Sunday, November 22, 2009

An Old Friend and a New One


On October 4, 2009, the Los Angeles Times published one of my photos of the Basilica de San Francisco el Grande in Madrid, Spain in their weekly "Your Scene" part of the Sunday Times Travel Section. The "Your Scene" is the Travel Editor to pick one travel photo submitted by readers who are not professional photographers per week to be published on Sunday.

A few days later I received a letter congratulating me on the picture from John Patrick Walsh. I first met John as a 6th grader who had just arrived as a transfer student to St. Phillip the Apostle School in Pasadena from K.L. Carver School in San Marino.

After St. Phillip's, we both attended and graduated from St. Francis H.S. in La Cañada-Flintridge. After high school John attended Loyola-Marymount for a year before transferring to Southern California where he earned both his B.A. degree and graduated from their Law School.

Unfortunately, after college I had limited contact with John and probably had not spoken to him in about ten years, YIPES!

Well my L.A. Times photo created a perfect opportunity for Laurie and I to re-connect so Saturday night we met John and Colette in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles for dinner and some catching up.

Casa Bianca
1650 Colorado Blvd.
Los Angeles, California

John and Colette picked this GREAT Italian restaurant for our meeting! It is over 50 years old, has a ton of charm, was standing room only for hours after we got there and serves the best Italian food we've had since we left Sicily!!!

John Walsh and Colette Huby

The wine and beer flowed gently, the food was fabulous and the catching up went on for almost three hours!

We had not met Colette until this evening. She works as Charge Nurse at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica and hails from the United Kingdom.

We had an extremely wonderful time and we WILL meet again soon. They are such GREAT people!!!

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