PrimeTime Magazine PrimeTime Spring 2019 | Page 10

Musical Volunteers Bring Joy to
Others and to Themselves
Margaret Patricia Eaton
Once a month Gary Wedge
& Friends entertain for at
the Veteran’s Health Centre
in Moncton and while it’s a
special moment for all of the
vets who call the centre home,
it’s a truly special moment for
WW II veteran Earl Lunn when
Wedge moves his microphone
close to his wheelchair, so he
can join in on his harmonica.
Lunn, an accomplished
harmonica player, started “so
long ago I don’t remember”,
Specialty clothing for people
who have difficulties dressing
Gary Wedge & Friends (Back row, Left): Tony Melanson, Claude LeBlanc, Eric
LeBlanc, Val Cormier. (Front row, Left: Rhéal LeBlanc, Pete Hébert, Gerry
LeBlanc, Gary Wedge. (Absent: Raymond Landry, Léance Arsenault, Hubert
Bourque, Roger Arsenault, Pete Bastarache, Paul Bourque.
(CREDIT: M. P. EATON)
however, he does remember all
the songs (“Tennessee Waltz” is
a favourite) and he remembers
playing with different bands.
“But they’re all gone now,”
he says.
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He was 17 in 1939 when he
enlisted in the RCAF and when
that was discovered, “I was sent
home (Windsor, NS) on leave
without pay. But later they
called me back.” He trained as
an aircraft mechanic and was
posted to Botswood, a
Newfoundland port where a
seaplane base had been
established in 1936 and which
during the war became a
militarized coastal defence
base. The sea planes he worked
on “would fly out looking for
German submarines and if they
found one, they would drop
depth charges.”
The Veteran’s Health Centre
where Lunn lives is home to
40 veterans, including four
women, who served in either
the Second World War or the
Korean War, with their average
cont... on page 12
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PrimeTime SPRING/PRINTEMPS 2019