Lidia Burnside

Julian and Lidia were both very special people to all of us but Lidia was even more than a friend to me. She called me every Saturday for the past twenty years just to say hello and wish me a great day. Saturday was our special day to talk about Thomas and all of the things both she and Thomas were doing. I remember the first time that I met Julian and Lidia was at a restaurant in the Tampa area. John Minick and I had such an incredibly great time time with them during dinner. While we were waiting for our car to be brought by the valet, there were four or five people waiting in front of us and two of the ladies ahead of us were speaking Polish to each other about one's mother-in-law who was also standing there but did not speak Polish. The two ladies were not being very nice in the their discussion about the mother-in-law. Lidia listened for a few minutes and then came over to the two ladies and in Polish scolded them for not speaking nicely about the mother-in-law!! We all had a great laugh when she told us what she had said after the two women had left. John Minick and I started an electrical apprenticeship scholarship fund in Julian's name and presented the original scholarship plaque to Lidia at a meeting of about 250 of Julian's friends and associates after Julian's death. John and I did a funding workshop every year for twenty two years in the Tampa area to fund the scholarship. Julian and Lidia were incredible friends and we will miss them very much Lidia was so very special and I loved her very much!!!