Letters: Kudos to Times readers’ vacation snapshots

Kudos to readers’ vacation images

Every Sunday, I have my ritual of reading The Times over a cup of coffee. The one section I have come to cherish is Travel. I always look forward to the image that has been submitted by one of The Times’ readers. All the images I have viewed in the last year have been great. What’s best is that they are taken by amateurs impressed with a scene they have come across. Last Sunday’s edition [“Creative Spark,” Dec. 27] acknowledges the skill of many up-and-coming photographers. Thanks for giving the readers of The Times an opportunity to view their fine work.

-- Bryan McCall, Camarillo

Love is in the air, and the ground too

After reading “Getting a Romance Off the Ground” by Judy Mandell [Dec. 20], I had to share my story. In June 2002, a friend and I went to New York for a week. There was no wait to check in, so we had a lot of time to kill and decided to have a drink. I was looking at the beer menu and didn’t know what to get, so I turned to the guy sitting next to us and asked him for a suggestion.

His name was Gidon, and it turned out he was on our flight. When we boarded, he suggested we share a cab into the city. I said, “OK, maybe.”

After a restless red eye, we grabbed our bags, and halfway out the terminal door I hear, “Lady, don’t you want to share that cab?” I turn around and Gidon was standing there. When the cab dropped us off, he refused to let us pay. We all exchanged phone numbers and said we’d try to meet in L.A. sometime.

Two nights later, my friend and I went to dinner with our New York friends. We walked into the restaurant and standing in the bar was Gidon. What were the odds? He wound up joining us, and we decided we’d meet for a drink in L.A.

We met for that drink and subsequent dates followed. Two and a half years later, we were engaged. But Gidon couldn’t just propose over dinner. He set up an elaborate story about friends coming to visit and how we had to pick them up from the airport. When we got to LAX, he told me that since we were early we should go up to Encounter -- the restaurant in the center of LAX -- and have a drink. A few minutes later, he confessed our friends weren’t coming. It was a ruse to get me to the airport where we met so he could propose.

We were married a year later (not at the airport). Love really does find you at the most unexpected times and places.

-- Elise Nach, Lake Balboa, Calif.

A transformative trip for volunteer

Great article by Judy Mandell [“Volunteer Vacay: Stateside Works,” Dec. 20]. In fact, that’s what I did, almost entirely by coincidence.

I just came back from a two-week trip to Chennai, in southeastern India. What originally started as a personal vacation was transformed into a volunteer vacay for part of the time. I witnessed the hands-on involvement at Banyan, a shelter for mentally battered women. The success at Banyan is in no small measure due to the response by the younger generation. They have truly taken to heart the call to voluntary service. The website www.thebanyan.org is an illustration of a selfless response to desperate cries for help.

-- Ram Sainath, Camarillo