Beware the semi-retired television personality - just when you think they've gone away for good, there'll be a special in the works.
Plus, if you ask them about their grandchildren, they'll tell you.
After years of hemming and hawing, Tommy Hunter and his producer buddy Les Pouliot - the inseparable team behind The Tommy Hunter Show - figure it might be time to put Canada's Country Gentleman on TV again.
The 61-year-old Canadian icon said so during a phone interview last month - after the requisite five or 10 minutes of chatting about the weather, of course.
"He (Pouliot) called a few months ago and he said, 'Maybe it's time to do a special. You've been away from television for five or six years and maybe the timing is right.' So we're talkin' (to CBC). We sent a proposal in. We'll let them mull it over.''
Performing tonight in the Winspear Centre, Hunter is on one of his most gruelling tours since his show was cancelled in 1992. He'll play 30 dates over two months - which represents half his usual workload for a year. He needs the rest of the time for, among other pursuits, a planned 1,900-km snowmobile trek across Northern Ontario. (He lamented that there wasn't much snow in Ontario last month - be careful what you wish for.) "I bought a snowmobile, and my wife and I have gone crazy,'' he says. "We're like a couple of kids with this thing.''
Then, if it gets too cold, the Hunters have a retreat in Phoenix.
Then there's the boat ... and let's not even mention the grandchildren ...
It's clear that while Hunter didn't go willingly into that dark semi-retirement, he sure is enjoying it. He says that the only rough time he had was the first year or so after CBC brass pulled the plug. Keep in mind that the man had been turning up at the same studio for 36 years in a row - Country Hoedown for nine years and The Tommy Hunter Show for 27 years. He wasn't as upset about the cancellation as he was with the cheesy way the CBC handled it, he says.
"I missed it at first. It's like anything else. I'd been going to that studio for 36 years. That's a long time. Then all of the sudden, some stranger I hardly knew came down and told me it was all over. I felt that my friends would at least face me eyeball to eyeball. I felt that I had failed or something. And you say, 'What happened?' I missed not going in and it was a change. Financially, I didn't have anything to worry about, but it was something I enjoyed doing and I couldn't quite figure out why.''
Now that Hunter has presumably figured it out - it's pretty simple: He likes being an entertainer - what kind of special would he deliver now? While he helped introduce stars like Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Shania Twain to Canadian audiences, the country scene has changed since 1992.
"I wouldn't go back and resurrect the television show and just do an extension of that,'' he says. "I think I'd wipe the slate clean and start with a fresh approach. How I would do it I have no idea. But I'm not about to put a rope around me and start swinging over the stage. I've established a certain thing on television and I have to keep those elements in there.
"Basically, the television show was an extension of what I am.
"I wanted it to be good. I wanted people (who claim not to like country music) to look at it and say, 'It's not my favourite music, he's not my favourite performer, but that's a well-done show.' It's the same thing when I go out on tour.''
But like he says, there's no rush. Hunter will do a CBC special when he's good and ready and not one second before. After all, there's miles of snowmobile trails in Northern Ontario and more than 30,000 islands in Georgian Bay. It sounds like he wants to explore them all.
Tickets are still available for tonight's show, for $27.50 ($25.50 for students and seniors) at the Winspear box office (428-1414).
