Ventura County is full of interesting people, and I manage to meet a lot of them. A few months ago, I met Rose Boggs of Ojai. We connected, believe it or not, over one of my columns on chickens. Do you remember I spoke of my childhood and the chickens I had as friends? I had tremendous response to the column. People e-mailed me with stories of their youth spent with chickens. One of them was Rose. She told me that her father had made her caretaker of the chickens, and she seemed to love them as much as I did.

We eventually met in Ojai, where she lives. From our talk, I discovered that she was well-known in Ojai as a tennis player. Playing regularly in tournaments, she wanted to become professional, but in those days, a woman could not make a living on the tennis circuit, so she became a schoolteacher. She never gave up her love of tennis. She played in Los Angeles against Billie Jean King and taught youngsters who had the same love of the game that she had.

She recently asked me to come to the Gables in Ojai to meet her sister-in-law, who had just published a book, "She Only Wants a Horse," about her daughter's wish for a horse. The author, Judith Chase, was accompanied by her husband, both very advanced in age. When asked to speak, Judith spoke about their beginning as two starry-eyed youngsters, both very much in love, both with aspirations. They were determined to further their education and get master's degrees, and they both wanted to start a family.

They decided to move to Arizona, and the humor in the story comes when two penniless people start on their long journey together. For many readers, it will bring back memories of their start in life. My father would tell me that unless I could pay for something in cash, I couldn't afford it. In the old days, you saved and saved until you could pay for a house, and then you bought it. Although South Wales and Arizona are far apart, Judith and her husband were obviously brought up with the same principles.

This is a wonderful story. It is a book I couldn't put down. This was a pioneering couple I loved hearing about, Judith sowing seeds for the vegetables and flowers, and how Nancy, her first child, picked small bouquets for her mother, even if they were weeds from the Arizona desert. When a person is poor, one learns shortcuts. Clothes were altered to accommodate the other children, and one scrawny chicken can be cooked and eaten and the carcass boiled with vegetables into a wonderful soup the following day.

This is not a fictional story. It is the true story of two people in love who make their dreams come true by living on a shoestring and working hard every day to achieve those dreams. As the book cover states, "This book is permission to dream."

As I read this book, I wondered how many young people still go through these hardships and come out triumphant. I hope that there are many. Entertainment and enjoyment are not the same today as they were those many years ago. Too many youngsters do not find the time to read a book or a newspaper, preferring to sit with a video game and eliminate the villains. Too bad. They do not know what they are missing.

Sometimes when I am behind someone in the cash-out line in the supermarket who has welfare food coupons, I look at what they have bought. It is usually potato chips and soda pop, and other poor nutrition They have not had the joy of planting and harvesting vegetables and then eating them.

Judith and Dan Chase now live in Santa Barbara and visit Ojai regularly. As I watched these two people in the tranquility of the Gables, there was no mistaking that their love for each other was still strong.

Dan said, "I just planted a dozen rose bushes for her birthday. She deserves a dozen bushes not just a dozen roses."

— Star columnist Margaret Nesbitt welcomes comments and suggestions about subjects of interest to seniors. They can be sent via e-mail to undeg@verizon.net.