Entry #628412, added on 01-12-09 @ 11:38 am EST
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| A Sentimental journey comes to an end, naturally. | Entry #628412 |
I wanted to end this blog on my own, because I hate when people are caught unaware of the kb limits on them and are cut off without so much as a “thank you to all of my readers”. Thus I have almost reached the kb limit and have been trying to come up with something clever or funny, but heck, why start now? 
Home sweet home...as nice as any vacation is, there is no place like home I confess, I am not home yet, but still on the drive back from San Diego. I figure since I am sitting in the back seat, stuffed with two big pieces of luggage, I may as well be productive.
The ride back started off pretty smoothly, until Lance made some calls. He had left his cell in the car, during the downpour when we got out of the car over two weeks ago. He used mine. Gawd. Anyway, he had a message from the wife of a friend of ours, Rosa, so he returned the call only to find out he had dropped dead on New Year’s Eve. Little Richie was only 47, and leaves behind two children in addition to his wife. Needless to say it shook us up and only reinforces my mantra, “If not now, when?” You just have to live each day to the fullest,
Little Richie. was a pretty colorful fellow, about 5’ 3” and weighed in at about 450 pounds. Lance first met his father, Richie Sr., or Big Dick as he was known, back in the 1980’s when they had hired Lance on for their shipping business. Big Dick. had a thriving business, and was from a huge Italian immigrant family who lived back East. He was very proud of his Italian roots, and he loved the time Lance and I went to NY, just so he could drive us around his old neighborhood. Big Dick loved Las Vegas, and it seemed he knew everyone, pit bosses, hoteliers, bartenders and restaurant owners. He also loved food, and often brought big aluminum trays of baked ziti or one of his other specialties to us.
Big Dick, his wife, Ellen and son loved Las Vegas. That town seemed like the Vegas of old whenever we went to Vegas, and everything was comped. You just could not pay when Big Dick was around. Ellen was a real flashy dame too. Everything about them screamed, “Look at me”, her ultra tight clothing to her big her red hair and predilection for big, gold nugget jewelry...you know the kind, studded with diamonds. Ellen would pile on the jewelry, you could never have on too much or too flashy for her, especially when she played Blackjack. Her nails were always painted, and her diamonds cleaned and sparkling. They always made sure we were invited along at least every couple of months. (Big Dick died about five years ago.)
When Little Richie and Rosa were getting married, it was to be a wedding unlike any I have attended; bigger, more lavish and more garish....and of course had to be held in Las Vegas, in a hotel ballroom. Lance was Little Richie’s best man. I was...basically arm candy, until the reception, at which time there was a raised banquet table for the bride and groom, their families, and the attendants. Since I was not in the wedding, that meant I sat at one of the 20 round, tables of ten with some strangers, wistfully looking up at my poor husband who had to be carried up the steps he could never climb.
As it goes, it was a huge, lavish Italian wedding reception, complete with six bagpipers, and both a Spanish speaking priest for Rosa’s family, and an Italian one for Little Richie’s. There was a Mariachi band, and an Italian Tenor...and a seven course meal culminating with a slab of prime rib I could barely stand the smell of, much less eat by that time. By the end of the evening, some 200 guests were fat, drunk and gambling to the tunes of a sound-alike Frank Sinatra and an Elvis sound-alike. All-in-all, a night to remember. Everything about the night was big, and like Big Dick and Little Richie, not easily forgotten.
I guess I wanted to leave you with this big memory, because I felt it appropriate to end this blog on a big memory. Thanks to each of you who have helped to make this second blog a wonderful memory.
I’m not sure when I’ll begin the third, but I expect it will be sooner, rather than later, just like this one was.
My third blog can be found here:
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