Paul Bass Photo
Terry Hughes started the week making sure his 2002 Volvo will be ready for an important trip north.
A day earlier, on Sunday, Hughes (at right in the above photo) and his buddy Robert Purificato (left) were driving in the rain back home to Whalley Avenue from a friend’s house in East Haven when they noticed the windshield wipers scraping. It was hard to see.
So first thing Monday morning Hughes and Purificato stopped at the AutoZone at the Whalley Stop & Shop Plaza. Store manager Abdu Japar came out with a new set and installed them on Hughes’ 2002 Volvo XC wagon.
“They take care of you!” Purificato exclaimed.
“We’re going on a long road trip at the end of the month,” Hughes said: To Poultney, Vermont, for his mother Barbara’s funeral.
Hughes, who is 65, grew up in Vermont. He moved here to work a dry wall job, stayed here, retired on disability.
His mom met a new man after Hughes’ dad died. She and her new partner hadn’t married when, en route home from an annual Florida trip, they pulled into a Rutland, Vermont, hospital because he felt ill. He was suffering from cancer. He learned he wasn’t going to make it back out, so he told Hughes’ mom: “I want to marry you before I die.”
They married in the hospital. Hughes drove up to attend. “I videoed the whole thing,” he said.
That was three years ago. Then his mom died two months ago at the age of 89.
In addition to the funeral, “we’re going to get stuff that I have up there in Vermont and bring it back,” Hughes said.
Purificato, a retired sheet metal worker who now helps some friends replace above-ground swimming pool liners in the warm weather, plans to come along for the ride to Vermont. He and Hughes became pals after meeting one day five years ago at BH Food Mart & Deli on Whalley in Upper Westville. (Purificato: “I talk to anybody.”) Now one’s errand is the other’s errand.
They went inside the store to pay Japar $77 for the two Rainx Quantum Elite wipers (“This is the best brand,” Japar said) …
… Hughes and Purificato drove up the block to U‑Haul to inquire about a trailer hitch for the Vermont trip. They were told they needed to visit the Hamden U‑Haul to arrange that. “I have a buddy who could hook us up,” Purificato said as they returned to the Volvo. But they planned to hit Hamden and pay extra to do it right.
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Terry Hughes and Robert Purificato on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
Click here and see below for other episodes of“Word on the Street.”
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