Maybe you just bring out the best in people mem.
It would've been interesting meeting Stuart McLean. There's all kinds of letters in the papers now about how he touched people's lives and made a difference. He was more than simply an entertainer, but never wishing to be a guru guide either. His show always opened with a monologue in which he spoke admiringly of the town or city the show was presently in. I liked that he dug deeply into the social fabric of the place, and would get to know a character or two in the short time he'd visit before the live show. A small town barber, school teacher, mill worker; a big city baker, librarian, shop owner. He'd use that personal encounter as a doorway into the character of the community, and share the sense of small wonders in a big wonderful world with the audience. It's a pity not all his shows were taped for the radio. I'd love to hear what he discovered about each and every one. Like Geraldton. Which locals did he have a morning coffee with, pencil and paper in hand, peeling back layers of the small talk history of the place?
Yesterday M and I went for a walk, and I mentioned how good it would be to have a food thermos of hot soup sometimes for these kinds of walks. She said we should stop off at Value Village ( a used clothing/goods discount store) on the way home. Apparently there's lots of everything there, including thermoses. Clever thinking on her part, because she perused the clothes aisles while I hunted for thermoses. But, I never made it past the books. I found two Stuart McLean titles, but I have just about everything he's written, including those two. I pondered buying them anyway and sending them to someone who might like them. But I didn't. I did pick up instead a collection of Neil Gaiman (sci-fi). Like Stuart, never stop looking, observing, discovering.
