One day he called me and said, where you at? He said, where you at? You supposed to be at church, they got you on the program. All I can tell you man is I’m up at the baseball field. He says, well I got your back. That’s one thing I can truly say about politics. Republican, Democrat, Independent, it doesn’t matter. One thing I can truly say about one of my best friends in my life, is like a firefighter, it’s like a marriage. You never leave your partner. I touched my left, Ed was there. I touched my right, Ed was there. I backed up Ed Jones was there. I never left Ed Jones. Ed Jones never left me. I told him, I said, you’ll always be my wing man and vice versa. We were on the governor’s crime commission. I won’t get too elaborate about this. We were on the governor’s crime commission and we were going down to start a path one night. Ed, we were driving, and I said, Ed I’m getting kind of hungry. Well, let’s try to get to Wilmington. We got to Wilmington about 11 o’clock or a little bit after. Ed said, where you want to eat at? I said Ed it’s 11 o’clock there only so many places open. I said I know one place though. He said, where’s that? I said Hooters. He said, what is hooters? I said well let’s got to Hooters and eat. We went to Hooters and they do have good cheeseburgers and good wings. Then we went to another meeting to Atlanta. Ed had never been to Hooters before. We went to Atlanta to a meeting. Ed went the day before I did. Ed called me and he said are you still coming to the meeting? I said yeah. Why? He said when you coming? I said tomorrow. He said you aint' even gonna believe this. Right across from the hotel is a Hooters. I’m going to wait until you get here. I don’t want to elaborate a whole lot. I want you to know that God has, when Ed Jones told me, this was in April last year. When Ed Jones called me on the phone and told me he had pancreatic cancer, I have experienced a lot of things in my life. I can tell you some major things. I was a young man. I pulled up on an accident. A car just caught fire. Next thing you know, another car was on fire within seconds. I couldn’t save those three people. Fires were blowing. People were hollering, screaming. And, I watched three people perish to death. There was nothing I could do. That was one moment in my life. But then, I had twin boys, and I had one have heart surgery and has gone through a lot of heart surgeries. He’s been on life support two times. He has to have heart surgery again this upcoming June. When Ed Jones told me he had that dreadful thing, on a Monday. I was in church on Wednesday night and I was on church on Sunday. I was in church on Sunday night. I tell you, that’s how much I truly loved Ed Jones. And, his family knows that I love them and I will always be there for you. Ed will always be there for you. Ed’s father left him at an early age. That’s part of life. Ed told me in some of the last days of his life. He said, look I don’t want to leave my daughters. My wife and my daughters, and my grandchildren. I said, well Ed, God’s ready for you. You can go on home when you’re ready. I went to Chapel Hill to see him. I went there one Sunday. I called up Maryanne and she said you need to come here if you want to come on up here if you want to see him. I went up there to see him. Then I went back the next weekend. And, the next weekend I went to see him. The first thing he told me was, you need to go home to your family. That’s what he always thought about. Others and thought about him. Think about your family. You all need to think about this. You up and down this row trying to make a difference in North Carolina. But, your family will always love you. No matter what. I’ll start winding down. Ed also when he gave his closing statements in the Senate. Which he knew his time was getting close. He had some young children ask him why were all the African Americans and why were all the democrats sitting on the back row. He told them that’s how politics was. This with you also. Whether you’re republican or democrat we’re all North Carolinian. The slogan that we have in our community: is working together works….