My Friend Fred
When I was a kid one of my favourite things to do was pretend I was Fred Penner. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Fred Penner is a legendary Family and Children’s Entertainer who may be best known for his album, The Cat Came Back. At the age of five I would stand on the living room couch with a plunger stick as my microphone and a Fisher Price guitar and pretend I was Fred in concert. I remember going to watch Fred perform at my parent’s company Christmas party and then would go and see him at The Children’s Festival. This man has a magic about him and at the time I couldn’t really name it but I sure could feel it. Years later in grade seven, once again, Fred had a major impact on my life. I was asked to perform a song in front of my school in the gymnasium and decided to perform “The Cat Came Back”. I remember looking out at all the students singing along and thinking, ‘this is what I want to do for the rest of my life”. I...