The Sun Cove Chronicles: Ode to Ed

Where's Ed to help carry the float tubes?

Ten years. That's how long Ed Jones has been taking trips to Sun Cove Resort with Jack and my Dad, and in later years, with Larysa, Paula, and Hans.  Ed is both an outdoorsman and a great cook, so he usually had the job of Camp Chef, a role I assumed this year when Ed could not make the trip.  But even in his absence Ed was present. 

What? No salami?

On the first night, I'd prepared appetizers of home-smoked trout, oysters, cheese, crackers, and sliced onions.  "Where's the salami?  Ed usually brings salami, we usually have that every night." Oops. My bad. The next day I checked the tiny Sun Cove Resort market, but no luck. Not even a Slim Jim.  I made a point to drive to Oroville to get some salami, in memory of Ed.  "Ed always has a steak night," I'm told as I serve a lamb dish, the only red meat meal I've planned. One day at lunch, sandwiches consisted of bread and lunch meat, and that's it. Jack forgot to set out the avocado, onions, tomatoes and lettuce.  Someone quips, "Ed would never have made that mistake. No way."  Where's Ed when you need him? 

And then there's the table conversation.  "The nice thing about having Ed here," Jack says, "is that he's the only non-Castro, so he always has something interesting to talk about that doesn't involve family gossip, our jobs, or those same old family stories that get drug out year after year." Someone jokes in a disgusting way about diarrhea in their waders.  "Too much information!! That's what Ed would say!", Paula comments.  And if Hans had popped his float tube again this year, Ed would be all over it, "That Hans is a piece of work!" So Ed, you were missed.  If a Sun Cove trip is in the cards for next year, I hope you don't let them down again.  

I can only imagine what Ed would say about this atrocity!