LUCKY GET: After 46 years at the News-Press, columnist Barney Brantingham found a new home at The Independent five years ago. Editor in Chief Marianne Partridge invited him to write a column, and, like the guest who wouldn’t go home, he never left the friendly office on Figueroa Street. Incidentally, he began his newspaper career on a weekly in the Chicago area as a green-as-grass reporter. Since arriving in Santa Barbara in 1960, he hasn’t missed a Fiesta and doesn’t plan to as long as Marianne will put up with him.