By Katie Ryan
Even in the realm of fiction, time marches on. One of Canada’s most beloved storytellers and best-selling authors said he’s been coming to terms with the passage of time with his own characters.
In one of the more recent Vinyl Cafe stories Stuart McLean wrote, Boy Wanted, the CBC radio host said the plot moves Sam – the son of comedic wife and husband duo Morley and Dave, who runs a secondhand record store – into his middle teenage years, entering high school and undertaking his first job. It’s a big step for McLean, who said he actually made the decision to age his characters a couple of years ago.
“It’s a hard thing to do because when I started the series, I chose the characters at ages which I adore. Sam was seven, a little boy who was totally immersed in the magic of boyhood,” McLean said over the phone from Texas, where he said he was working and visiting friends. “I realized if time didn’t pass, everything would become stale and there wouldn’t be growth. And so I had to suck it up and move them. I also realized that I had become attached to these people and if I was truly going to grow them, as well as the joy of growth, painful things happen as time passes – people die, people get sick – and I just knew that part of me didn’t want to face that.
“That is reality, so I made that decision and I made that commitment to the characters, to treat them like real people,” McLean added. “I have been kind of dragging my feet in aging him, so the story was fulfilling that commitment, acknowledging that Sam was older.”
By the time McLean’s 2012 Winter Tour reaches Lloydminster on Feb. 21, McLean said he will have already recorded Boy Wanted and will instead be sharing two new stories, including one about the adventures Dave has at a car wash with the car of his neighbourhood nemesis, Mary Turlington. It will be read from stage, as well as a flashback to Dave’s youth. Of course, McLean will include a classic Vinyl Cafe story in the show and  share the stage with a Canadian musician. During his previous trip to the Vic Juba Community Theatre, McLean brought the Good Lovelies, this time he brings with him “mysticssippi” blues man, Harry Manx.
“I think the CBC’s job is to shine a light on the country and to mirror the country back to itself, to be part of the conversation that the country is having, which is what defines us as a country. It’s how we decide who we are by talking to each other,” said McLean.
“Part of our job is to shine a light on young Canadian singer-songwriters. Mostly we have young, new singer-songwriters – Harry doesn’t fit into that mould, he’s been around for awhile, but he’s a wonderful act. He was in our show once before – he just knocked my socks off – I wanted to tour five or eight years now, I think, and now we have the chance. He’s a fabulous performer.”
Since 1994, McLean’s hour-long variety radio show has had over one million folks tune in to hear the stories about Dave and his family. But, said McLean, in the beginning there were other characters he wrote about too. It was only in the second year of the Vinyl Cafe that McLean said Dave “elbowed his way to the front of the stage” and demanded more attention.
“When the show began, it began with this idea that this guy ran a secondhand record store, but he didn’t have a family or a home at that time. It was halfway through the first season that suddenly we followed him home for a story. When we got there we found that if he had a home, he had a wife and two kids,” said the award-winning journalist and humorist.
“I really love these characters and I feel like I know them. What keeps me connected is the writing and exploring their lives. I just want to know what happens at the end of their story and the only way I can find out is by writing it.”
McLean’s latest published work, The Vinyl Cafe Notebooks, marks his ninth book, however, unlike the other Vinyl Cafe books, this one is a collection of essays which he’s shared on the radio. Compiled from 15 years of writing, McLean said he was able to find enough “good stuff” that he felt might deserve to be in a book.
“It’s the kind of writing that I really enjoy doing,” he said. “Probably my biggest writing hero is E.B. White and he edited the ‘talk of the town’ section of The New Yorker magazine and  many of those are the essays that I might have submitted to The New Yorker, if they were still doing that kind of stuff or if I didn’t have the outlet of my own radio show.”
But with his own radio show and tours that keep him on the road 200 days of the year, the well-traveled writer said he has no plans to stop penning essays and the popular Vinyl Cafe stories. At least not yet.
“I dreamed of being a writer who worked on the radio when I was a kid and I am a very lucky man that my dream came true. Funny enough, it gets harder and harder – you think it would get easier – but I think you keep lifting the bar on yourself. By a mistake one day, you write a really good story and now you are not happy, unless all of them are that good,” McLean said. “For a lot of people it’s just light entertainment, but for others it’s an important piece. I am mindful of that too. I feel a big responsibility to myself and to those that I love around me.
“When decisions are made to stop or not to continue, it will be made with them in mind,” he continued. “But now that I am running along the road, I know that there are some people on the sidelines who are happy that I am doing it and so I am happy to do it for them. It’s my act of service.”