The day I was born, March 1, 1994, Celine Dion was solid at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "The Power of Love." Not a bad song to start your life on. My musicial director Dan Kanter, whoseguilty pleasure is Celine Dion, must have been really excited that day. It was all over the radio, so I probably heard her belting it out before I got my first look at the blue sky over Stratford, Ontario. My hometown is 2,450 miles northeast of Los Angeles, 530 miles northwest of New York City, 1,312 miles due north of Disney World, and totally on the other side of the world from Tokyo. But that day, people all over the planet were listening to Celine Dion and loving it.
I am a proud Canadian and hope that comes through in everything I do. I love hockey, maple syrup and Caramilk bars. Canada is awesome country in general, and Stratford is an excellent place to call home. The people are nice, but not easily impressed. I go back there to visit Grandpa and Grandma and my friends, Ryan and Chaz, as often as I can, and everybody treats me the same always.
Stratford is a small town of about 30,500 people, named after Stratford-upon-Avon in England, which is the birthpalce of William Shakespeare. So it makes sense that there's always a lot of comedy and drama going on that our Stratford is the home of a huge Shakespeare festival - the biggest in North America. Every summer, about a million tourists come through to see the plays at the Avon Theatre, check out yhe local arts and crafts and poke around the town, which gets pretty quiet in the winter.
