When I was a youngster, maybe five or six years old, my mom's first cousin Bobby Gimby visited our house on Viceroy Place in the northwest Calgary neighbourhood of Varsity Acres.
It was a hot summer day and I remember watching him pull a trumpet out of a case and start playing as he stood on our front doorstep.
Of course I had no idea what a trumpet was, but I do remember the instrument seemed very large and very loud.
Soon all the kids and parents in our little block came out and gathered on our front lawn as Bobby performed.
Only much later did I find out that Bobby Gimby was in fact a very popular musician and songwriter, known from coast to coast as the Pied Piper of Canada.
His long and prosperous musical career included writing and performing the 1967 song Ca-na-da, the unofficial anthem for Canada's 100th birthday celebrations.
Although he wrote many songs over the years, Ca-na-da was Bobby's biggest hit, reportedly selling 270,000 copies on Quality Records.
I'm not sure if Bobby played his big song at our house that long-ago summer day, but I'm pretty sure he probably did.
Either way it was a very memorable concert in our little neighbourhood.
(PS: Like many in the Gimby clan, I also learned to play a musical instrument ñ guitar, in my case ñ and in June 1982 my three-piece rock band performed at a block party on that very same Viceroy Place crescent. Regretfully, we didn't play Ca-na-da).
- - Dan Singleton is the Mountain View Gazette editor
