Last night – April 4, 2009 – was the time for us to celebrate Ray Dillard’s birthday at “The Host”, a Toronto Indian restaurant that has been a favourite of NEXUS for years. It was quite a gathering of about 25 of Ray’s and Lorrie’s friends and family. Joining the party all the way from Texas were Lauren and Ron Weiss, who had also come to Toronto to attend tonight’s NEXUS concert. Ray’s birthday party was sandwiched in between two NEXUS concerts, the first occurred the previous evening at the opera house in Orangeville, Ontario, about a 90-minute drive north of Toronto. The second concert will be at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto tonight (April 5); more about that in another blog posting to follow.
At the beginning of the birthday party NEXUS presented Ray with a fine Armaniac that was from the vintage of Ray’s birth year, and after some joking about aging, everyone settled into good-natured evening of fun and good conversation. After the main servings had been enjoyed Ray briefly addressed the gathering and expressed his gratitude for his friends and family, and his appreciation for his adopted home – Toronto. There were plenty of tasty curries, and even after everyone had been served a generous portion of the birthday cake, Ray and Lorrie still had a large carry-home bag of goodies, and all of us carried home good memories.
