January 14, 2019
It was about 2 years ago that I first met Ed on the UK based accordion forum, and we quickly hit it off, becoming “internet buddies” almost instantly. We had similar views and similar tastes in music, though I did notice that Ed, being of Italian background, was a great lover of Italian music and we both love the accordion. Ed has taken his playing, though, to another level and is really amazing. We chit-chatted and then started to call each other now and then and over time grew to something a bit more than “internet buddies”, we became friends.
One day, out of the blue, he offered that should I ever be in his part of the world, that I was welcome to stay at his place. Now, that takes a special kind of person to make that kind of an offer, but I did not have the chance to take him up on it until almost a year later.
In late 2018 I decided to take my mother for a short 1 week vacation to Florida and it was an amazing time, however, a great big part of this was due to the friendship and generosity of my friend Ed. I expected to maybe stay a single night there, but he wouldn’t have any of that, and we ended up staying several night there, not only enjoying the pleasures of the amazing town of St. Augustine, but really enjoying my time spent with Ed. Him and his lovely wife Lorraine took us out to show us the town, which was still regaled in full Christmas lighting, and it made everything look almost magical. St. Augustine is truly a beautiful town. We laughed a lot, we ate, and I even had the pleasure of capturing a few songs that Ed played for us on video and I did my little video editing magic for him.
The time past quickly, perhaps in this case, way faster than normal, because suddenly it was time to take our leave of our new found friends. I actually found it a little difficult to say good-bye, but we did promise to keep in touch and definitely get together sometime soon by either me coming there or him coming over here to Montreal.
It is rare that someone not only opens up their home to you, but welcomes you in to their lives and in a very real way, Ed and Lorraine have become our “sister and brother from another mother”.
On the last day there, Ed took the time to whip out his camera and take a picture of us… here is that photo:
It was a fantastic adventure, one that I would love to repeat one day soon. Ed, it is hard for me to express my thanks for everything that you did for us!