Thursday, September 5, 2019
Vince and his family were friends with our family since the late 1960s. There are photographs of myself as a very young child perched on Vince's knee in my parents' house. Growing up we spent time with his children and Vince was the most frequent guest in our house and vice versa. When I started my first real job (as a shy fifteen-year old at Perry's Tropical Nut House) Vince became an Obi-Wan Kenobi figure to me. He taught me to look customers in the eye, joke a bit to set tourists at ease and to always give the paying visitors what they wanted. For eleven years he provided unsolicited homespun advice on career, schooling and dating with the wisdom of a sage while couched in a vernacular DownEast style of expression. Though I saw Vince less frequently over the last decade or so I will never forget what a good person he was to his family, his friends and the general public. My sincere condolences to the Nortons at this very sad loss.
