About Me

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Delta, British Columbia, Canada
I took very early retirement from teaching in '06 and did some traveling in Europe and the UK before settling down to do some private tutoring. As a voracious reader, I have many books waiting in line for me to read. Tell me I shouldn't read something, and I will. I'm a happy, optimistic person and I love to travel and through that believe that life can be a continuous learning experience. I'm looking forward to traveling more some day. I enjoy walking, cycling, water aerobics & and sports like tennis, volleyball, and fastpitch/baseball. I'm just getting into photography as a hobby and I'm enjoying learning all the bits and bobs of my digital camera. My family is everything to me and I'm delighted to be the mother of two girls and the Gramma of a boy and a girl. I may be a Gramma, but I'm at heart just a girl who wants to have fun.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

O is for OPTIMIST

Welcome to ABC Wednesday where today I'm honouring our local "rag" called the Optimist.  I know, you thought I was going to give you a definition or something...but no, there was something in our paper on March 24, 2017, that I've been saving for just this week!  And the entire post is an homage of sorts to our official administrator Roger, music aficionado that he is! 
Back in June, 1980, the legendary Chuck Berry performed in my little village of Ladner in British Columbia, Canada!  Ladner is sort of a bedroom community of Vancouver, BC, which most people know.  Chuck Berry passed away recently at the old age of 90, so the paper had a sort of retrospective of his time among us villagers.  There is even a YouTube video that I'm going to give you the URL for and you can see for yourselves that I'm not kidding you!
Now back in June of 1980, I was a young mother with a 3 1/2 year-old and a weeks-old baby.  I really wasn't up on current world events and certainly didn't have the energy to keep on top of even  our local news, either.  So this was big news to me when I read that Chuck Berry had been here for the grand opening of a local car dealership.

Apparently, the crowd was made up of young and old, including a lot of kids.  A fellow by the name of Gary Schoen commented that "it was a bit strange seeing somebody like that outside the confines of a club. But, the whole idea of him playing outside, doing a free show was what really got us going there to be able to see someone like that, a legend."  The Optimist reported after the concert that the show had attracted 5,000 people and that a police spokesperson said the crowd was well-behaved.

Well, we ARE Canadians, after all, and live in a small community!

Chuck Berry passed away at his home in Missouri on Saturday, March 18, 2017. He had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and "after Elvis Presley, only he had more influence on the formation and development of rock and roll," states the organization's website.

So there you go, Roger!  I almost met a legend 37 years ago and only found out about it recently.  The video is 27 minutes long and the first song is instrumental but he sings in the second song and that's as far as I went.  Enjoy!  Go here!
By the way, ROGER, (and everyone else) you might be interested in reading some of the comments under the video from locals and even from the fellow who recorded it. 

16 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

Hey, this is WAY cool! Thanks. I'll be listening.

ROG, ABCW

MelodyK said...

How lovely Leslie... although that name for a newspaper is rarely fitting sadly enough

Your post is not sad, I'm glad ;-)

Have a nice ABC-day / -week
♫ M e l ☺ d y ♫ (abc-w-team)
http://melodymusic.nl/20-o

Anonymous said...

interesting story

photowannabe said...

How fascinating. It's great that a small town can have such a big heart.

Hildred said...

I am going to go back and listen to that nice long video Thank goodness for Youtube - it makes so many wonderful musicians available to us - But when they come to our own small village, WOW!

Uppal said...

Learnt something new here. Thanks!

Reader Wil said...

Great, although a completely different world for me. I don't know much about popmusic. I liked the Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Westside Story.
I still prefer classical music, but Chuck Berry is great!

Rajesh said...

Good one. I like it.

carol l mckenna said...

Creative post for O ~ Chuck Berry was a major influencer in r'n'roll ~ thanks,

Wishing you a peaceful week ~ ^_^

Trubes said...

Wow ! What a scoop Leslie,
I know the Beatles were great fans of Chuck Berry,
I'm sure they met him, sadly Elvis wouldn't meet them,
I don't know why because they adored him too.
Fancy Chuck giving a free concert at Ladner, shame you
didn't get to meet him, but then so recent after childbirth
you seriously would not feel up to going to a concert.

Love Di,
Abcw team.

Anita Sabat said...

Love optimism & being optimistic :)
Have a fantastic week!

LA Nickers said...

Glad to learn you had picked up the ABC Wednesday challenge. Wish this wasn't the last go-around.
Thanks for visiting Nickers and Ink Poetry and Humor.
Happy A-Z.

Joy said...

What a great story.

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Unknown said...

its very nice
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