Share a hobby you’ve picked up recently — what got you into it?

For me, the newest hobby in my life has been diving into the world of old LPs and 45s. Not just listening to them, but researching them, learning their history, and uncovering the stories tucked inside those cardboard sleeves. We even picked up a record player so we could actually hear them the way they were meant to be heard.

Every album still sounds amazing! She really took care of them; actually, she took care of everything she had, with some things still in their original boxes.

This all started after my mother‑in‑law passed away and we inherited her record collection. At first, I was simply sorting through the albums, but once I started noticing how old some of them were, curiosity took over. A few were far older than I expected — the kind of records you don’t just glance at; you investigate. That’s when the research began.

Thanks to AI, digging into the history of these albums has become a lot easier. Dates, artists, labels, reissues, cultural moments — it’s all right there waiting to be uncovered. And the more I learn, the more fascinated I become. What started as a simple task of going through inherited belongings has turned into a surprisingly meaningful hobby, one that connects past and present in a way I didn’t anticipate.

It’s funny how a hobby can find you when you’re not even looking. I find myself playing records every day now. I played one from Donny Osmond and Shawn Cassidy yesterday… Talk about nostalgia!

I even found some Newfoundland music, mainly Joey Smallwood’s “Like Ya Would”. I found it on YouTube if you want to have a listen. It is hilarious!

Yes, this is THE Joey Smallwood, our Prime Minister at the time, who brought Newfoundland & Labrador into Confederation with the rest of Canada in 1949.

So much music…It’s going to take months to go through it all.

Joey Smallwood – Like Ya Would (Kelly’s Dream) (1979)