I lived in Westport. My friend Willy D was coaching a girl’s softball team in Westport and Meat showed up with his daughter Pearl. Willie D put her on that team with his daughter Elizabeth then invited Meat to join our softball team. Elizabeth and Pearl have remained in touch all these years.

Meat was born Marvin Lee Aday. But he hated Marvin as there was some commercial when he was growing up about a fat kid named Marvin. So he changed his name to Michael Lee Aday.

After Meat got into drugs and alcohol following the Bat Out of Hell album he and Jim Steinman (who wrote that music) broke up and Jim wanted to sing his own music. When I met Meat he had licked all chemical dependencies. But according to Meat apparently Jim was controlled by some “wise guys” who were trying to control the revenue from that album. A lawsuit followed. Michael Lee Aday decided to again legally change his name to Meat Loaf to control that name. Although I referred to his wife as Leslie Loaf I am not sure she legally changed her married name but we all
thought of her as Leslie Loaf.

We lived in Ridgefield for about 20 years before moving back to South Bend. Our daughter was at Ridgefield High School back then but had friends at other local high schools. We’ve been Meatloaf fans forever, and always heard good things about him from people who knew him. Of course, there were celebrities everywhere in that part of the state. Robert Vaughn, Judy Collins, and David Cassidy were in Ridgefield, and others were scattered here and there. I remember Jose Feliciano singing in Georgetown. I was shopping at Ancona’s one evening and spotted Dick Morris in one aisle and Mary Travers in another.