Radio ... and Me - 3

Rock ‘n’ roll and radio were made for each other.
In the early 1950s, both were mired in the 'doldrums.'
The smooth, tightly-crafted 'big-band' music of the 1940s was getting stale.
Radio -- reeling from heavy competition by ‘television’ -- was an ‘old’ medium, badly needing to present something exciting, or, at least, get a face-lift.
Other factors contributed to this need for change;

Radio ... and Me - 2

Bob and Ray, began working as disc jockey and news announcer resp., at WHDH Boston in the mid-1940s and carried on their easy going, dead-pan, humour for more than 40 years.
Bob Eliott and Ray Goulding performed ad-lib skits while filling time during Red Sox baseball rain-delays, then later moved to work on New York contracts, for local and network shows.
Their quiet, irreverent delivery satirized radio shows and personalities who flourished -- and may have sometimes taken themselves too seriously -- during radio’s "Golden Age."

Here are some of my favourite characters --
-- Wally Ballou, pompous remote news reporter (His clipped start "-lly Ballou," was a dart at technicians, whose might be late switching on his mic.) His news beat was Times Square. Once, while interviewing The Cranberry Man, he traded a variety of cranberry recipies, ignoring the

Saint Brother André of Montreal

Early today, a frail but legendary Quebecquer, often called ‘God’s Doorkeeper,’ was canonized at Saint Peter’s in Rome.
My mother introduced me to the story of Frère André when I was about age 4, at evening prayer, while I also learned to pray the Rosary. She also had shown me a strong ‘visual aid,’ the Calendar of St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal.
Question to ‘older‘ --ahem, mature -- Catholics:
Do you remember the calendars with the ‘fish’ icons on the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, along with lots of holy pictures and lists of saints’ days?
The Oratory, which had taken more than 25 years to build, was then nearing completion, and I heard about the efforts of

Harvest / Thanksgiving

It's "Thanksgiving Weekend," and we who live in Nova Scotia have "plenty" to be thankful for. (Pun intended!)
How can we celebrate it?
This year, we have been blessed with the most bountiful harvest in many years. Commercial and backyard farmers alike are using the terms: "superb" and "bumper crop" to describe the results from this year's cultivated fields and gardens.
Generally, farming in this province is a gamble: uncertain weather,