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Donald Shubert Fleming's mother wanted him to be a musician.
After all these years, he was finally recognized for making music on the typewriter keys covering curling.
"Her favourite music was Shubert's," said the Damon Runyon character, who was better known from coast-to-coast as "Buckets."
Fleming, 86, was inducted to the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame yesterday for his coverage of curling through a career which involved covering 26 Briers and 15 world curling championships.
"It was a wonder era," Fleming told the Brier Brunch at the Purple Heart Lounge prior to the final. "I wish we could do it all over again."
It was an era when the only people who had more fun than the curlers were the media members.
Egged on all week by a couple of local media types to tell the legendary Gerda Munsinger story as part of his acceptance speech, Fleming accepted the challenge.
"It was 1972 at the Air Canada Silver Broom in Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany," the former Edmonton Journal scribe began.
He told of how Air Canada used to provide free airline tickets for media members, but how his paper had a policy of not accepting free trips. "They turned it down," said Fleming. No problem. But they also turned the trip down. No problem. Fleming took his holidays and took the trip anyway.
He told of how he ended up meeting up with Gerda Munsinger as he made his way around Garmish.
Munsinger's affairs with Canadian government ministers almost brought down John Diefenbaker's government in a scandal similar to the Profumo Affair in England. She was big news back home.
Buckets explained how he figured it would be a great idea to make the most of the moment and escort the infamous Gerda to sit beside him on the press bench.
This resulted in Michael Burns Sr., the official Brier and Silver Broom photographer who was also inducated at the ceremonies, to "preserve the moment for posterity."
Fleming also explained that one person who did take the free Air Canada trip was local broadcaster Wes Montgomery. "Wes couldn't get to a microphone fast enough," reported Fleming all these years later.
The result was that in addition to Munsinger being big news back home, Fleming became big news in Edmonton. And the Journal had a wee bit of difficulty trying to explain how their man at the Silver Broom wasn't writing anything for the paper, but was big news at the Silver Broom. "I was suspended for a month for insubordination," he said.
Buckets explained there was a sequel to the story. Over the course of that Silver Broom, he came to discover that "among Gerda's talents was that she was also a curler."
At the next Silver Broom, in Regina, they needed to throw a few rinks together to curl some games on the green ice to get it ready for the event.
"Matt Baldwin decided we should put in a team for the fun bonspiel. He decided he should have Gerda play third, Fleming second and find another tootsie to play lead. We ran into a bit of a problem, though. Gerda had been deported from Canada as an enemy spy in making her rounds of the cabinet ministers.
"She was noted as the greatest cabinet maker in the world," he finished his story with a punch-line.
Fleming said he's amazed that an Edmonton Brier could draw almost 300,000 people.
"Terry Morris and his committee did a great job," he said.
"To tell you the truth, I never wanted a Brier in my own town.
"It was too much work."