Today was a holiday so CBC radio played some old reruns.
The one that caught my ear was Stuart Mclean reading one of his stories.
Stuart Mclean was a well loved Canadian author and story teller. He had a long running radio show on CBC . One of the features of the show was Stuart reading one of his stories.
The stories were based on a family Dave, Morley, Sam (son) and Stephany (daughter). Each of the family had some huge inadequate parts of character and ability. Each one of them also had some tremendous strong abilities and character. Stuart's stories wound around the abilities and weaknesses of this family. There were also people in the neighborhood that the family interacted with. There was Mary Turlington, who was a know it all. Carl Lowbeer, who was a retired engineer and was a little lonely. Kenny Wong, who made and sold meat pies and was a friend of Daves. Their was Arthur the dog. There was a whole neighborhood for this family to interact with.
Today's story was suitable for the season. Morley, an inept gardener all her life, was cleaning up her garden. When Sam was 8 or 9 Morley had tried to interest him in gardening. She bought him a special little Tonka back hoe trying to interest him in gardening. It didn't work. Today she was cleaning up under the peony and hit something with her trowel. She pulled and it was The little digger she had given to Sam for his gardening.
Mclean wrote hundreds of these stories and they are on You Tube.
So today when I heard Stuart reading this story there was a nostalgic moment or two.
Very sadly Stuart died a few years ago . I miss his readings and stories. I do have two of his books.
Check on You Tube and listen to some of his stories.
