[Un leu, un leu... Ch. 1] Four Corners: For and in consideration of the sum of LOVE AND AFFECTION

This is the start of a series I will be publishing about my late godfather Bill Edwards who was born in 1938, in Key West, Florida, the southern-most city in the U.S. He was an accomplished man of exceptional character and discipline, yet he knew how to have a good time and lived his life to the fullest potential. He loved to share amazing seafood feasts that he fished out of the ocean with his close friends and family. In 2006 Uncle Bill lost his battle with diabetes and was given the 21-gun salute at his funeral, for a diplomatic career in service to the Federal government of the United States.

This book is a collection of his stories as a Bahamian turned American diplomat. I intend to make this book freely available to the public domain, with the agreeable permission of my Aunt Susan, a stroke of luck that the Romanian publisher happens to be bankrupt, and the help of a fellow Steemian @razvanelulmarin, whom lives in Bucharest and will help with the translation of chapters for which there isn't an original English transcript.

What better place to honor the man and share his story, than on a blockchain-based publishing platform with exceptional redundancy of information?

What follows is the first chapter of a book that he published in Romanian, titled "Un leu, un leu..."

I have already published one of his stories in this post, but now I have more transcripts as well as pictures he took to include in future publications. From here on I will post the stories in the same order they appear in his book, unless otherwise stated. I hope you enjoy his perspective!

Chapter 1: Four Corners

When I was a young child in Key West, my mother would take me with her to BINGO games. There would be — for lack of a better term — traveling BINGO companies which would periodically come to town, like carnivals, and set up their gaming paraphernalia under big, open-sided tents. The tents, with long benches and playing tables under them and machines which spit out the ping pong balls with the BINGO letters and numbers on them, at their far ends, would be set up in vacant lots. A BINGO company which came to town would set up on a vacant lot in the eight hundred block of Thomas street.

The lot that the BINGO company would take over

One of the most memorable times I had as a 'youngster'; I was six or seven years old, it was when my mother first took me with her to the BINGO game on Thomas street. She gave me a card to play and as the caller would call out the numbers, I would place beans over the corresponding numbers on my card. At a point, as the numbers were being called out, I realized that the last number called had been one which had covered the last of the four corners of my card, a winning situation. I nudged my mother to show her and she called out "BINGO!, FOUR CORNERS", a winner. Nine dollars was the prize, a good amount of money for us in those days.

Ten years later, in the mid 1950's, for what is now a trivial amount, my father bought the vacant lot that the traveling BINGO company so long ago would set up on. In 1976, he transferred the title of ownership of it to me

"...for and in consideration of the sum of LOVE AND AFFECTION."

Over the years my father had wanted to put rental units on the land. I never wanted to do anything with it except build a house on it to live in, or spend some of my retirement years in. Having recently retired from a government career of 28 years which has taken me around the world, I am planning to do that. I was recently informed that on the entire island of Key West, there are only 18 such vacant lots, and their value has shot up astronomically.

Uncle Bill built this house on the same land pictured above

Over the years I have received many offers from people wanting to purchase the land. These offers have reached me in Washington. DC where I now reside and prior to that in Bucharest, Romania and Georgetown, Guyana at the U.S. Embassies where I worked.

Recently, while going through documents relating to this parcel of land, I was struck by the contrast of the cold legalese which describes it, and the warmth of the statement

"...for and in consideration of the sum of LOVE AND AFFECTION."

Essentially, the deed of ownership delineates the land and sets four corners to it. I thought that the events leading to the present were quite a set of strange circumstances. But then, stranger events have happened in Key West.

After reading the deed my mind harkened back to that balmy Key West night forty-some odd years ago when I first set foot on the land and heard those fortuitious and prophetic words: "BINGO! FOUR CORNERS!"