills a need to make contact in any way you can, and you know that somewhere out there, someone may be feeling the same way, and you meet. . . .”

The problem is you’re looking at a screen, not into someone’s eyes, and it’s the eyes, not a monitor, that mirror the soul. But it’s not up to me to determine how a person copes. Whatever gets you through the night.

Joe and Vivian in some ways are an anomaly in an age dominated by rap and rock. They’re like an old love song vaguely remembered that you think about sometimes and wonder why they don’t play as much anymore.

I heard it as I drove away from the Besbecks’ condo, remembering the way Joe looked at Vivian, and how Vivian laughed in delight. And then I meandered for awhile along the ocean and up through a canyon.

When I got home I scratched at the door just for the hell of it. My wife let me in without saying a word. She understands spring.

Al Martinez can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com