Passages

I first met Ed Hutton because his son Bob used to wait for the school bus in front of Kipling's place just outside Guelph.

At the time Kipling's place had some serious high performance iron parked on the front lawn. There was Kipling's 426 Hemi Charger and two of Barney's 396-375 Novas, all festooned with "for sale" signs.

No wonder young Bob fell in love with fast cars.

He also fell in love with Kipling's sister-in-law, but that's another story.

Later on I met Ed in the context of a business deal. Ed was one of those old-school straight ahead guys whose word was his bond. This was a man who you knew implicitly could be trusted on a handshake over a million dollar deal.

Ed was a farmer. Used to tell me stories about how in the old days they used to hardly buy anything off the farm. In the course of his career that changed 180 degrees, to the point where farmers do one crop and buy everything off the farm.

As fate would have it, Ed was just about ready to throw in the towel back in the early sixties, when one of the local road construction guys approached him about digging gravel out of his place.

Long story short, gravel farming made Ed a multi-millionaire. He ended up with half a dozen farms, all on the outskirts of a fast-expanding city.

I lost touch with Ed these last few years.

Kept meaning to drop in and catch up.

Too late now.

Ed passed away a week ago.

And to Florence and the family all I can say is I'm sorry I missed that catching up.

Happy trails, Mr. Hutton!