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It’s official! Summer is underway. May Long Weekend is here for another year. And while I’m hoping for the best, I’ll be honest, I’m worried the next few months will be marred by wildfires. While fires burned across the country last summer, we dodged a bullet in Manitoba. It wasn’t that bad here but I’m not so sure we’ll get lucky like that again. Despite the rain of the past few days, things are still tinder dry. The drought conditions are also worrying farmers as they seed this year’s crops. But it’s early and we’ll call the glass half full for now. We are coming off an El Nino afterall which means it could be a wetter than normal spring and summer. Here’s hoping. I hope you have a wonderful summer.
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SLOW MOW SUMMER
Bee lovers have changed their mantra from No Mow May to Slow Mow Summer. Instead of not mowing your lawn at all during the whole month of May, they’re now asking you to cut the grass less often throughout the entire summer. The Bee Squad at the University of Minnesota says you’ll be helping out all pollinators as they look for flowering plants like dandelions and clover. Mark Friesen at Friesen Prairie Honey in Morden says a pollinator pack of flowers is also a great idea which you can find at your favourite garden centre.
WAYNE WALKER AVENUE
It’s nice to see Wayne Walker’s name on the marquee again. Machray Avenue between Main Street and Emslie Street, where Wayne lived, has been honorarily renamed Wayne Walker Avenue. I didn’t know Wayne at the height of his career in the 1960s when he was known as Mr. Rock and Roll of Winnipeg but I do have many fond memories from nights with him at the Norwood Hotel in the ’90s when he was the entertainment director there. He started out playing school dances and eventually performed alongside and influenced some of the biggest names in music including Randy Bachman, Roy Orbison, Neil Young, Buddy Knox, Ronnie Hawkins and Johnny Rivers.
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KILLER DWARFS
Remember the Killer Dwarfs? Well, they’re still going after 40 years! I chatted with the band’s cofounder Darrell Millar on my radio show this week. He joined me to talk about headlining a local music festival this summer. If you’d like to be at Fall Jam in St. Andrews on Aug. 10 and 11, fire me an email at Hal@HalAnderson.ca because I’ll be awarding a pair of weekend passes. Just make sure you put Killer Dwarfs in the subject line. I’m really looking forward to seeing Darrell and the other Dwarfs again. The last time I saw them live many years ago, they were sharing a stage with Lee Aaron. Darrell says they’re still rocking just as hard as they were in the early 1980s.
BIDEN/TRUMP DEBATES
I don’t necessarily want to see this happen but if I was a wagering man, I’d bet Donald Trump is going to mop the floor with Joe Biden when the two men debate this summer. I’m actually kind of surprised Biden challenged Trump to debate the issues ahead of November’s presidential election in the U.S. Both men are too old to be the leader of the free world but let’s face it, Biden has lost a step. Plus Trump is a dirty debater. It’s not going to be pretty.
T-REX RECORD ATTEMPT
Three-thousand people in Tyrannosaurus Rex costumes have failed to set a new Guinness World Record in Alberta’s Badlands where I started my radio career 40 years ago. They had enough people dressed up as dinosaurs to shatter the old record but unfortunately, they couldn’t get organized and stay in one place for a full minute. Yup, that sounds like the Drumheller I remember.
— Hal has written columns for years. He’s also the host of Connecting Winnipeg weekday mornings from 10 to noon on 680 CJOB. You can email him at Hal@HalAnderson.ca.
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