A crowd cheers at a recent political rally.

ABOARD THE CNN ELECTION EXPRESS IN NEWPORT BEACH, California (CNN) — It's the one thing no candidate would ever admit that he or she might miss.

To say it out loud would be to confess something embarrassing. Something needful.

A candidate dropping out of the presidential race is usually quite comfortable saying that he or she will miss all the friends made during the long campaign; will miss the chance to advance a vision for a better America; will miss the opportunity to serve.

But no candidate will ever say that he will miss the cheers. The applause.

Yet you know that every candidate does — that every candidate, in the days after walking away, yearns to hear that applause one more time.

There weren't many places to eat within walking distance of where I was staying here, so I decided to go right next door to one of the oddest restaurants — or at least one of the oddest restaurant concepts — I have ever encountered.

It was called Garlic Jo's. That was its specialty. Not the Jo part. The garlic part.

You of course are familiar with restaurants that concentrate on Italian food, or Mexican food, or Thai food. There are restaurants that specialize in desserts; there are restaurants that specialize in appetizers.

But garlic?

Very early in the evening I was the only person in the dining room. I would tell you what the predominant scent inside Garlic Jo's was, but I believe you already know.

I perused the menu. Should I try the garlic pizza? The garlic seafood salad? The mozzarella and garlic pasta? Garlic-smothered steak? How about the spinach and garlic salad? The garlic fried rice?

Just as I started to ask myself the obvious question — the one you, too, would ask yourself — I noticed a little admonition on the menu that answered it for me:

“No Garlic, No Service.”

So a garlic dinner it would be, and in the background I heard music.

It didn't sound like a radio, or a mix tape. It sounded closer than that.

I heard voices singing the great old Ben E. King ballad “Stand By Me.”

When the night has come, and the land is dark. . . .

Across the room were a man and a woman — a combo. The sign on their instruments said that they were called Tropic Starr.

They had been hired to entertain. I was, at the moment, the sole diner; there was one other customer: a man at the bar in a brown baseball cap, talking on a cellphone.

And Tropic Starr — its two members — were playing their hearts out, as if they were performing in front of a full house at the Hollywood Bowl.

. . .oh darling, darling, stand by me….

They finished the number and there was stillness.

I applauded and then walked over to them.

They smiled and we introduced ourselves to each other; they were David and Nina Nomura, husband and wife.

It's no sin to admit that you long for applause; it's no sign of weakness to concede that it is part of what you live for. The presidential candidates — those who lose — will never say how abruptly empty their lives become without it. But when they hear that applause at campaign rallies for months, when it becomes the constant backdrop to all they are trying to achieve, and then suddenly there is only silence…

You know how loud that silence is for them.

“Can we play something for you?” Mrs. Nomura asked me.

We were, after all, in southern California. “How about 'Surfin' U.S.A.'?” I said.

“That one we can do,” Mr. Nomura said.

They started, and they nailed it– they knew every city and every beach in every verse of that glorious song:

. . .you'll catch 'em surfin' at Del Mar, Ventura County line…

They had no throng– no multitudes. But they were giving it– in the words of Bob Seger– every ounce of energy.

…San Onofre and Sunset, Redondo Beach, L.A….

They finished and I heard a sound from across the way and saw that it was the guy at the bar. He'd put his phone down. He was applauding.

Most of us don't hear it as often as we'd like, but some people never hear it in their whole lives. I went back to the table and read the newspaper, long stories about candidates who were prospering, and candidates who suddenly weren't.

When my meal was over the waiter said the garlic ice cream was really quite good.

I said maybe next time. The musicians of Tropic Starr were still playing as I left. I wished for them a crowded restaurant later in the evening, and strangers to cheer them on.

Bob Greene is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author.