Over your chilled grapefruit sections, two eggs fried straight up and broken over a pile of butter and garlic grits, three slices of crisp bacon, two slices of tomatoes with mayonnaise, buttered oven-toasted brown bread, with strawberry jam, a glass of cold milk, cup or regular coffee, then walk away with a couple of mouth-cleansing strawberries, theses breakfast additives:

We all lost a couple of wonderful friends these last days, and indeed as days pass, so are we likely to see more leave us. The two are grieved, but their lives and gifts celebrated and a part of our bounty, are Elaine College and Manny Furia.

Elaine was the entertainment director of Busch Gardens. A lovely, black-haired slender woman, she set up the first program for August A. Busch when he opened the marvelous, ever-diversifying Tampa attraction. It truly began as a garden but we all know what it has become - a worldwide gotta-see variety of gardens and animals, a restaurant center so dear to Mr. Busch’s considerable heart, variety shows in the main arena in the round and outdoors amid the animals, the gardens and the great rides.

Well, Elaine, a lady without ego, I thought, ran the entertainment for the general manager. Ran it and loved it. She was always about, as with the Super Bowl events of magnitude that featured so many, oh, like Lee Greenwood, like Bob Hope, Stan Musial, Mr. Busch, Elizabeth Busch, big bands, little bands, oompa bands, Pete Rozelle… the list is endless, for there and the theater next door.

Well, that was Elaine’s domain and no one could walk down the entry stairs with her pomp and style. Should have always had her hair swept up with the comb as the Spanish encourage. I did not know she was not well, and that’s not right.

Manny Furia of Bern’s, well, he worked for the founding father, Bern Laxer and wife Gert of Bern’s Steak House, until Bern died of injuries from a senseless sideswipe of his van years ago, after closing his wonderful South Tampa restaurant one sad night. Son David took over and with Gert and Manny as the accordion player (above), and occasional piano player, all over the standout dining facility we all know and appreciate in South Tampa, with its endless wine list and cellars and steaks aging in cold rooms.

Manny — many of us thought he had only one name — could play anything, and would. Hum it and he’d play it, strolling from room to room, upstairs and down, the diners and bar folk, on the dessert floors for the folks on the second. As Manny approached, he’d play something appropriate for the table — military song for the military, a Gator song for the Gator, a FSU song for the FSU folk.

He had a tiny, tenor voice and would sing the words he did not mouth like others, in between asking me how the Bucs were going to do. He and Bern and David Laxer sat in the stands for Buc games for years, as they did for the Rowdies soccer games and Tampa Spartans games before that.

The Laxers have always been there on call for sports events. Everybody wants to eat there. Everybody does. We met Ernesto and Julio Gallo here with Bern. They loved Bern and they loved Manny, in his silk dark plaid dinner jacket, which he probably is wearing now and playing and singing for Elaine College.