Edward George Garren is a product of central Florida. Ed's newly widowed Slavic grandmother fled the cold of New York for the warmth of Tampa, Florida in 1913, taking her young son, Louis Vremsak with her. Like many early Floridians, she was fleeing bad memories and treacherous in-laws. Marie vremsak was a gifted modiste, who could replace any dress she saw, creating it without even a pattern. She married a young man from Hendersonville North Carolina and acquired the name Garren, the marriage lasted nine months. Young Louis, her son, re-named himself Edward V. Garren upon entering elementary school, because it sounded "more American" than Louis Vremsak Jr.

Ed's mother came to Tampa in 1932. She had recently graduated from Tallulah Falls High School in the mountains of north Georgia. The Salutatorian of her graduating class, she wanted more opportunities than her rural north Georgia roots. Her own single mother had reared six children in an abandoned train station, on land she share cropped.

Edward V. and Edna V. Garren were married in 1940, in a friend's living room in Tampa's Forest Hills section. Edna often joked that for her honeymoon she went to Ybor City (in Tampa) to pick up her new husband's laundry. The marriage lasted almost 53 years. Edward V. died in 1992.

"Love 'Till it Hurts"

The couple prospered and had two surviving children, Francis Edward and Edward George. Two children did not survive, one was a late term miscarrage and one was born with Spina Bifida, living 45 days.

The couple moved to Dade City Florida in 1950, shortly after "George" was born.

Young Edward George grew up in a very colorful central Florida small town, where the south and the Caribbean converged. In addition to White and Black floks from all over the United States, Dade City had a full compliment of Islanders, particulary the Jamaicans who came as guest workers to pick citrus fruit.

Ed lived through the civil rights movement in the 1960's south, with all of it's overt racism and covert kindness. Deeply affected by the quiet dignity of his African American neighbors, his life was changed forever.

In the late 60's he returned to Tampa to attend the University of South Florida. With a four year hiatus, he made a career at People's Gas System, he completed a Master of Arts in 1978. His highly specialized degree in Rehabilitation Counseling gave him a distinctive perspective into the nature of change in human beings.

During his time at USF, he acquired four God Children while working in Tampa's Belmont Heights section.

Dale, Dean, Ricky and Dale's daughter Nicole became important beginnings of his "acquired family".

In the mid 70's Ed became aware that the difference that had haunted him his entire life was his homosexuality. Upon his realization, he tapped his adolescent experience with the civil rights movement and quickly became an activist for GLBT rights.

In 1978, Ed moved to Miami Florida where he lived for five years. He became involved in civic issues, The Coconut Grove Arts Festival and the creation of the Art Deco District on the new emerging "South Beach."

Also during the last two years in Miami, his then six year old God Daughter Nicole came to live with him. Through a set of coincidences which Ed Describes as the work of the Holy Spirit, he and Nicole found themselves living in a N.E. Miami neighborhood directly behind members of Nicole's extended family (Cousins). Soon the Lewis, Edington, Smith and Tanner families all became added to Ed's acquired family.

When Nicole returned to her father in 1983, Ed moved to Los Angeles where he quickly became involved in the life of the L.A. GLBT community. He became an officer in Stonewall Democratic club, founder of the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club of Orange County, Co-Chair of the Gay & Lesbian Police Advisory Task Force (working with the LAPD doing cultural awareness training), in addition to Program Director for four DUI offender rehabilitation programs for Behavioral Health Services.

In 1990 Ed Became a licensed Marriage Family Therapist (MFT) and spent many years in private practice in West Hollywood and Granada Hills.

While in LA, he also worked in HIV risk reduction and direct services delivery, but the general focus of his career has been the treatment of alcoholics and addicts. In the 1990's he was Program Director for K.C. (Korean Community) Services DUI and Drug Diversion programs, which were offered in five languages. He formed a deep and lasting friendship with the Ahn family and the Korean Community. Ed's nephew Michael (his brother's son) has a Korean mother. Michael works in the fashion industry on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

God daugher Nicole is now married to Jorge, whose mother immigrated from Mexico decades ago. They have two beautiful children and live in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

The Garrens have become an international and multiracial family. We represent immigrants from three continents, speak three languages and have repeatedly lived both the American dream and the Immigrants hope, a better life in America.

Ed jokes that when his mother Edna passes on, he will be the only one left in the family with pink skin and blue eyes.

In 2005 he was a candidate for West Hollywood City Council, the city helped create in 1985. It was generally scknowledged that Ed raised the issues which defined the election, development, economic justice for tenants and small business owners, as well as historic preservation. Although he did not win against the two popular incumbents, his fourth place showing was surprising to many in power and many see his candidacy as a turning point in the city's development. He is now often referred to as the "The Elder Statesman of West Hollywood."

In 2005, after significant family issues with his 93-year-old mother, Ed sold his home in West Hollywood and took up life on the road in an RV. Hi is a founding contributor to the West Hollywood News, an innovative on line weekly newspaper, www.wehonews.com . Ed first conceived the ideas of an on line news outlet for West Hollywood with his late friend Sallie Fiske, a noted pioneer journalist and writer.

His weekly column, "On the Road with Ed" was featured in The West Hollywood News for about 18 months.

Ed has been published by the Los Angeles Times, Frontiers news magazine, and is featured in "Out of My Mind", a pictorial memoir of Kris Nelson. He is currently working on a book about addiction in America.

These days, his life is often best summed up by this quote from fellow Floridian, author Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God",

"I do not weep at the world -- I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."

"I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes."

"Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground."

"Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much."

"Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it."

"Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person. That is natural. There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every man's spice-box seasons his own food."

"I want a busy life, a just mind, and a timely death."