After her book discussion group on March 25, Santa Clara resident Carol Buchser stopped off for the first time at TOUS les JOURS, a French Asian bakery at Homestead Road and Lawrence Expressway, to meet up with a friend.
She paused at a glass-enclosed food display case, deliberating but a moment before selecting a sugar-sprinkled donut—generously filled with chocolate cream—to go with a coffee.
“Bob would love this place!” she said, settling in at a small wooden table. Unwittingly, she had turned the conversation to love. And who doesn’t love a good love story? And want to know how a couple met?
Bob Buchser, her husband, was not Carol’s first love, nor she his. He was a widower living in Santa Clara, and she a divorcée living in Mountain View when they met in 2004. They were older. Neither was looking for new love.
“When I met Bob, I wasn’t expecting to marry him,” said Buchser, originally from Tennessee.
Mutual friends in Santa Clara—Jo Fargher and the late Larry Fargher—arranged a blind date, a foursome.
“We have two extra tickets to ‘Little Women’ at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts,” Jo said to Carol and Larry said to Bob. “Why don’t you join us?”
And so they did.
Buchser recalls her surprise as the four of them made their way down a long row in the theater to get to their seats, squeezing by people already seated.
“People kept saying, ‘Hi, Bob!’ and I wondered how come all those people knew him,” said Buchser. “It was amazing that everyone knew who he was but me. ‘I need to check this guy out,’ I said to myself.
“At first, we felt like teenagers just beginning to date, not knowing what to do but both excited,” she continued.
They dated for three years, plenty of time to check Bob out and discover his long family history in Santa Clara and his prominent and respected roles as an educator in the Santa Clara Unified School District. Then, in September of 2007, they married at the Carmelite Monastery in Santa Clara, honeymooning in Laguna Beach, CA.
“There’s always time and hope for new love,” said Buchser, who fell in love not just with Bob but with Santa Clara as well.
“I would like for people to understand how wonderful Santa Clara is,” she said. “People here are very friendly and caring.”
People like Carol and Bob Buchser.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor is a column where we casually interview people we meet in Silicon Valley. The Won’t You Be My Neighbor column hopes to highlight what makes Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and the rest of the South Bay special — the people who live, work and play here.
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