Shirley Johnson speaks to her lunch group. Photo by Lorine Parks

“I don’t have any agenda,” said Shirley Johnson. “I just invite people to come.”

The people that Shirley Johnson, of Best Travel and organizer extraordinaire, invites are a happy lot who try out new restaurants whenever Shirley suggests one. This time we sat at a long window table in the new La Barca, where Sambi’s formerly was. Past get-togethers have included The Olive, and Benihana, in the Downey Promenade.

“Originally I started this for the Guild,” said Shirley, and that would be the Women’s Guild of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Downey. “But then I invited clients from my travel agency, and they asked friends. And there are people I serve now with my medical appointment service.”

I asked around the table how people knew Shirley, and they smiled as they searched for their reply. Answers ranged from, “I used her taxi service to the airport in the 80’s,” to “I met her when we had the Red Cross Blood Mobile at the church, and when she came in to donate, she just bled and bled all over. That’s when we became friends.”

Born in England, Shirley’s crisp accent still pops up in her conversation.

“It was very rural, no paved sidewalks, sheep and cows grazing and completely surrounded by thick woods, wild blackberries we picked in season and crab apples that we would eat on the way home from school as a snack - very sour,” says Shirley.

Shirley grew up in Hertforshire, and emigrated intending to settle in Australia. But the warm sun and palm trees in California brought her back here and eventually she moved to Downey to open her travel agency. That became an airport taxi service. In later years she has switched to a very much-needed personal van service to take the elderly to local medical appointments.

To shake hands with Shirley is to feel like you are the handle of a suitcase she has picked off the baggage carrousel. She has a firm handshake and you know you will never be lost luggage.

Conversations ranged around living in Downey – the coyote problem, looking for a good meeting room for organizations. Many had read the stories in the Patriot about the homeless at our Firestone post office and were keen to know what could be done. No one talked politics – that kind of baggage was left at the door, and strangers and friends sat side by side, here to test the newest in restaurant endeavors in Downey.

It’s more fun when you go places together, and the group of men and women ranged from the youngest, 8-year-old Anna with her long black pigtails who came with her grandmother, to Rosalie Sciortino who will be 95 this month.

Rosalie is a longtime Downey resident who still writes poetry, oversees her garden and has placed her own wonderful watercolors and oil paintings around her gracious home, where for example a bright view of flowers on the Amalfi Coast hangs over her bathtub. She is a long-time contributor to the Downey Symphony, as is Shirley, who is also a fan of Music Director Sharon Lavery.

Other restaurant groupies included Bernie Lewis, vivacious widows of everyone’s favorite Gallatin pediatrician, Dr. Ted Lewis, and her friend Joyce Stiles, who logged over 31 years as a nurse at Downey Community Hospital. Bernie still works out and does yoga at the Downey Y.

Shirley is a 30-year member of the Rotary Club of Downey, one of the first women to be invited to join after the Supreme Court ruled no one could be excluded on basis of gender. The good care of children has been the cause dear to Shirley’s heart.

“The most important to me are always the children,” she says. “So many go without the basics. I believe all children should be treated with honesty, humor as is appropriate, and respect. I was raised in England in a very strict way with those values. We must all help to keep the world turning and that means helping where and when we can.”

Shirley also performs another specialized service, the clean-up of properties before they are sold. “Most of the properties,” said Shirley, “have ‘collected’ items for 40 years or more and most of it is unusable junk. I do all the necessary clean up, inside and out.

“All that can gets donated to various charities, some go to the orphanages and schools in Tijuana. The garage and driveway are all hosed down and cleaned thoroughly to give the property a clean, good, street appeal before being listed for the best price and a quick sale.”

“When I leave,” said Shirley, “I shall be cremated, as Muffin was (she's in my China cabinet), and both of us shall cross the ‘pond’ landing back in Hertfordshire in the family plot with my sister and three Daffodil bulbs to show the world each Spring, WE'RE BACK!”

Anyone is welcome to join Shirley’s occasional and informal group, the kind of spontaneous coming together of acquaintances, that seems to thrive in Downey.

Oh, the places you'll go with Shirley Johnson