The passing of Ron Vitro

[D. Bergin]

I met Ron exactly once in the 90's and still remember it to this day. I was set up at a smaller show in CT and Ron comes in and sets up right next to me. I had previously known him from his ads in SCD but had never met him before.

I think I asked him why he was even doing this show, and he said something about being between bigger shows and needing something to do that weekend.

He couldn't have been a nicer neighbor for me to be set up next to. When I mentioned I needed a certain Native American Tobacco silk to complete a set I was working on, to my amazement he went and grabbed one of his boxes under his table and pulled out the one silk I was looking for and sold it to me for peanuts so I could complete the set.

I was just a kid in my early 20's and his stuff blew my stuff completely out of the water, but he was very complimentary of my set-up, while I realistically thought it was pretty trashy LOL. Very friendly, and we chatted it up for the whole show, which was not exactly wall to wall busy, as it was the time period shows were starting to die off a bit. Especially the smaller shows.

I remember he had a stack of Ruth signed checks in his display, just laying there in a pile. I thought at the time they were super expensive, but likely were a tiny fraction of what they go for nowadays. I was such a super dumb idiot back then.