March 30th, 2026

Goedemorgen vrienden,

   Of all the treasures one can compile over the course of a lifetime, friendships are the most valuable and enduring. Howard LaBrie and I started our friendship with our first conversation, our first handshake. Our backgrounds couldn’t be more diverse. He’s a California boy and I’m an East Coast man. He’s a runner. I’m a plodder. He amuses himself with paints, brushes and sketch pads….I whack away at the banjo. But the day of our first encounter, at the learning skills center at the American School of the Hague, 41 years ago, a friendship was cemented that has been important thread throughout my life. Now, both of us in our "upper" 70s, we were privileged enjoy a week together of doing absolutely nothing…which was always parr for the course, but it was done perfectly! The thing about a real friendship is, frankly I’m not sure if I’ll ever see Howard again…. yet we will always be connected. We never know when we will turn the corner. Oh, I fully intend to see him if he travels to the states or if I travel through the Netherlands. We will stay in touch but at our age, you just never know. So, we just made the most of the time at hand. We traversed the canal paths and parks his town and we caught up with each other’s lives…that’s what friends do. So I had a week of all this AND I got to spend time with his lovely and kind wife, Annemies who always took care of the details.

     Of course the much bigger reunion took place Sunday upon seeing Julie and my daughter Rose, son-in-law Jose and beautiful granddaughter Talia Rose. So, the book of disabled, solo traveler has been put back on the shelf for now. I am grateful and so pleased to be able to spend one more week in the Netherlands with family.

Met vrede,

John Bernunzio 

We will be returning Easter Sunday and hope to see you at the store on Thursday.

From the deck of our residence for the next week…