Record Store Tales

My Eulogy for Grandma – Audio Version

The audio version of my Grandma’s eulogy differed slightly from what I wrote on the page.  I am glad to have this record of how it happened, live.

For most of my life, I’ve only had one grandparent.  Grandma Ladano was gone before I was born.  Grandpa Ladano died in 1981.  We lost Grandpa Winter in 1984.  Since that time I only had one Grandma, and she was very special to all of us.  Not just because she was the only one, as you will hear today.

My mom tells me that Grandma babysat me a lot as a kid.  I don’t remember this very much, but I do remember that she was my favourite babysitter.  I can remember that I would look forward to those nights that Grandma would take care of me.  I also remember visiting her house a lot.  She had board games there that we didn’t have, like Mousetrap and Clue.  The idea was that they wanted us to have special games that we could only play at Grandma’s house, but we didn’t need special games to enjoy those visits.  She let us watch the Flintstones and run around the yard.  She and Grandpa took me to the Welland Canal to see the big ships going through the locks.  It seemed like being there was never boring, even to a kid.  It was always fun to visit Grandma’s house.  My dad and I would pick carrots from her garden, much to her scolding.  My sister and I never took her scolding very seriously.  We heard she could be strict, but she never was with us.

Most of my memories are from adulthood.  I suppose adulthood started with the end of highschool and moving on to University.  I attended Wilfrid Laurier, which was just a short drive from her place.  On Thursdays during my first year, I had a full slate of classes.  I had history and psychology in the afternoons, with a short break before evening Anthropology, which was a favourite of mine.  It was too long a trip to drive all the way home for dinner and back again for class, so instead I had dinner at Grandma’s house.  She would make my favourite:  pork chops in mushroom soup.  That was a special meal that only she made.  It was like a treat.  She’d offer me something for dessert and then I’d be running back to school again.  For her, our visits were always too short.

In 1997, we took a special trip with Grandma and Aunt Marie, out west to see Aunt Lynda and Cousin Geoff in Calgary.  This was a special trip for me.  Work didn’t want me to take a week off in the fall, but I insisted.  I really wanted to go.  That trip was everything I wanted it to be.  Grandma was a little slower moving, and I used to make sure everybody stopped and waited for her to catch up at the airport.  If I saw her lagging behind, I would stop and shout, “Wait for the grandma!”  That was an excellent trip.  We made daily trips out shopping and just relaxing reading books.  We went to the mountains.  Some of my happiest memories are visiting the mountains out west, but that trip was special because Grandma and I really took care of each other that time.

I think one of the best ways we spent time together was driving to the cottage.  I would pick her up at her place, load the car with her planters and bags, and we’d make the two hour trip together.  I’d pick the music; something she’d like.  O Brother Where Art Thou was a favourite of hers.  She liked “You Are My Sunshine”.  Whatever we picked, we’d talk the whole way there.  She would point out all the flowers along the way, which I couldn’t stop to look at because I was driving!  I always found that funny, because Grandma didn’t drive and didn’t realize I had my eyes on the road.  Those were some special trips, just the two of us.

Grandma always supported Dr. Kathryn’s music, even as it got more experimental.  “Kathryn, will you ever play some of the songs that I like?” she would ask.  Kathryn wasn’t into playing anything that wasn’t original and eclectic, but Grandma kept going to her shows anyway.  Few people really understand that kind of music, but Grandma went with the loyalty that only a grandparent has.

At the age of 96, Grandma endured a global pandemic.  The isolation really bothered her, but we did porch visits every other weekend with her.  When Uncle Don died, it really affected her.  Suddenly she was living alone.  She won two battles with Covid, which is unbelievable.  It really felt like Grandma was bulletproof, given all the hardship she endured.  First Uncle Don, then his cat.  This is enough loss for most people to just pack it in.

She was touch as nails.  Covid couldn’t take her down.  Several close calls happened, and she bounced back every time.

In 2024, she had what I will call her final wish.  Grandma loved food.  A good meal of meat and potatoes was all she wanted.  She always told us how much she craved a good old fashioned home cooked feast.  She got it that on Christmas Day 2024.  It was a struggle to move her from her home to ours, up the stairs to the dining room.  There was one moment frozen in time when I thought we’d have to back out and take her home, so difficult were the stairs.  But she made it, and had her one last family dinner with us.  It was a very special moment.  She declined for seven months after.  That trip fulfilled her final wish, but I believe it also took the last of her strength from her.  Also, I think she had a hard realization that she couldn’t come and go anymore.  That there was no way she could do that again.  That she’d never see the cottage again, or have another big family dinner.  But I don’t think she regretted it.  It was a very special night.  She still made it to 101 years old.

All of us went to see her for her birthday that day.  She enjoyed her lunch and coffee, and had a nice rest afterwards.  She was thinking of her sister, Aunt Marie.  Towards the end, it was difficult to see her decline, but her birthday was the last time I saw her.  Even though she had so many close calls, it was still a shock to me when she finally went on July 30 2025.  I’m glad she made it to 101.  I really wanted that to happen because it is such a huge milestone.  They make birthday cards for 100, but not 101.  She defied all the odds.

She was always special, in life and in death.  Always full of surprises, right to the very end.  She had the spirit of a fighter and a well of feistiness that most of us will never find.

I miss our phone calls, and I miss seeking her advice.  I used to say that Grandma was the only one in the family who understood me.  Now that’s gone.  My confidant is gone.  The one person who always knew what I was going through.  The memory remains, and I will always be grateful for my special grandmother that lived to 101 years old.  Goodbye Grandma.  They always say this when someone is gone, but there truly will never be another one like Dolly Winter.

 

 

#1214: The Great Outdoors

RECORD STORE TALES #1214: The Great Outdoors

Minor revelations continue to hit me in my 53rd year around the sun.  As I toil away over a hot keyboard, hammering words into the ether while Dennis DeYoung asks me “What you doin’ tonight?”, I realize something.

One reason I love summer so much is that I love working outdoors.  I always have.

Of course, I use the word “working” in the creative sense.  I don’t mean hard labor outdoors! Come on.

In my current actual job, I would work outdoors if I have the chance.  The one time I did work remotely from the cottage, it was too cold and wet to work outdoors.  Given the chance though, I will.

And given the chance, I write outdoors.  I film outdoors.  I animate outdoors.  This all began when I was a kid.

We had the best front stoop.  Oh, really it was nothing special.  It was just a concrete front stoop surrounded by driveway and grass.  But on that front stoop came the best childhood times.

Board games.  Creating drawings.  Inventing stories.  Playing music.  Eventually, hearing Maiden Japan by Iron Maiden for the first time.  Making videos.  Playing guitar.  So much went down on that front stoop.  Only meters away, on the front lawn, often unfolded great battles with GI Joe vs. Cobra.  Just more stories being invented.  It could have turned into a photostory if we had the digital technology then that we have now.

The backyard featured many more creative inventions.  More drawings, more games being invented and more stories being written.  Sometimes, even homework was completed back there.

During winter, I would go into hibernation and try to have the same adventures in the cramped indoors.  It was never the same.

I just had a memory.  In the summer of 1984, the hot new GI Joe figure to own was Zartan, the master of disguise.  Not only did he come with a slew of accessories and a small vehicle, he also changed colour in the sunlight,  Normally a light Caucasian skin tone, Zartan would turn a deep blue when exposed to sun.  Summer represented a short warm window when you could play with your GI Joe characters, and get full use of your Zartan figure.  This could not be duplicated indoors.  You had to use your Zartans in the summer!  Our front yard featured as Zartan’s home swamps for several consecutive summers.  (Especially a few years later when his brother and sister, Zandar and Zarana, were introduced into the toyline with similar colour changing features.)

Bob Schipper showed me how to make little garages for our Hotwheels cars.  We’d use twigs to build these little structures, and cover them with grass.  This eventually led to hut and trench building for our GI Joe figures.  Any base or headquarters set that Hasbro sold were not as useful to us as a handful of twigs and grass.  (Twigs with a “Y” shaped section were especially useful for building huts.)  We could dig trenches and have our figures man them with their weapons.  Any character with a bipod or tripod, such as Rock and Roll or Roadblock, worked even better in the trenches.

The only real drawback to playing outdoors was losing the small action figure accessories.  Another memory strikes.  Even younger, playing Star Wars in the front yard, probably 1978.  I lost my Sand Person’s gaffi stick somewhere in the dirt near this big birch tree in the center of our yard.  It was gone.  I imagined it would be shredded by my dad’s lawnmower and had to move on.  I utilized a wooden matchstick for the Sandman’s gaffi stick thenceforth.  Winter came.  A thick sheet of snow and ice concealed  the dirt underwhich the gaffi stick had disappeared.  Spring came, and in a funny twist, my mom found Sandman’s gaffi stick in the front flowergarden dirt.  I was ecstatic!  But this only lasted a short time, as I promptly lost it again, this time permanently.

Another summer, I made a fleet of vehicles using virtually every single brick in my Lego collection.  It started with this one cool tank and grew from there.  It is miraculous that no Lego bricks were permanently lost or shredded on the front lawn, as that is where their battles unfurled.

Sure, we played catch, threw a football, kicked a soccerball and thumped on a volleyball too.  Those aren’t the things I’m drawn to remember.  Throwing a baseball seemed more like the same thing every time.  Meanwhile, my creative adventures, either with pen & paper or action figures, were always memorable.

I wasn’t just “playing”.  Stories were being told.  Established characters were used, true to their fictional biographies and specialties.  Tangents were played out that originated in existing media. Original ideas and settings were placed into the mix and a story was enacted, often with a free direction but with certain plot setpieces pre-planned.  Perhaps I would want to incorporate a new toy or character, and so I would gear the story to their introduction or feature role.  There was so much more going on than just playing with toys.

I sit here now, as the Styx album concludes, and typing some final thoughts into my laptop.  I do this as a cool late summer breeze provides a perfect comfort, and the greens and blues that surround me feel soft and calm.  I’m just geared this way.  Put me outdoors and let me create.

It’s what I do.

 

 

 

#1213: Ghosts Of Summers Past

RECORD STORE TALES 1213: Ghosts Of Summers Past

I would have met Searle over 45 years ago now.  Our cottage was built on this land in 1980, and we have a photo of Searle straining to look at a load of wood siding and windows, being delivered here, dated July 1980.  Indeed, it was his curiosity that brought him here.  A project as big as building a cottage draws onlookers, and he was only a couple properties over.

We were the same age and both of us from Kitchener.  In fact, his other step-brother Paul taught science at a highschool in my neighborhood.  Paul Marrow would become my favourite science teacher in grade 10.  He even appears in a music video I made in the 11th grade.

Since Searle and I were the same age, it stood to reason that we had in common the only thing that mattered in 1980:  Star Wars.  He and I were playmates during that eternal, infernal stretch of time during which Han Solo was frozen in carbonite at the end of the Empire Strikes Back.  Any games that we played with our figures had to work around that time frame if we wanted to incorporate Solo into the story.  As it happened, Kenner’s Empire Solo figure, in the snowsuit with the working gun holster was one of my favourite figures of the entire line.  Still is!  Of course we wanted to use Solo in our games.

“It’s weird how Han Solo got frozen, but it was hot,” I mused to Searle one afternoon while playing Star Wars in his cottage’s yard.

“Yeah,” he responded.  “There was smoke but he got frozen.”

“I should freeze my Han Solo in ice,” I suddenly thought.  “I’ll put him in a glass and freeze him.”

From that point on in my young life, my mom was never surprised to find a glass with water and an action figure in her freezer.  Part of being a mom to a Star Wars kid.

The last time I saw Searle was in the early 1990s.  He was big, and bald, and very tough looking.  He stopped by the cottage to say hello.  By then, I remember he was into the music of Phil Collins.  And that was it.  Never saw him again.

Until August 31, 2025.  Forty-five years after the fact, a big bald man and a smaller companion walked right past me down the road.  He was unmistakable, but he didn’t look or stop.  He probably assumed there was no way the same guy still lived here.  He walked up the way to his parents’ cottage, and stopped to linger a while.  Then he moved on down the road and away again, like a ghost.

The ghosts of summers past still live on, and with them the memories.  I should try to freeze my new $2 Darth Vader figure in the ice.

 

#1212: Origins of a Nickname: BOBOE

RECORD STORE TALES #1212: Origins of a Nickname: BOBOE

The hits keep on rolling in.  Another friend from my highschool has passed.  Anand Etwaru was only 53.

I haven’t seen Anand since graduation day in summer of 1991.  I wanted to keep in touch, but life took us to different schools and we never met again.  However, I suppose I was never too far away from Anand, because I discovered in his obituary that he was still using the nickname that I gave him, or a shortened version thereof:  “Bo” for “Boboe”.

Recapping the tale from Record Store Tales #820: The Last Note of Freedom:  it’s just the ASCII characters for “Anand” with each letter bumped up by one, an accidental discovery I made.  It happened in Grade 11 computers class.  We were learning BASIC programming.  Playing with the ASCII system of characters, the teacher prompted us to play around and see what happens.  Each letter had a corresponding number.  A was 65, B was 66, and so on and so forth.  I created a line of code to add “1” to each letter.  So, A:  65+1=66, which is B.

I typed ANAND into the computer.  It added 1 to each character, and spat out BOBOE.

I shrieked in laughter, told  my friends, and the name stuck.  “BOBOE” was even a final exam question.  Anand was Boboe.  For life.

Rest in peace, old friend.

 

 

#1211: Public Speaking

RECORD STORE TALES #1211: Public Speaking

The year:  1980.

I stood there in the gymnasium, in front of the whole school, holding my two cue cards in my hands.  I had the whole speech memorized.  This would be the second full performance.  I was already chosen as the best speech from my class, so now I had to say it in front of the school:   “My Trip to Alberta”, written by Mike Ladano with a little help from his mom.  It was the story of our summer 1979 trip to the mountains.  The exciting climax to the story was the moment that I fell into the Athabasca glacier.  It was August and I was excited to make a snowball.  ‘Twas the adults who gave me this idea.  “You’ll be able to make a snowball in the summer!”  So I ran towards the snow, and fell into a cold icy stream of water.  I was soaked and it kind of ruined the day for me, but on the other hand, it made for a great speech.  I did a great performance of it, certainly better than most of the other kids.

I came in second, because the teachers thought I probably received too much help from my parents.  I didn’t.  My mom provided the neat and tidy printing on the tiny cue cards, but the words were mine.  It made me bitter and I didn’t put that kind of effort into writing a speech in later years.

Public speaking topic in Grade 5:  Pac-Man

Public speaking topic in Grade 8:  Kiss

Public speaking topic in Grade 9:  Iron Maiden

The Kiss one…oh the Kiss one.  It was good.  I started it by shouting, “You wanted the best, you got the best!  The hottest band in the land, KISS!”  I know I was pissing off the Catholic school teachers every time I mentioned the album Hotter Then Hell.  I can’t say this wasn’t intentional.  I no longer wanted to participate in the big speech-off in the gymnasium.  No matter how great my Kiss speech was, there was no way I’d ever be chosen, so it was the perfect topic.

I have a love/hate relationship with public speaking.  I’ve always been good at it, but the creation of the speech and the anxiety leading up to it lead me to procrastination.  I had to do several more big ones through school.  In my grade 13 year, I had three class-long presentations to do, all within the space of a week.  I had another speech to do in my first year of Sociology at university.  I don’t remember a lot of specifics except that they went over well.  I try to be expressive and speak naturally.

There’s a line that kids always said back in school.  “When am I going to need to use this in my real life?”  Remember in Superbad, when Jonah Hill was talking about making tiramisu in Home Economics class? “When am I going to make tiramisu? Am I going to be a chef? No!”  I haven’t needed public speaking in my professional life, but in my personal life, the experience sure did come in handy.

I’ve spoken at two weddings, and now three funerals.  These things are necessary.

The year:  2025.

I did a eulogy at my grandmother’s funeral recently.  I spent a few weeks working on the speech and polishing it, but not rehearsing it.  I didn’t want that emotional experience, of reciting the speech.  I wanted the first real reading to be live at the funeral.  I was nervous as hell.  I had this idea in my head that I would know everyone in the room.  That was not the case.  My mom has a large family, and so many people came that I kind of recognized but could not remember well.  I became more and more nervous.  I had two panic attacks that day.

The priest, Father Phil, took us aside and told us the order in which the funeral would proceed.  I was last, but I knew my cue.  Fortunately, Father Phil was great (this is not always the case at a funeral).  During the service, he told us of a Bible passage that said “God’s house has many rooms,” and there is a special room prepared for everyone.  He asked what room my grandmother would choose to go to?  There was a long pregnant pause and so I said “the gardens!”  Father Phil said “Great; she would love the flowers in the gardens”.  Suddenly something clicked in my head.  I unrolled my speech, which by now had become a tight scroll.  I found two spots in the speech where I could tie into Father Phil’s gardens.

My moment came.  I started rough.  Starting is always the hardest part (unless you start with “You wanted the best grandma, you got the best grandma!” but I chose not to Kiss-ify my speech).  It took three or four sentences to find my voice and my rhythm, and I was off to the races.  I was brisk and expressive.  I started making gestures with my hands to emphasise words.  I was loose and improvised here and there.  Then came the two moments I was preparing for.

“It was always fun to visit Grandma’s house.  My dad and I would pick carrots from her garden – remember what I said earlier about the gardens?  She had the best carrots, and we took them all, much to her scolding!  [Improvised portion in italics.]

Then the second instance.  Speaking about driving her to the lake, and placing my hands in the steering wheel position, I said, “she would point out all the flowers along the way – remember what I said earlier about the gardens? – which I couldn’t stop to look at because I was driving!”

People laughed in all the right spots.

I sat down, and my dad clapped once, and shook my hand.  My mom and my aunt said “Great speech”.

The funeral ended.  My knees were limp and my hands were numb.  I sat, exhausted, and drank some lemonade (with gingerale, a delightful mixture), and just tried to unpack and unwind from what had just happened.

I was approached by friends.

“Great speech!” they said.

I was approached by distant relatives.

“Great speech!” they said.

I was approached by old friends of my parents.

“Great speech!” they said.  Even Father Phil said it.

I started to think to myself, I think I just gave the best speech of my life.  A moment that can never be re-captured.  It was live, it happened, it existed for a fleeting moment and now it is just a memory.

“I wish I had recorded myself,” I lamented.

“No, it was great, we will always remember it,” said everyone else.

But if I had recorded it…would it have been the same?  Would I have been distracted by the recording device?  Would I have been able to perform it exactly the same, if I knew it was going down on tape?  Would the added pressure have hurt the performance?  These are quantum questions we can never answer.  Sometimes the mere observation of an act can change the act, in physics and in life.  (Maybe there’s no difference between physics and life.)

One of the warmest moments came when an older gentleman walked up to me, rubbed my shoulders, and told me that the speech made him feel like he got to know my grandmother.  I was so overwhelmed with faces and names, that I have no idea who he was anymore.

One guest even told me he watched me on YouTube.  That was pretty cool.  He liked the speech, too.

The most important comment came from my mom, who said that my grandmother would have loved the stories I chose to tell in my speech.  Of course, that is the most important thing.  I have told a lot of stories about my grandmother over the last eight months.  Some of them were hilarious, but she wouldn’t have liked them.  For example, the time she gave me some money and told me to “go and buy one of your CD records.”  That’s funny, but she wouldn’t have wanted any stories that made fun of her, so I left all of that out.  If I had kept them in, the speech would have been more like a stand-up comedy routine!  And that would be fine for another time.

I think this speech was the best public speaking I’ve done to date, and I think it’s my proudest moment in my life.  And it all started in 1980, in a glacier in British Columbia.  If I hadn’t fallen in, maybe I would never have been able to do a speech like that for my grandma.  The universe is a multitude of possibilities.  Maybe I was meant to fall in, just as Gollum was meant to find the One Ring?  In this reality in which we all co-exist, I’m just trying to make it through day by day.  However it came to be, I did something that somebody had to do, and my grandmother is now smiling down on me.  I can hear her voice.  She would say, “That was lovely, Michael.  Just lovely.”

That’s more than enough.  However it came to be, the culmination of all these experiences coalesced into a moment that was there, and gone.  I’m just glad I was the conduit.  And it was a heck of a lot better than the 1983 Pac-Man speech!

To read the written version of the speech, click here.

Grandma’s Funeral Speech

The written word doesn’t capture the moment.   The speech I gave was improvised slightly from what you see below.  The final speech given incorporated some comments about gardens, riffing off some things that the priest Father Phil said earlier.  “My Father’s house has many rooms” (John 14:2), he said.  He asked what rooms my grandmother would visit.  I said “the gardens”.  I was able to use that reference later on when I gave my speech.  It was the best speech I’ve ever given, and about 30 or 40 people told me it was incredible.  I wish I had recorded it, but all I have is this.

 

For most of my life, I’ve only had one grandparent.  Grandma Ladano was gone before I was born.  Grandpa Ladano died in 1981.  We lost Grandpa Winter in 1984.  Since that time I only had one Grandma, and she was very special to all of us.  Not just because she was the only one, as you will hear today.

My mom tells me that Grandma babysat me a lot as a kid.  I don’t remember this very much, but I do remember that she was my favourite babysitter.  I can remember that I would look forward to those nights that Grandma would take care of me.  I also remember visiting her house a lot.  She had board games there that we didn’t have, like Mousetrap and Clue.  The idea was that they wanted us to have special games that we could only play at Grandma’s house, but we didn’t need special games to enjoy those visits.  She let us watch the Flintstones and run around the yard.  She and Grandpa took me to the Welland Canal to see the big ships going through the locks.  It seemed like being there was never boring, even to a kid.  It was always fun to visit Grandma’s house.  My dad and I would pick carrots from her garden, much to her scolding.  My sister and I never took her scolding very seriously.  We heard she could be strict, but she never was with us.

Most of my memories are from adulthood.  I suppose adulthood started with the end of highschool and moving on to University.  I attended Wilfrid Laurier, which was just a short drive from her place.  On Thursdays during my first year, I had a full slate of classes.  I had history and psychology in the afternoons, with a short break before evening Anthropology, which was a favourite of mine.  It was too long a trip to drive all the way home for dinner and back again for class, so instead I had dinner at Grandma’s house.  She would make my favourite:  pork chops in mushroom soup.  That was a special meal that only she made.  It was like a treat.  She’d offer me something for dessert and then I’d be running back to school again.  For her, our visits were always too short.

In 1997, we took a special trip with Grandma and Aunt Marie, out west to see Aunt Lynda and Cousin Geoff in Calgary.  This was a special trip for me.  Work didn’t want me to take a week off in the fall, but I insisted.  I really wanted to go.  That trip was everything I wanted it to be.  Grandma was a little slower moving, and I used to make sure everybody stopped and waited for her to catch up at the airport.  If I saw her lagging behind, I would stop and shout, “Wait for the grandma!”  That was an excellent trip.  We made daily trips out shopping and just relaxing reading books.  We went to the mountains.  Some of my happiest memories are visiting the mountains out west, but that trip was special because Grandma and I really took care of each other that time.

I think one of the best ways we spent time together was driving to the cottage.  I would pick her up at her place, load the car with her planters and bags, and we’d make the two hour trip together.  I’d pick the music; something she’d like.  O Brother Where Art Thou was a favourite of hers.  She liked “You Are My Sunshine”.  Whatever we picked, we’d talk the whole way there.  She would point out all the flowers along the way, which I couldn’t stop to look at because I was driving!  I always found that funny, because Grandma didn’t drive and didn’t realize I had my eyes on the road.  Those were some special trips, just the two of us.

Grandma always supported Dr. Kathryn’s music, even as it got more experimental.  “Kathryn, will you ever play some of the songs that I like?” she would ask.  Kathryn wasn’t into playing anything that wasn’t original and eclectic, but Grandma kept going to her shows anyway.  Few people really understand that kind of music, but Grandma went with the loyalty that only a grandparent has.

At the age of 96, Grandma endured a global pandemic.  The isolation really bothered her, but we did porch visits every other weekend with her.  When Uncle Don died, it really affected her.  Suddenly she was living alone.  She won two battles with Covid, which is unbelievable.  It really felt like Grandma was bulletproof, given all the hardship she endured.  First Uncle Don, then his cat.  This is enough loss for most people to just pack it in.

She was touch as nails.  Covid couldn’t take her down.  Several close calls happened, and she bounced back every time.

In 2024, she had what I will call her final wish.  Grandma loved food.  A good meal of meat and potatoes was all she wanted.  She always told us how much she craved a good old fashioned home cooked feast.  She got it that on Christmas Day 2024.  It was a struggle to move her from her home to ours, up the stairs to the dining room.  There was one moment frozen in time when I thought we’d have to back out and take her home, so difficult were the stairs.  But she made it, and had her one last family dinner with us.  It was a very special moment.  She declined for seven months after.  That trip fulfilled her final wish, but I believe it also took the last of her strength from her.  Also, I think she had a hard realization that she couldn’t come and go anymore.  That there was no way she could do that again.  That she’d never see the cottage again, or have another big family dinner.  But I don’t think she regretted it.  It was a very special night.  She still made it to 101 years old.

All of us went to see her for her birthday that day.  She enjoyed her lunch and coffee, and had a nice rest afterwards.  She was thinking of her sister, Aunt Marie.  Towards the end, it was difficult to see her decline, but her birthday was the last time I saw her.  Even though she had so many close calls, it was still a shock to me when she finally went on July 30 2025.  I’m glad she made it to 101.  I really wanted that to happen because it is such a huge milestone.  They make birthday cards for 100, but not 101.  She defied all the odds.

She was always special, in life and in death.  Always full of surprises, right to the very end.  She had the spirit of a fighter and a well of feistiness that most of us will never find.

I miss our phone calls, and I miss seeking her advice.  I used to say that Grandma was the only one in the family who understood me.  Now that’s gone.  My confidant is gone.  The one person who always knew what I was going through.  The memory remains, and I will always be grateful for my special grandmother that lived to 101 years old.  Goodbye Grandma.  They always say this when someone is gone, but there truly will never be another one like Dolly Winter.

 

 

#1209: The Wooden Spoon

RECORD STORE TALES #1209: The Wooden Spoon

Friday August 22 2025, we lay my Grandma to rest.  I have a big speech planned, but there are far too many Grandma stories to tell for just one speech.  For the purposes of public speaking, I left out certain stories, that I can certainly tell here!

My mom and my aunt tell me that Grandma was a strict parent.  As kids, we didn’t believe them.  Who, OUR Grandma?  Strict?  Impossible!  She was the sweetest, kindest lady imaginable!  She was always gentle with us and we couldn’t even imagine her being hard on kids.  My mom and aunt tell stories of hiding behind trees to escape her wrath, but I couldn’t picture that in a million years.

Once we we were very small, we were misbehaving at her house one afternoon.  At that point, Grandma threatened to hit us with the “wooden spoon”, a common threat to misbehaved kids in the old days.  So how did we react?

We laughed!

We didn’t believe she could hit us with the wooden spoon, and we were right.  Grandma never laid a finger on us.  It was a hollow threat and we could see right through.  My mom can’t remember if Grandma ever actually used the wooden spoon, but she certainly threatened to!  (I bet she never used it.)

She was the best grandma.  She was so great that we didn’t think she was capable of discipline, even though once upon a time, she was “strict”.

We’ll always miss her.

#1208: Four O’Clock Fake-Play

RECORD STORE TALES #1208: Four O’Clock Fake-Play

Here is an admission about 15 years in the making.

As many know, I got my start on local radio from 2010-2012, under the name “LeBrain”.  That name was given to me as both a mispronunciation of my real last name, and my musical “braininess”.   The local radio station 107.5 Dave Rocks had an afternoon show hosted by Craig Fee.  He had a couple popular contests:  the “Tedious Tiresome Trivia” at 3 PM weekdays, and the “Four O’Clock Four-Play” at, obviously, 4 PM.  The idea was that Craig would play four songs in a row, and we would guess the common theme.  I began calling in, and winning regularly.  I think the first quiz I got correct was “All songs produced by Bob Ezrin”.   I kept calling, and I kept winning.

I had become such a dominating force on the 4 O’Clock 4-Play, my favourite music contest, that listeners were now writing in 4-Play quizzes specifically to stump me.  For a while there it seemed everybody wanted to be the one to put an end to my reign as “King of the Four Play”.  Craig gave me that title, incidentally.  And everyone wanted to stump me.  Craig set up a whole week for me and only me to try to answer questions submitted by listeners.

Craig had me come into the studio for the contest, live on the Craig Fee show, during what he dubbed “Stump LeBrain Week“.  Each day that week, I came in at 4 o’clock in order to play the contest on the air.  Craig selected five 4-Plays, one for each day.  If I answered correctly, I won the prize (I Mother Earth tickets).  If I was stumped, the person who wrote the 4-Play question would win the prize.

I “won” all five days of “Stump LeBrain Week”, and took home the tickets, which I gifted to a friend (long story about me and concerts).  I didn’t want the tickets; I wanted the glory.  However, I am about to reveal that not all was above the board.  In one case, Craig made a mistake, and allowed a quiz question that involved a song that didn’t exist.  It didn’t matter; I won that episode on the very first clue without any help.  If I had got to the third clue, we would have had a problem. No matter what, they always play all four songs, whether I win on the first one or not.

See Day 2 of Stump LeBrain Week below, and track 03:

Four-Play #2 (submitted by The Crook in Elmira)

Clue 01: Motorhead – Ace Of Spades (live)

01 Mike’s Guess: ‘artists who’ve done duets with Ozzy Osbourne’ (yes!)

Clue 02: Alice Cooper – School’s Out

Clue 03: Dio – Holy Diver

Clue 04: Lita Ford – Kiss Me Deadly

Comment: Mike nailed this one before the first song was even over.

There was a fake song here.  I questioned the third song, Dio’s “Holy Diver”.  Offline, I said to Craig, “Dio never sang a duet with Ozzy Osbourne.”

“Sure he did,” said Craig.  “‘War Pigs’!”

“Dio and Ozzy never sang ‘War Pigs’ together,” I countered.  “They never sang anything together.”

“Sure they did.  I’ll play it for you.”  So Craig played what I will call a mashup.  It was probably Ozzy’s version of “War Pigs” from the Just Say Ozzy EP, mashed up with Dio’s voice from a live album, trading off lines.  It sounded cool, but was clearly fake.  However, I didn’t want to ruin the show, and so I said nothing.  But now I can reveal that The Crook had no idea what he was talking about when he created that quiz.  I knew, but we went with it because on with the show!

I won Day 2 legitimately.

Now here is the biggest reveal.  I didn’t go five for five on Stump LeBrain week.  I really went four for five.  Craig gave me the final answer.  Check out Day 5, the most difficult of all.

Four-Play #5 (submitted by Nick Byerjean)

Clue 01 KISS – Beth

01 Mike’s Guess: ‘songs that originated as b-sides’ (no)

01 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘no members of the band played on the track’ (no)

01 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘crappy songs from great albums’ (no)

Clue 02 Guns ‘N Roses – Used To Love Her

02 Mike’s Guess: ‘single monikered album titles’ (no)

02 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘songs with unusual percussion’ (no)

02 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘songs people think is about one thing, but it’s about something else” (no)

02 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘acoustic ballads’ (no)

Clue 03 Aerosmith – Angel

03 Mike’s Guess: ‘bands led by duos’ (no)

03 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘bands who shortened their name from something longer (no)

03 Mike’s Extra Guess ‘all are bands from America’ (no)

Clue 04 Slash with Andrew Stockdale – By The Sword

04 Mike’s Guess: ‘songs released in even numbered years’ (no)

04 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘all albums released in leap years’ (no)

04 Mike’s Extra Guess: ‘songs released in Canadian-hosted Olympic years’ (yes!)

There is no way in hell I would know anything about Canadian-hosted Olympic years.  Anyone who knows me, would know that.  So there is the confession.  The last episode that week was a fix.  I didn’t get it right, but Craig didn’t want to ruin my streak, so he fed me the answer off-air.

Each track’s year refers to the single release, not the album.   In this case, the years are 1976 (Kiss), 1988 (Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses), and 2010 (Slash).  1976 was the Summer Olympics in Montreal.  Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics in 1988.  In 2010, Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics.  I had to look all of that up.  I do have a funny story about an old boss of mine who accidentally skied into the athlete’s Olympic Village in 2010, and was detained, but that is a whole other story!

I won Day 2 on the first song, so it didn’t matter that Craig screwed up on the third song (which I didn’t need to win).  Day 5 though, was a cheat.  A total cheat.  I was given the answer.  The truth is that Nick Byerjean did in fact “Stump LeBrain”, and never got credit for it.

Well done, Nick!  I should have given the I Mother Earth tickets to you.

#1207: “Sometimes You Just Gotta Laugh!” Music and Mental Health Update

Our Music and Mental Health series on YouTube seemed to do some good.  We decided to keep going with it.  Viewers told us they’d like updates on how we’re all doing, so here’s an update on:

  • Jen’s health
  • House issues
  • Writing Grandma’s funeral speech

The speech is now coming along, and I’ll be proud to post it here after the funeral.

I hope you get something from this video, because when things get hard, sometimes you just gotta laugh.

Click the pic below to get to our Music & Mental Health playlist on YouTube, and check it out.

#1206: I Can’t Help the Feeling I Could Blow Through the Ceiling…

RECORD STORE TALES #1206: I Can’t Help the Feeling I Could Blow Through the Ceiling…

 

Two steps ahead, but one step behind?  It’s still progress.  It may not feel like progress, but it is.

In 2024, we had our shelf disaster.   My priceless collection spilled forth unto the ground, knocking my spirits down with them.  But we got back up again and rebuilt.  We rebuilt despite the following furnace replacement, requiring my precious collection to be move again.

Now in 2025, we have prevented yet another shelf disaster.  I returned home from the lake to find another set of shelves slowly peeling from the walls.  I stopped it in time, removed the heaviest items, and prepared to make plans to replace the shelving.  This will be a more difficult task this time, as it will also require me to tear apart my stereo system and place it on the new shelving.  Not an easy task; there are so many cables it’s like black & blue spaghetti.

It’s hard to keep up.  We have so many projects.  We continue to pare things down and get rid of excess possessions.  We continue to clean up and organize.  We continue to replace broken household items.  It’s an uphill climb and the list keeps growing.

New TV, new cable box, new rug, new blinds, new computer, new this & that…

I can’t help the feeling I could blow through the ceiling sometimes.

 

Drone video from Saturday August 9.