Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - More Arthurs!

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

It’s our annual Thanksgiving tradition – the Vinyl Cafe Arthur Awards. More treasures from the Vinyl Cafe archives about some amazing acts of kindness! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you heard of guest favorites on Airbnb? Guest favorites are the most loved homes on Airbnb. Homes already tried and loved by other families like mine. That's how I've booked my most recent trips on Airbnb. In December, I want to take my girls, Eloise and Annabelle, to Quebec City. It's so gorgeous around Christmas. They really know how to embrace the season. When I started looking, the very first place that popped up was

an incredible suite right in the heart of historic Quebec City. And I loved knowing that it was a guest favorite. This home gives us so much space. And it means I can bring Molly, our dog, no kennel to book, no stress. Plus, there's parking included, which in Quebec City at Christmas is a gift all on its own. A little weekend away in one of the most loved homes on Airbnb. Our eyes go through a lot in a day, driving into the sun on the way to work, staring at a computer screen for hours, squinting at the phone in the dark before bed. That's why I've started making regular eye exams part of my routine. I go every September, not just to see if I need a new prescription for my glasses, but to make sure my eyes are healthy. Specsaver's locations are

equipped with something called an OCT scan, that's short for optical coherence tomography. It's a 3D scan of your eye that helps independent optometrists detect eye and health conditions early. And because it's so important, independent optometrists include it as part of every standard eye exam. Your eyes go through a lot, so take care of them. Book an eye exam with an OCT scan from $99 at specksavers.cavers.ca. Prices may vary by location, visit specksavers.ca to learn more. From the apostrophe podcast network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is backstage at the Vinyl Cafe.

Welcome. It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and that means it's the Vinyl Cafe Arthur Awards. Every year on the radio show on Thanksgiving weekend, Stuart used to hand out the Vinyl Cafe Arthur Awards. For those of you who are new to the pod, the Arthur's were a set of awards designed to honor the little things, those things that too often go unnoticed, and yet are often the most important things. of all. The awards were named after Dave and Morley's dog, Arthur. And here at Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe, we're keeping up with that tradition. And we're going to start with this one. Here from 2012 is Stuart McLean awarding an Arthur Award. If you're just tuning in, this is the day we're handing out the Arthur Awards on the Vinyl Cafe. And our next nomination comes from Natasha Soper of Edmonton, Alberta.

Tasha sent this email to us in May, Dear Stewart, she writes. I am just bursting to tell this story of amazing kindness from a complete stranger. In fact, my faith in the goodness of mankind has been renewed. I am a mom of three beautiful kids. My newest edition was born in April. Exactly one month ago yesterday, we headed off to Jasper to introduce our new baby to the wonders of the Rockies. We took pictures of the three kids in the exact same locations we always did, but this time with our new edition. That was our Friday. Unfortunately, by Saturday, I realized that my camera was missing.

I spent all day Sunday scouring the streets and stores of Jasper looking for and inquiring about it. I filled out a missing items form at the Visitor's Information Center and left my information at our hotel. After hours of searching, we gave up and we left Jasper. It was a horrible car ride. My daughter and I cried all the way home. I felt sick to my stomach for the loss. You see, I hadn't downloaded any of the pictures or video footage from the camera since April. My baby girl was born in April.

All of those sweet first moments, her birth, her first smile, her first laugh were on the camera. not to mention my brother-in-law's wedding and many exciting things with my other children. I just couldn't believe it was gone. I called the hotel regularly to see if the camera had appeared, but nothing. And then, yesterday, exactly a month from the day we were in Jasper, I got a phone call from my daughter's school. The secretary told me that she had something for me. Apparently, someone had found my camera smashed on a road in Jasper.

They had taken out the memory card and looked through it and were moved by all the special pictures and video footage. The only identifying picture was my daughter in front of her school on her first day of kindergarten. So they looked up the school on the internet and mailed the memory card to the school. The lady wrote a letter to the school stating that she really wanted the family to have their precious memories back.

So, today, I have the memory card in my hands. Stuart, I know amidst the chaos and troubles of the world that this is a small thing. But for me, the little plastic memory card represents goodness, the goodness that is still out there in spite of the chaos and trouble. I will be forever grateful and will always look to pay the favor forward that letter came to us

from Natasha Soper of Edmonton, Alberta and we're going to call Nicole Boucher right now the woman who found the camera and returned the memory card and present her with an Arthur award Jess can you do what you do

dial that phone Oh, there we go Okay. Hello? Nicole Boucher? Uh, pardon? Is Nicole there?

Nicole Boucher there? Uh, no, I think you got the wrong number. Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry. Who's this? Benoit. Hi, Benoit. It's Stuart McLean from CBC Radio.

Okay. You're on the radio right now. Do you know the Vinyl Cafe? No. You don't? No. Is that your dad in the background bugging you? Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Maybe I should speak to the dad. Hello? Hi, how are you? Good. Stuart McLean from CBC Radio, the Vinyl Cafe. Oh, yeah. I'm trying to get in touch with somebody, forgive me.

We're on the radio, and I'm trying to get in touch with a woman by the name of Nicole Boucher, and I, who we're going to give an award to. I don't know if that's a relative. of yours or? Nicole. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a lot of Boucher's. I'll give you to my wife.

Okay. Why is he calling us? Hello? Hi, how are you? Oh, good. But I don't know who, you know who I am. I don't know who you are. Who are you?

I'm Chantelle. Chantelle Bouchet, is it? Yeah. We're trying to get Nicole Boucher of... Oh, yeah, she's a teacher at our school, at our Francophone school. Oh, excellent. Is that the one you're looking for?

I don't know. She found a camera and returned it. We have the show where we give away awards to people for doing, you know, good stuff. And I think Nicole might be the lady who found a camera, smashed on a road in Jasper, and then took the memory card out and tracked down the owners and returned it to them. Oh, right. Oh, you know, that's not uncommon here. Lots of people do that for people.

You're kidding. No, I'm not, actually. I've worked for the visitor center here in Jasp for many years, and, you know, we've done that a few times for visitors, and people, too, like, generally the residents here, if they find something, sometimes a lot of people will go out of their way to try and get it back, because, you know, they know how important those photos are. I mean, maybe the whole town deserves an Arthur award,

if everyone's busy returning stuff, but maybe she could sort of stand in for everybody, is it like she's deserving, you think? Oh, yes, yes, yes. It doesn't surprise me of any cause. She's just an incredibly very, she's just an amazing lady, yeah. Do you know what street she lives on or her last name? Maybe she has a different last name. Well, she remarried.

She would be, you could probably find her listing under Paul Savage. Paul Savage? Yeah. Listen, you have been so kind. We're going to do our show at the Jubilee in Auditorium. Edmondson on December the 2nd. Would you like to come with your family just by way of thank you? Oh, when is that happening? December the 2nd. There's a matinee. It's a Sunday. There's a matinee at 2.30 and there's a

matinee at a show at night at 7.30. Oh, wow. Yeah, that would be lovely. Listen, I'll tell you what. I'm going to get Jess Milton, who's the producer, to give you a phone call tomorrow. Yeah. And you guys can talk about whether you'd like to come to the show. And we found a name and number on Canada a 4-1-1 for P Savage, so we're going to give it a shot. Oh, perfect. Thanks so much. Okay, all right.

Have a good day. Bye-bye. Well, that was pretty crazy. Sounds like we... Are you going to phone? Jess, you phone. Am I ready? Of course I'm ready.

We're on the rain. Oh, what am I going to do if I... What am I going to say? No, I'm not ready. I'm going to go... No, I don't want to play a song. I want to keep this thing going. We'll just...

Am I ready? For heaven's sakes. That was Nicole. No, that wasn't Nicole Boucher. That was Chantelle Boucher, who tells us the whole town of Jasper should get an Arthur award, apparently. People are leaving things left, right and center in the town. Okay, here we go. And this will be Nicole, hopefully, or Paul Savage. Now I'm going to forget what it was that I was going to give her the award for.

Hello? Nicole Boucher? Yes, it's me. It's Stuart McLean speaking from CBC Radio. Nicole, I don't know if you know my show. Nope, I don't know. It's on CBC Radio, and once a year we have a special edition called The Arthur Awards, where we give people awards for doing small acts of kindness. Okay.

And you've been nominated for an award. Oh, yeah. How can my name just arise to you? I got a letter from a woman in Edmonton, Natasha Soper, who wrote and told us a story about what you did for her. You found her camera. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Tell me about it. Okay, I found a camera on the street, and I kept the...

the memory card because the camera was broken and I was not able to look at the picture. So I put the memory card in my camera and I look at the picture until I find clue because there was a lot of pictures in there of family and wedding and things and babies and it was really sad to think that all that would be lost. In her letter to us, Natasha said that the... The memory card represents goodness, and that it reconfirmed or reconnected her to the goodness in the world, and that she'll always be grateful to you not only for returning it, but for reconnecting her like that. But she was so nice.

She emailed me, and she was so happy, and I was so happy that she get that back. Not everybody would do that, though. I don't know, but I would hope so. I'd been raised like that, and I would like everybody to be like that. Where did you grow up? In Quebec. Where did you grow up in Quebec? Chateauquay.

Ah, Prue de Montreal. Yes, beside the other side of the bridge, Merci. Tell me about moving from Quebec to Alberta, what that's like. Oh, that's a big thing. It's a huge thing, in fact. It is a big thing. It's a big thing because you change culture, not lost, but you are really far from your family, for your language, from your music, books.

is the biggest difference between us, the French and the English and Canada. What is the biggest difference? I think it's more the culture, arts. Theater. Yeah. Literature. Yes. Painting and artist in the street and clothes designer and a lot of things like that. Here, what I notice, it's People work a lot. They know how to enjoy themselves in Quebec. They know how to get together and relax. Yeah, we eat for hours. The party always starts in the kitchen.

You know, we're talking, family old and young, and I never saw that year. That's the difference. What's our biggest similarities? What are the things that bind us together? Oh. I think the I don't know how to say the values values yeah our values are the same I think are values of for friendship for love for being nice honest and things like that it's all the same Listen, it's been a delight talking to you, Nicole.

Oh, that was fun. I think you are really patient with my accent. Well, I think you're really patient with mine. You're very genteuse. Oh, thank you, thank you. Nicole, just before we say goodbye, every December we bring the Vinyl Cafe show to Edmonton, which isn't too far from Jasper.

And we'll be at the Jubilee Theater in Edmonton in December, doing two shows, actually, on December 2nd, I think, at the Jubilee. And I'd love it if you and Paul came as our guests to the show. Okay. Are you going to contact us? Yeah, we'll get in touch with you in the next couple of weeks, and we'll organize some tickets. Jess Milton, who's the producer of the show, will be in touch. And I'd love you to come to the show, and I'd love to meet you at Interimms. mission or halftime or at the end of the show or something. Oh, that would be great.

And if Edmonton doesn't work, we'll be in Calgary, we'll also be in BAMP. So we'll be, in December, we travel around. Okay, that's great. And Nicole, you're very gentle. I'm very happy to talk with you today. Oh, thank you very much. You're very gentle also. And you have a lot of patience.

Thank you, and you, too, also. That was Stuart McLean with an Arthur Award from 2012. All right, we have to take a short break now, but we will be back in a couple of minutes with two more Arthur Awards. So stick around. Our eyes go through a lot in a day. driving into the sun on the way to work, staring at a computer screen for hours, squinting at the phone in the dark before bed. That's why I've started making regular eye exams part of my

routine. I go every September, not just to see if I need a new prescription for my glasses, but to make sure my eyes are healthy. Specsaver's locations are equipped with something called an OCT scan, that's short for optical coherence tomography. It's a three-shaftor's a three-servor's scan of your eye that helps independent optometrists detect eye and health conditions early. And because it's so important, independent optometrists include it as part of every standard eye exam. Your eyes go through a lot, so take care of them. Book an eye exam with an OCT scan from $99 at specksavers.cavers.ca.ca. Prices may vary by location. Visit specksavers.cavers. to learn more.

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an accessible playground, a 55-acre sports park, pathways, and a library with enriching programs. Learn more at crossingslethbridge.ca. Welcome back. We're playing Arthur Awards today on the show. It was always one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving, giving out these awards. Awards that recognize everyday people for everyday acts of kindness. Every part of it was so great from getting the nominations from people to choosing our favorites to spending long evenings in studio trying to get a hold of the people on the phone. Here's another one of our favorites. This is Stuart McLean from back in 2013, recorded in studio. And because we have a lot to get to today on the show, we're going to get down to it right away.

We're going to start with a nomination from Elizabeth Bradley of South River, Ontario. Dear Stewart, writes Elizabeth. My 100-year-old mother, Kay Bradley, is the most prolific of letter writers and surely would find a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most letters written in a lifetime if such a category exists. This past Christmas, she sent over 150 Christmas cards. These cards weren't just signed, sealed, and delivered. but were carefully chosen for each recipient, with a Christmas illustration carefully matching the receiver.

Each of the 150 Christmas cards had an individual, thoughtful, and lengthy letter enclosed, all the words, all carefully chosen and written in beautiful penmanship. After her 100th birthday, my mom carefully sorted and ordered the nearly 200 birthday cards she had received, and responded to each of them with a handwritten letter. She even responded to the Governor General of Canada, David Johnson. We tried to convince her that he probably wasn't expecting a response. Nevertheless, he got one. So as I write you this email,

I know that my mom's gift to handwritten notes will sadly soon be a relic of the past. And I wanted to honor her dedication and attention while I was still able to do so. That email came to us from Elizabeth Bradley of South River, Ontario. And we're going to try and get Elizabeth's mother K on the phone now and present her with an Arthur in the category of taking the time it takes to tell people they matter. Hello?

Is Kay Bradley there, please? Yes, she is. Just one moment, please. Hello? Kay Bradley? Yes. It's Stuart McLean speaking from CBC Radio. Yes. I have a show on the radio called The Vinyl Cafe.

Yes. We have a show every year where we give people awards. Yes. Called the Arthur Awards. And you have been nominated for an Arthur Award for being the greatest letter writer, the world. For heaven's sakes.

Your daughter, Betty, had nominated you. Oh, she did, eh? Well, that's awfully nice of her. And I should put my daughter on here. No, you shouldn't. I want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to your daughter.

Okay, okay. That's fine. I do know, I do know your book, and I have like started one. I'm sorry, that's all. I've been busy writing letters. That's my excuse.

So that's what I have to tell you, dear. What's it like being 100 years old? Well, I really didn't find it any different from being 99, to be honest. And I just never ever thought I'd reach that stage. So I was pleasantly surprised when the day arrived, and I was still here, and still feeling good. do you feel any sense of accomplishment having done that i just lost my husband in april and up until that time we had been married 73 years and i we had four lovely daughters and anyway they've just been wonderful and i figure that's my accomplishment what what is the recipe for a happy marriage a 73-year-old marriage

I don't know. I would say give and take. I've been reading old cards and that, you know, that he's given me over the years. He wrote cards, too. Oh, yes, of course. They were all assuring me that he loved me and that he was happy with me, and they always made me feel good. I appreciate everyone because he picked them out himself. And that meant more to me, too, than if he had somebody else to it. Like you, for instance. Like, I know I didn't pick out my own cards. I'll tell you that.

And I didn't sign the other. Anyway, it's nice talking to you. And you certainly are known to me. And your book's been such as, have been such a situation. success. I've got one right by me right now. It's the first one, is it? Final Cafe Unplugged. That's one of the early ones. You're lagging behind. Well, dear, I said I've been writing letters. So, listen, we have a prize for you today? Oh, no, have you really? Sure. Have you ever ever wanted anything before? Oh, nothing very much, like a flashlight or something like that.

We don't have much more than the flashlight for you, I'm afraid. Well, that's nice to hear. I have never won anything, really, to... I was going to offer you a book, but apparently you don't read my books. Oh, I don't read any more books, any other books more than I read yours, because... How would I send you a CD of

some of my stories, then? Send me a TV? No, a CD, darn it. I don't have a TV. A TV? What? A CD, not a TV? Yes, that sounds lovely. A DVD. Yeah, like a DVD. Or I can send you tickets to my show. We're going to be in Montreal on December

23rd. Christmas time. Yeah. You're near the eastern townships, right? Sherbrook. Yeah, Sherbrook's where I am now. If you want to come up to Montreal, you could come to the show. I'll give you a front row seat.

Well, that sounds awfully nice, but do you think I should say yes to front row seats? Who's going to get me there? My daughter's saying yes, because I need someone to get me there. We always have a contest at the show. Who's the oldest there? You'll probably win that. You win twice. Two prizes in a year.

Not anymore, I don't think. People just are getting older all the time. Well, listen, that sounds great. I'll get you, we'll put, I'll get Jess Milton, the producer of the show, to talk to your daughter. And I'm going to send you out a CD. We've got a new CD out of it. We'll send you out a new final cafe CD plus tickets to the show on Montreal, and I'd love to see you there. Well, thank you very much, and I've enjoyed my conversation with you.

you. Hopefully I'll see you the 23rd of December. And Kay, if I wrote you a note, would you write me back? Sure, I'd be glad to. If I sent you a card? Sure. Excellent. Okay. I'd love to get a card from you. Okay, dear. I'll do that. Okay. Okay. Thanks for the conversation. Very best. Okay, dear. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. That was Kay Bradley of Sherbrooke-Probec, 100 years old. winner of an Arthur Award this year for what do we give it to her for? We're giving it to her for taking the time to tell people they matter.

Kay Bradley. That was Stuart McLean with an Arthur Award. That's a fun one. Kay was such a character and Stuart loved it when the nominee was not a huge fan like Kay admitting that she had his book but she hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. What an incredible woman.

I'm married for 73 years. Wow. All right, we've got time for one more Arthur Award today. Here we go. I'm Stuart McLean, and this is the Vinyl Cafe, and it's the week of Thanksgiving here in Canada, and that means this is the week that we hand out our Vinyl Cafe Arthur Awards. Our next nomination came in from Monica Samuda Poitra of St. Agath, Manitoba. Dear Stuart, writes Monica,

It has taken me years to work up the courage to submit this and to work out how to summarize my nomination. Today, I'd like to nominate my parents in the category Daring Choices in Everyday Canada. My parents married in Winnipeg in 1973. That's the easy part. Let me tell you about them. My mother, Madeline, was born in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan.

To get an elementary school education, she had to leave home. Her parents made a difficult decision. They dropped their seven-year-old daughter off at the Catholic French boarding school in St. Boniface, Manitoba, nearly 1,000 kilometers from where they lived. She had traveled to and from school by train, and only for Christmas and summer vacations. Mom finished her schooling in Winnipeg and joined the order of nuns that had been her teachers. She became a teaching sister.

Eventually she left the order and teaching, and she became a librarian and ended up working at a library in Winnipeg. My father, Ken, arrived in Canada from Jamaica in 1967. He moved to Thompson and got a job in the mine. He was hit by an underground train and destroyed one of his legs from the knee down. He was hospitalized for months and had to spend a year in a cast from hip to toe. After being released from the hospital, he enrolled at the Red River Community College. And that's where he met my mom. She worked at the college as a librarian.

They married in 1973. Their black and white wedding pictures were due to more than the film. It was a collision of cultures. I didn't think of those images as records of defiance until I was old enough to realize the blink of time that it elapsed between Martin Luther King's assassination and my parents' wedding. My parents married and moved to St. Boniface just down the road from the bell-ringing basilica. They raised my sister and me not only multiracial, but bilingual. My sister and I were the only black kids in an otherwise homogenous elementary school.

Without a grand plan, my parents created a family. that epitomized a new Canada, a Canada where it doesn't matter what shadier skin is or what language you speak so long as we are speaking and listening to each other. My parents' story is more common now than it was 40 years ago. Back then, they were rebels.

Quiet rebels in everyday ways. And I am coming to understand how choices, both big and small, can create a new world without even meaning to. I don't think my parents set off to change the world, but I think that's what they did. That letter came in from Monica Samuda Poitra of St. Agath, Manitoba, and she wrote that about her parents, Madeline and Ken.

We're going to try and get Madeline and Ken on the line now so that we can present them with a vinyl cafe Arthur Award. Hello? Is that, is that Madeline Samuda? Yes, it is. Madeline, it's Stuart McLean from CBC Radio, the vinyl cat. How are you? Fine, thank you.

I'm phoning because you know my show, do you? Of course. Of course. Is that Ken on the line now, too? I was a child, but not quite that far. Is that Ken? Yeah, or yeah. And is Madeline on the line, too?

Oh, yeah, I am. You're both on the line. I'm phoning you because it's Thanksgiving weekend, and we're doing our annual Arthur Awards. Mm-hmm. And your daughter, Monica, has nominated you guys. Oh, my. She's nominated you for daring choices in everyday Canada. Mm-hmm.

Oh, dear, which was that? What was she referring to? She was referring to your interracial marriage of 40 years ago. Oh, right. And she was saying, she's saying that you guys were in the vanguard of changing the world and of helping define a new Canada. She uses words. And she's on the line right now. Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.

Hi, Monica. Hi. Monica, do you want to tell your parents why you nominated them? They've always chosen with their hearts and with their heads clearly on them. And they didn't say, well, no, you know, my neighbors aren't doing this, or I'm, you know, I'm not going to, we have to do what they're doing, and just said, no, learning, you know, many languages is how you speak to many people. And you love who you love.

And everyone's a person. I mean, the revolution was really just in standing on their own, doing what they saw was right, and fighting really quietly, essentially fighting by not falling down. Yeah. whiting by by just saying, no, we're going to do it this way.

This works. This is right. And just continuing. I want to tell you a story. Our favorite thing. About David? No, no. About my life and my family.

All right. We're listening. When I was, let's say 15, I don't know exactly, but we used to have a cottage up on a lake in the Laurentian Mountains. And at the cottage, there was a little summer barn where kids would go for swimming lessons and there would be dances every weekend. And I remember sometime in the mid-60s,

there was a phone call one Saturday night to my dad who was, I don't know, the president of the club that year. And the phone call was to the fact that somebody on the lake, and this was a lake of white folks, had a black friend up for the weekend. And there was a dance that Saturday night, and they felt that before they could let their daughter or take this black guest over to the dance,

that they had to ask permission. Phone my father to say, do you think it would be all right? And I remember this because there was a flurry of activity and phone calls going back and forth. between houses as these guys, my father and the other guys who were running the club tried to figure out what was right and what was wrong. Clearly what was right was that he should have, this guest should have been welcomed with open arms. I think there was some mealy-mouth

decision given which was, of course he's welcome, but maybe he shouldn't come because we're not upset, but it might upset others. Hard for me to believe, now but that's the what that was my life and in my lifetime in my family right and that was the way the winds were blowing back then and you guys were sailing into those winds yeah was it hard sailing we didn't know what it would be like we just went ahead we say it was hard yes but we were we were together on everything we did um um we did We had our own world and our own friend, yeah. Monica?

Yeah. You're married? Yes, I am. You're married to a white guy or a black guy? Really, to a white guy. To white guy? Yeah. So you're living the same life your parents did?

Yeah, but we are not the only mixed-race couple, and our kids are not the only mixed-race kids in school. No explanations. No. At the French school that we were at in B.C., it was assumed everyone was from mixed-race couple. of something, you know, and so it's just the, it's both the growing of the world because your personal world is much bigger, but then tiny, because you now have family in every

corner of the world. You know people everywhere. So your world is different from your folks' world? Extraordinarily. Yeah. Not walking into a room and counting and thinking, I'm the only black person here, besides the fact that I hardly ever am anymore, just not knowing that it doesn't matter. There's a self-consciousness that's gone away. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, and... Well, that's good news.

Oh, it's fantastic. And so now, I mean, the elementary school that I went to, my sister and I were the only two black kids is fully a third black kids now. And, I mean, I've seen kids not realize that kids have different skin colors, and that's hilarious when two kids will stand next side by side. I go, well, I can't tell them apart. They're both boys. They're both the same height.

And you're like, yeah, but that kid's black and that kid's blonde. And they're like, what does that mean? And it doesn't, it's not even a thing. Like, it's not even something that needs to be discussed. That's fantastic, and that can continue. But, I mean, it can continue for, like I said, everyone who's different. We meet people with new accents every day. We meet people with new perspectives every day.

And that just needs to be okay. As long as they're letting everybody else live their life, then, you know, there is room for everybody. Ken and Madeline. Yes. We're talking to you guys now and about this. this road we've been traveling on because you two were there at the beginning of it in a certain way. And Monica wanted to thank you, I guess, for starting down that road, not only for her, but for all of us.

Oh, yeah. So thank you. Oh, yeah, ma. Thank you. You're welcome, and thank you for calling. Thank you for calling. Thank you, Monica. You're welcome.

I love you, Mom. Thank you. for accidentally being fighters. So great to talk to you guys today. Oh, thank you. Thank you, too. Happy Thanksgiving. Yeah, happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving to you guys, too. And you too. And keep up the work, Stuart, making life wonderful and funny and keeping it simple. And big feelings. They mean a lot to us. Yeah. When are you coming to Winnipeg?

We're coming to Winnipeg. We actually are coming to Winnipeg pretty soon. we're coming, Jess, what day do we... Never, do you guys want to come? Oh, yeah. Would you come as my guest? Oh, yeah? That would be wonderful.

We saw you, we were in Saskatoon, I think. Kenner was in Winnipeg, we saw it once. Was I okay? Oh, you got to believe it. You let us know when. November 25th, that we're doing our Christmas concert in Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg. Right. That's a really crazy story.

Well, we have known tries but to listen to them and laugh. Ken, I'm sure if you and I got together, you'd have some crazy stories for me. Listen, I'm going to get Jess to talk to you when we're finished this, when the music's playing, and she can organize tickets, and we'll all get together. Okay, thank you. Wonderful. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

That was Monica Samuda-Puatra, and her mom and day. at Madeline and Ken Samuda in St. Agath, Manitoba. That was Stuart McLean with an Arthur Award from 2013. All right, that's it for this episode. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. The recording engineer is someone that I think deserves an award for his experience, his good humor, and his generosity. Greg DeCleut.

Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeClute, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.