4 replies to this topic

[etceterini.com]

RIP Raymond. He was an easy going good hearted man....
Anyone have any Raymond stories?

[Jack-the-Lad]

No stories, but I'm sad to hear he's gone. I don't know much about him other than what little I've read about the interesting cars he dealt in. Can you tell us?

May his family be comforted.

Jack

Edited by Jack-the-Lad, 01 October 2009 - 00:32.

[McGuire]

I was very sorry to learn of Raymond's passing... car collector and broker, Intercontinental horse trader, rare bird smuggler, raconteur without equal. Every conversation with Raymond was a fantastic adventure. I will miss him greatly.

[karen1329]

RIP Raymond. He was an easy going good hearted man....
Anyone have any Raymond stories?

My husband and I were fortuante enough to have spent a weekend in Raymond's company only one week before his passing at Myron Vernis' "Gathering" in Ohio. The concours was one of the best in the U.S. but Raymond stole the show/provided the entertainment just by his very presence! Forty-some years ago Raymond and my husband's neice had a "little tryst" which was all the ammunition Raymond needed to go down memory lane but not in the usual way most folks reminisce ad nauseum. Raymond had us reeling with laughter and also confirmed what I had suspected about the mother-in-law-in-waiting (Toly's sister) who was not interested in the addition of new family members to Thanksgiving dinner! Raymond and I seemed to sit together at every meal that weekend. I thought it was happenstance but he finally admitted that he wanted to be near me to catch any puff of smoke I might exhale in his direction as his doctor had only recently told him to quit or it was "curtains" for him. The usual cigar was missing and there were no cigarettes or lighter to be found in his pockets. He really was being a good boy. Between Raymond's dinner-table-power-naps he regaled us with his birth on the Orient Express and how such a grand entrance into this world must certainly have been a profound influence on his whole life (my words, not his). If there ever was a "baby raconteur" it had to be Raymond.
His exit from this earthly life may have been less dramatic but simply not waking up is a blessing from above for a life well lived.
Karen Arutunoff

[dretceterini]

A big shock to me, as Ray and I usually spent about an hour a month on the phone for the last 20 years, talking about etceterinis and similar French cars. A scoundrel for sure, but one of the very few honest ones. RIP Ray