Uncle Paul

#1224: Nov 11: An Uncle Paul Story

A sequel to #138:  Remembrance Day

RECORD STORE TALES #1224: Nov 11: An Uncle Paul Story

November 11 is a very important day in my family.  Since my grandfather and his brother both served in Europe during World War II, it was a tradition that I have always known.  My grandfather rarely told war stories.  It used to make me uncomfortable.  At home, my dad would educate me on different battles, and the tanks and the guns and planes involved.  My dad’s specialty is the Pacific theater, but he certainly taught me the difference between a Panzer and a Sherman.  I knew what the Battle of Britain was.  I had seen all the old movies.  So when my grandfather seemed…haunted by the war, it contrasted that childish “cool factor” that you get by watching a tank fire its cannon.

From my earliest memories, we went to the cenotaph every Remembrance Day, heard the cannons fire, shivered in the cold and watched Grampa lay a wreath.  I was short and could hardly see.  Back then, November 11 was a school holiday, so families could go to the cenotaph.  Eventually they ditched that holiday in favor of an in-school memorial.  This took place in the gymnasium.  They’d run a film and I’d just sit there thinking “right now Grampa would be laying his wreath.”  We lost him in 1983 but the family always went.

This is where the story deviates from today’s theme.  My Uncle Paul and Aunt Maria would also go to the cenotaph with us.  They drove in from Stratford.  For us, it really was a full family day.

The family tradition was modified after 1982, when Remembrance Day was stripped of its holiday status in 1982.  The change was slight.   I didn’t even know about it for years.

My Uncle and Aunt would come to town for the ceremony at 11 o’clock, but stayed the day to visit.  My dad and uncle would go to the local car dealerships and look at the new models.  Best of all, they would pick my sister and I up from school at the end of the day!  What a treat.  Not only didn’t we have to walk home on a cold day, but we got to ride with Uncle Paul and my dad.  We would laugh and smile the whole way home.  I loved this modification to the old tradition…but there was more.  Much more.

Little did I know, but after the Remembrance Day ceremony, the whole family would head over to Hi-Way Market and visit their incredible, legendary toy section.  My Aunt and Uncle would buy all of our Christmas gifts right there in one shot.  Every GI Joe.  Every Atari game.  Every Transformer.  They were sitting there in the trunk, directly behind us as we rode home from school.  Every single gift that I was salivating over, nightly in the toy catalogues.  They were right there, mere inches away!

If it sounds like I still can’t believe it, it’s still amazing to me that they did this for years and I had no idea!

Thanks Uncle and Aunt for making every Remembrance Day visit a special one for a kid. And thanks to Grampa and Uncle Gar for doing what had to be done.

 

#1189: Aglio e Olio

RECORD STORE TAILS #1189: Aglio e Olio

Growing up in an Italian family, we ate a lot of pasta.  Usually it was the tried and true spaghetti and meatballs.  Even though she’s not Italian, my mom makes a mean lasagna.  These were always treats and delights to have for dinner, but as far as pasta went, nothing topped my Aunt Maria’s aglio e olio.

It’s very simple yet requires knowledge and the perfect touch.  Aglio e olio is simply spaghetti in olive oil and garlic.  It’s usually served with chili flakes and parsley or other herbs.  As simple as it gets; no red sauce and no meat.  If you do add meat, I recommend medium rare steak or garlic shrimp.  It’s up to you; my sister Dr. Kathryn likes hers with mushrooms.

We looked forward to aglio with Aunt every time there was a special occasion.  My aunt would often make a meal for the rest of the family, such as a ham, but also make a batch of aglio special for me.  We had it for birthdays and we had it for visits.  Try as we might, we never could quite get the recipe right at home.  The recipe had been passed down from her mother, and she made it better than most restaurants.  There were tricks to it, as it turns out, that I had completely missed.

Aunt never added meat to her aglio.  She never had to.  The garlic was always soft and golden, and the overall gestault of the pasta gave an aura of umami even without meat.  You could add kalamata olives if you wanted to keep it vegan but add even more saltiness.

I attempted many variations of this at home, all failures.  I tried cheating and using garlic olive oil, or enhancing the pasta with garlic powder.  Awful!  I added vegetables and cheeses in the effort to bring in more flavour, never matching my aunt’s perfection.  I would phone them at their home in Stratford and ask for tips.  Obviously something was getting lost in translation, because it always came out bland.

And they said it was the simplest one!  Indeed, look at an Italian restaurant’s menu and aglio e olio is always the cheapest of the spaghettis.  There’s hardly anything to it.

I thought the secret was to make sure you added some hot, starchy pasta water to the oily mixture of garlic and extra virgin olive oil.  Simple enough.  What I didn’t really understand until Saturday, May 18 2025 was that I was doing everything right, just not enough.

I was determined to get it right this time.  I asked Jen to pick up a nice steak and some spaghetti and I was going to get aglio e olio right for a change.  For the first time.

Dutifully she came home with a beautiful strip loin with a nice cap of fat, at 50% off because she knows exactly when during the week the meat goes on sale.  I rubbed it with olive coil, sea salt, ground pepper, and a little Montreal steak spice for Jen.  She likes it; I can do without except in light moderation.  I chopped up a whole bulb of garlic into different sized chunks, for a variety of flavours and textures as you found them on your fork.  I smooshed some.  It varied.

Using my cast iron pan, I seared that steak on medium high on all four sides, and then let it cook a little longer after turning the heat down.  I chopped some parsley and let the steak rest.  It was a perfect medium rare, as I’d discover at the end when I finally sliced it.  It was also perfectly seasoned.

I set a pot to boil, adding a little olive oil to the water (I understand this helps keep the spaghetti from sticking), and a lot of table salt.  Not sea salt; table salt.  I didn’t measure, but it was a lot.

“Aglio can’t be too salty;” I reasoned.  Every time I made it in the past, I sought ways to up the saltiness, be it with meat or olives.  Salting it at the table didn’t work.  What I learned was, you have to salt the pasta by salting the water, generously.  This is what will give the aglio its flavour later on, enhancing the garlic and finally making its presence known.

Once the water is at a vigorous boil, I throw in a whole package of spaghetti.  I cracked the noodles in half and dumped them in the water.  I put the lid on and they cooked quickly.

I already had a saucepan full of olive oil going at medium heat.  Exactly three minutes after I put the spaghetti in the water, I dumped all my garlic in the olive oil, stirring frequently and ensuring it didn’t burn.

Always taste your spaghetti frequently to make sure it’s not going to be overcooked.  That’s the worst.  Instead, take the spaghetti out of the water about a minute before it’ll be at the perfect done-ness for you.  As soon as I took my first taste of the not-yet-cooked noodles, I knew I was close.  I hadn’t tasted that since my aunt made aglio at the cottage.  It was so familiar.  When the spaghetti was done, I drained it immediately.  Key here is to save at least 1/2 cup of that salty, starchy pasta water, because you’re going to immediately transfer all the pasta into the saucepan with the garlic oil.  Pour in the 1/2 cup of water and mix everything together in the saucepan, ensuring you coat every strand of spaghetti with that starchy garlic oil.  Throw in some chili flakes and parsley.  Add Parmesan cheese at the table to taste.

I threw some beautiful steak slices on top and served.  My aunt’s recipe had been saved.

You see, my aunt has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for many years now.  She can’t cook and wouldn’t be able to tell us the recipe anymore.  It would have been lost.  I saved it today.  Let it be known, that on May 18 2025, I saved the Maria Ladano (Festoso) recipe for aglio e olio.  It lives again.

I know that my aunt doesn’t understand what is happening to her right now, but I hope that her spirit would be gladdened to know that I have saved this classic recipe for all time.  Here it is.  I just wrote it down.  It can never go away now.

Thank you Aunt Maria.  For all the toy trucks, GI Joes and Transformers and CDs and tapes, the spaghetti was the best gift.

#1164: It’s Not Personal: An Uncle Paul Story

RECORD STORE TALES #1164: It’s Not Personal: An Uncle Paul Story

Jen and I have withstood a lot of funerals over the years.  Some were really great tributes to the people we lost.  Others, less so.

When Jen’s mom died, she wanted a Catholic funeral, so of course we obliged.  Jen and I are both what you might call “lapsed Catholics”.  We were both baptised, but stopped practising the faith decades ago.  While preparing for Jen’s mom’s funeral, we were asked if we were Catholics.  Not sure how to respond while still getting Jen’s mom the funeral she wanted, we both answered yes.  Father Imperial (yes, that was his name) knew we were lying.  We had separated the ashes into two urns – a big no no.  Catholics believe you can only get into heaven if your ashes are in one urn.  (Yay dogma!)  His disappointment was visible when nobody in the church knew the responses to the Catholic service.  We did our best, but that was not a good funeral for us.

We had Uncle Paul’s funeral in 2023, but the pressure wasn’t on us this time.  I was asked to be a casket bearer, but I used my gammy right arm as an excuse not to do it.  (I’m glad I didn’t; I watched the casket being carried down stairs and over headstones, and I could not have done it.)  We just sat in the church and paid our respects.  The funeral wasn’t very personal.  In most of the other funerals we’d done, the pastor asked for stories and personality traits that he could read during the service.  Those were good funerals.  People laughed, people cried, people shared memories.  Uncle Paul’s wasn’t like that.  It was very impersonal.  It could have been for anybody.

11 months later, there was a memorial service for people lost in the last two months of 2023.  It was the same priest presiding, and Uncle Paul was to have a candle lit in his name.  We all decided to attend the memorial mass.

We weren’t familiar with the area and had to park six blocks away.  The church was packed and we were not able to sit together.  We sat and did the things you do at a Catholic mass.  You stand, you kneel, you stand, you kneel.  Our kneeling bench wasn’t working, so that was awkward.

Finally they started reading the names of the people lost, so a candle could be lit in their name.  It wasn’t alphabetical, so we just listened and waited to hear Uncle Paul’s name.

“Paul Laderno,” said the priest.  The same priest who presided over his funeral.

“They didn’t even say his name right!” I whispered to my mom next to me.  I didn’t care if anyone heard me.  I was very upset.

How hard is it to say our name?  I now had a new variation to add to our long list of mispronunciations.  It felt so impersonal.  It felt like nobody cared, except us.  A real disservice to a great man, who was indeed a man of faith.  He deserved better.  “Laderno”.  Normally I’m the one to see the humour in things, but I didn’t this time.

We had a nice visit with my Aunt Maria after the service.  That made up for the disappointing mass.

Uncle Paul’s resting place is now capped with a stone, a marker so cool it deserves to be shared here.  This is the kind of memorial he deserves.  On the back, a crisp picture of his beloved vintage ‘Cuda.  A Blue Jay logo sits in a corner, waiting for my Aunt one day.   This is closer to how I’ll remember him.  Always there for his cars and my aunt.

We don’t often talk about cemeteries and headstones being cool…but my uncle’s is cool.

 

 

 

 

#1127: Walter – An Uncle Paul story

RECORD STORE TALES #1127: Walter – An Uncle Paul story

My Uncle Paul loved his “spot”.  It was a comfy armchair at the cottage, right next to the patio screen door, and right in front of the TV.  The phone was on an end table right next to it, and fridge was never far, with a fresh supply of cold beer.   It was cool, shaded, comfortable, and perfect.  On many days he’d prefer to sit there than come down to the beach, or playing cards.  Who could blame him?  Though we were often elsewhere while Uncle Paul did his thing, he was never alone.

He had Walter.

In reality, there was probably more than one Walter.  Chipmunks typically only live two to three years, yet Walter, in one form or another, returned to his screen door year after year, looking for peanuts.  There was also a second chipmunk that he named Fang.  Doctor Kathryn recalls, “the other chipmunk he fed, he named Fang. Fang had part of his ear missing, and looked really banged up!”  He probably ran afoul of a cat or Schnauzer.

We always had loads of chipmunks at the cottage.  They’re not a pest, but they’re timid and not very brave by nature.  If you left peanuts out (always shelled, unsalted), then you could gradually condition them to come closer and closer.  Still, many would cower afar, especially since there were Schnauzers about, and Schnauzers and chipmunks are natural sworn enemies.  This rivalry has been documented through history, most notably in the German children’s fable “The Chipmunk that Stole the Schnauzer’s Hat” (“Der Streifenhörnchen, der den Hut des Schnauzers Gestohlen“).

Through patience and time, Uncle Paul had trained little Walter the Chipmunk to come to his screen door and be rewarded with a peanut.   The little brown, black and white creature would approach tentatively with caution, grasp a peanut his two front paws, stuff it in his cheeks, and dart off!  He scampered across the deck, down to the ground and off into the unknown trees.  But he’d be back, minutes later, ready to stuff another peanut in his cheeks.  Uncle would always have an ample stash of nuts ready to serve.

This year, Jen and I have been visited by a new chipmunk friend on the front porch.  It’s our first summer there since Uncle Paul passed in November.  I’ve decided to name him Walter 2, in honour my uncle’s original friend.

I think uncle would like that.

#1102: My Favourite Hat – An Uncle Paul Story

Uncle Paul’s absence was felt this past weekend, as we gathered with Aunt Maria to celebrate Christmas.  It was an emptier space, but a warm one full of light and happy tears.

One of our Christmas traditions in past years was pizza.  In the olden days, Aunt Maria would bring a pair of big, square homemade pizzas to feed us for a busy Christmas lunch.  This time the pizza was round, and provided by Dominos, but that didn’t dull the experience.  It was delightful just to be having pizza together.

I have a lot of pizza memories with Uncle Paul and Aunt Maria.  The date would have been June 29, 2009.  The day I helped them move into their new home.  I remember the date, because unexpectedly and coincidentally, Michael Jackson died that day!  We all had pizza on their awesome back patio after moving about 20 boxes of Christmas ornaments!  Happy day, and so pizza is always an appropriate meal to share.

We went down into the basement to look at my uncle’s incredible collection of model and die-cast cars.  Hundreds and hundreds of cars, some boxed, some on loving display.  Some looked recently dusted, others not.  A dust mitt lay on a shelf, its job interrupted and unfinished.  I spotted two ancient vehicles from the 1950s, that were once passed down to me, and then passed back to my uncle:  a blue Meccano car-carrier, and an orange Meccano crane.  They were well loved and handled by me, but restored and displayed by my uncle.  It was bittersweet, but the memories were all good ones.

At the end of the night, with pizza consumed and hugs exchanged, Aunt Maria presented one final gift from Uncle Paul.  She brought out four of his favourite hats that he wore all the time.  My dad, my sister, and Jen and I all selected a hat.  You can see that some of them had a lot of sun, some were newer, and others were well loved.  I selected a black hat with a red Mopar logo and wore it the whole way home.

Thank you Uncle Paul and Aunt Maria.

#1101: In The Mix – An Uncle Paul Story

RECORD STORE TALES #1101: In The Mix – An Uncle Paul Story

At the dawn of the new millenium, technology was on the move!  I now had a CD burner on the family PC, and had just discovered this new thing called “Limewire“!  I was just starting to download all sorts of rare music, from out-of-print songs to live performances.  I had burned my first mix CD and was just starting to dip my toes into this new world, when Uncle Paul and Aunt Maria came over to visit one Sunday afternoon.

I was eager to show Uncle Paul what I could now do with a computer and an internet connection.  Making a custom CD was such a revelation back then.  It seems mundane now, but it truly was new and exciting in the year 2000.  For Uncle Paul, the wheels in his head started turning.

“Can you make me a CD?” he asked.  “With anything I want on it?”

“I can try!” I responded.  “What songs do you want?  Make a list…”

He only wanted two songs.  I wish I could remember what they were.  I know they were both car songs.  That’s all I can remember.  Two classic car songs from the golden age of rock and roll.

I searched for the two songs on Limewire, found decent copies, and began downloading.

“You still have about 70 minutes of blank space on this CD, what do you want to fill it up with?” I asked him.  I hated wasting valuable blank CD real estate.  Once you burned a CD, that was it.  You couldn’t go back and add to it.

“Can you repeat each song, twice?” he asked.

“Sure can.  But you’ll still have over an hour of blank space on the CD.”

“That’s OK,” he said.  “I just want each song, twice.  That’s all I need.”

“Really?  I can repeat them as many times as you want until the CD is full.  If you want me to,” I said, trying to convince him.

“Twice each is fine.  Can you do that?”  That’s all he wanted!

One the songs were downloaded, I started up the burning software.  Track 1…song 1.  Track 2…song 1 again!  Track 3, song 2, and track 4, song 2.  That was it.  It burned in no time, and we tested it.

“Thank you Michael!  This is exactly what I wanted.”

You’re welcome Uncle Paul.  A simple request that provided all the entertainment he needed.  A happy man, and a happy nephew to have done this one small thing for him, that he appreciated far more than it warranted.  He was a good uncle.

#1099: “Can you play it a little louder?” – An Uncle Paul Story, aka “Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now”

#1099: “Can you play it a little louder?” – An Uncle Paul Story
(aka “Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now”)

 

In the late 80s, I was starting to fill in my Van Halen collection thanks to the generosity of family, and the Columbia House Music Club.  Diver Down turned out to be a favourite because of the cover songs:  this was an album that parents and family would let me play in the car, because they knew the songs and they were not too too heavy!

Any time I found a Van Halen song that I thought the older generation would swing to, I would proclaim:  “I found another one!”

“Why is the band called Van Halen when the singer is named David Lee Roth?” my mom asked.

“Because there are two Van Halens in the band and only one Lee Roth,” I answered simply.

“Van Halen?  Sounds like some kind of tropical disease,” deadpanned my dad once upon a time.

But my family and especially my uncle liked enough of the songs:

  • “Pretty Woman”
  • “Dancing in the Streets”
  • “Happy Trails”
  • “Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)”

They really, really liked “Big Bad Bill”.  Especially the sweet, smooth clarinet melodies of Jan Van Halen.  The tone!  So full.  I don’t think they ever heard the clarinet played with the speed of Jan Van Halen before.  Diver Down was my pathway to having my music played in the car stereo.  Uncle really liked the upbeat sounds of these Van Halen covers.  Everybody seemed to like Roth.  I couldn’t get them into Hagar, even with ballads like “Give To Live”.  Uncle wasn’t into ballads.  (I should have tried “I Can’t Drive 55”.)  He always wanted something with a good tempo.  I have more stories about this, but today’s is about the mighty VH.

“Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)” was the one song everyone universally agreed on.  It was so different from anything in the mainstream.  It had a vintage country shuffle born from the 1920s, and of course that clarinet.  David Lee Roth hammed up the vocals, at his Vaudeville best, and Uncle Paul ate it up.  And then he said the magic words:  “Can you play it a little louder?”  The one phrase that no adult ever uttered:  “Can you play it a little louder?”  Uncle Paul was the only one.

What kid wouldn’t dive for the volume knob when an adult asked them to?

“If it’s too loud, you’re too old,” goes the saying.  Uncle Paul was never too old.

We loved Uncle Paul.  It was he that bridged the two generations.  He was an adult, but he was welcome to hang with the kids.  He was part of both groups.  Not very families has a member who fills that role.  We did — and I am so happy we had that.  Our childhoods were so much richer for it.

Miss you Uncle Paul.

From Wikipedia:

“Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)” is a song with music by Milton Ager and lyrics by Jack Yellen, written in 1924. The song became a vocal hit for Margaret Young accompanied by Rube Bloom, and an instrumental hit for the Don Clark Orchestra.

The song has also been recorded by Ernest Hare (1924), Billy Murray (1924), Clementine Smith (1924), Emmett Miller (1929), Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra (1940), Peggy Lee (1962), Merle Haggard (1973), Ry Cooder (1978), Leon Redbone (1978), Van Halen (1982) and others[4] and has been a popular song in barbershop quartet and chorus competitions.

The lyrics describe a man “in the town of Louisville…” who was once a fearsome and rough character known for getting into fights, who, after getting married, becomes a peaceable person who devotes his time to domestic activities such as washing dishes and mopping the floor. He was “Stronger than Samson I declare, til the brown skinned woman, bobbed his hair.”

#1098: Today I Feel Very Special – An Uncle Paul Story

RECORD STORE TALES #1098: Today I Feel Very Special – An Uncle Paul Story

Today we lay my Uncle Paul to rest.  I learned something about him yesterday that I never really realized before.

Sunday was the visitation.  These are always a storm of mixed feelings.  You’re sad, you’re exhausted, and there are dozens of people to meet.  It was wonderful to hear so many people say loving things about my dear uncle.  He was clearly well liked by his friends and colleagues.  There were a lot of happy memories shared, introductions made, and friends to catch up with.

I was happy to see two of my best friends in the world after long absences:  the legendary Bob Schipper and the beloved Peter Cavan with his sister Joanne.  I have not seen any of them since, well, the last funerals.  We are all a little older now, and time has taken its toll, but the faces were the same.  It is good to know that my uncle had such an impact on my friends that they would drive to Stratford to honour a man they were not related to.  That’s just how my uncle was.  I heard lots of the same words today, over and over:  kind, thoughtful, attentive, caring, warm.

The thing that I did not expect to learn was a story repeated twice by two different co-workers of his.  They both said that he spoke of my sister and I fondly, all the time.  All the time, as if we were his own kids.

I knew that he considered us like his own, but I didn’t know how he spoke of us so often.  He had pictures of us in his office along with other family photos.  He must have said some pretty amazing things because the two co-workers we met specially wanted to tell us this about him.  I really did not know.

He always took interest in what we were doing and wanted to know what games we were playing and what music we were listening to.  He liked fast songs about cars.  I know I played “Slick Black Cadillac” by Quiet Riot for him when I was just a grade school kid.  I hope he liked it.

Thank you Uncle Paul.  We say goodbye today but the stories will live on forever.

In Loving Memory of Paul Joseph Ladano

Here is Uncle Paul’s official obituary.  It only scratches the surface.  I have so much more to add.

 

Paul Joseph Ladano, age 77, of Stratford Ontario, passed away peacefully on Monday, November 27, 2023 at West Perth Village, Mitchell. Born in Guelph, ON. Son of the late Joseph and Helen (Thompson) Ladano. Paul is survived by his true love and soulmate Maria (Festoso) Ladano. Paul will be remembered by his brother Don (Bonnie) Ladano, his niece Kathryn and nephew Michael and his wife Jennifer along with the Festoso Family and many nieces and nephews. 

Paul was a long-term employee with National Trust/Scotia Bank, retiring as Vice-President. Paul and Maria for many years enjoyed their cottage on Lake Huron, trips and many outings with his beloved Barracuda. Paul was truly an enthusiast of Mopar Cars, and he and Maria volunteered for many years at the Mopar Fest held in New Hamburg every year. 

Paul was the epitome of a true gentleman and always enjoyed family get-togethers for food and laughter.

Not only was he a true gentleman, but he had many friends.  He would be the first one to offer his seat, or to ask if you needed anything.  Though he loved quiet time alone watching the races on TV, he was rich in friendship.

He was a car expert.  Any movie or TV show, he could identify the vehicles.  He would always know when a car that was too new for a period piece was used by mistake.  You couldn’t sneak it past him.

He loved Christmas, ornaments and TV specials.  It will be weird knowing he’s not here to enjoy this Christmas.  We will miss him more than usual this year.