Charley Restino left us peacefully in his sleep Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023 at the age of 81 after a full day of climbing three-story high scaffolding with paint brushes in hand, golfing and hanging out at the beauty salon with his sweetie.
Born in 1942, Charley spent his formative years in Pleasantville, NY, dunking hoops and riding his bike on the railroad tracks. He graduated high school in 1961, despite many hours staring out the window dreaming of adventures. While attending community college, he continued his love for basketball, winning accolades and making friends that lasted a lifetime.
In the early sixties, Charley had, as he put it, “another near death experience”. He was talked into signing up for the U.S. Air Force with the thought of becoming a chopper pilot. When he got to the recruiter’s office, as fate would have it, the recruiter was out to lunch. As Charley put it, “5 or 10 minutes earlier and I might have been a helicopter casualty.”
As the ’60’s unfolded, Charley’s travels took him from New York, Florida, Denver, and finally out to San Francisco for the famous Summer of Love. There is footage from Haight Ashbury of a draft card burning protest in 1967 where you can catch a glimpse of Charley moving through the crowd. Charley said things were getting too hot in the Haight, though, and he went looking for calmer places. He traveled back to New York just in time for Woodstock in 1968, where he remembered the crowds more than the music. From there he headed back to New England. Scott Cunningham recalled Charley as the Hippie in the Woods of Putney, living the free life and fixing things when he felt inclined.
After some eventful years dodging an all-expense-paid trip to Vietnam, he found himself in Putney, Vermont, where he happened upon a young lady and it turned out he had just what she needed - a torque wrench. In the course of rebuilding her Volkswagon bug engine, a romance ignited.
Suzy, Charley and Samantha got along so well that they set out not long afterward for Canada, and the trio settled down on Cape Breton Island, on the Bras d’Or Lakes in Boularderie. Suzy and Charley were married there in 1972, and Baby Carey followed shortly thereafter. By 1974, they had purchased 70 acres in Big Baddeck and built a snug, well ventilated cabin in the summer of 1975, complete with a wood cook stove, a cast iron claw-foot tub and no electricity.
Charley’s family were builders and do-it-yourselfers, and he used those skills and his natural ingenuity to build a formidable homestead with Suzy on their Big Baddeck property that included a large barn for their many and varied livestock, a house built around a hand-hewn timber frame salvaged from an old barn, a sizable garden and an electrical system built with a Model A engine as a generator and recycled telephone company batteries.
They also built a rich community in Cape Breton with both longtime residents and “come-from-awayers” as the surge of young people following the back-to-the-land movement were called by locals. Together, these families built homes, raised families and supported each other, especially during the many raucous “bash” parties.
During those years, Charley became a passionate environmentalist, heading up the Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides and traveling as far as Sweden in an effort to change the forestry policies that impacted the highlands of Cape Breton, where logging and spraying practices were deeply flawed.
As their children fledged the nest, Suzy and Charley spent several years snowbirding to the Pacific Northwest before landing in Victoria, B.C. There, they purchased a three-story home built in the 1880s and Charley divided his time between caring for Suzy as her mobility declined due to the bastard disease that is Multiple Sclerosis, and working on the ever-present needs of renovating a 100-year-old home.
And then there was golf. Lots of golf. In the ’70’s, Charley started playing at Bill Shelly’s one-can hole in Baddeck, literally a soup can and a flag out back. In his later years, Charley graduated from those stump-ridden golf courses to the rolling greens of Cedar Hills. He and a core group of golfing buddies met several times a week to swear, dream, and putt in all the wonderful weather that Victoria could throw at them.
While he took his golfing seriously (sometimes to a fault involving many creative expletives) his golfing friends recalled many hilarious antics - like the time his prized electric golf bag got out of range of his remote control and ended up overturned in the ditch. A week before his passing, he was buoyed by a score of 76.
Suzy and Charley built a beautiful community of friends in their new home in Victoria - some from their East Coast roots, others who were like-minded individuals who lived nearby. Regardless of their background, Suzy and Charley hosted regular gatherings for holidays, birthdays, and any other event that provided an opportunity to bring people together around the table.
Charley leaves behind his wife of 50 years, Susan Restino, his daughters Samantha Cunningham, Carey Restino and Patricia Sheff, his grandchildren Thane and Rowyn Cunningham; Liam and Théa James, and Katie and Annabelle Sheff, his brother Phil Restino, nephews Phil, Robert and John Restino and niece Anne Restino and their families as well as hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and his tenants’ cat Helix, who has been very ornery ever since. He is preceded in death by his mother and father, Beatrice and Phil Restino Sr. and his son-in-law Scott Cunningham.
In lieu of flowers, the family would like to encourage those so inspired to consider supporting one of the many charities Charley regularly donated to including Greenpeace, Doctors Without Borders, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the Ancient Forest Alliance.
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