Toronto Sun - reporter Part 1

First, a sincere note of thanks to city editors at the Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator, Brantford Expositor and other suburban newspapers who did not hire me in the fall and winter of 1974. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Getting hired by any of those newspapers might have kept me from focusing on the Toronto Sun, an underdog tabloid housed in a creaky old factory in downtown Toronto. The tabloid was launched Nov. 1, 1971, by Toronto Telegram staffers after its demise two days earlier. From the start, it was known for girlie photos and crime stories.

It took several attempts to pin down city editor Les Pyette for a job interview, but when that day came, the interview was with Pyette and Hartley Steward, the managing editor.

Remember that interview in great detail. Sitting there, sober for six months, a thick folder holding clippings from previous newspapers on my lap, thoughts of landing a job at a major newspaper in my hometown, coming full circle - Toronto newspaper carrier to Toronto reporter.

Most of the clippings I showed Pyette and Steward were from the Richmond Review. It seemed like the Review's Mickey Carlton was at my side. Pyette seemed to appreciate my award-winning accident photo, a racy story about my evening with The Happy Hooker, some of my crime stories, some cheesecake photos.

But I think this is what got me the police reporter/photographer job.

When Pyette and Steward asked me what kind of money I was looking for, I said: "Well, I always want to make more than my previous job. When I left the Richmond Review, I was making $216 a week. How about $217?"

They said they would let me know and we parted company. Several anxious weeks passed before Pyette called the home of my sister, Gloria Martin, where I was staying to let me know the job was mine as of January 26, 1975.

On my first or second day on the job, reporter Connie Nicholson (the future Connie Woodcock) said to me: "I hear you came cheaply," meaning my starting pay. "Yes," said I, "but I'm here."

Truthfully, I would have accepted $25 a week for a crack at working for this upstart Toronto tabloid, with its casual attire Mondays through Sundays and staffed by the cream of the Telegram crop, including Doug Creighton, Andy Donato, Peter Worthington, Norm Betts, Bob MacDonald, Kathy Brooks, John Downing, Glen Woodcock etc.

To fully appreciate the success of the Toronto Sun is to have worked in the old Eclipse factory at King and John Streets, before the move to the new King St. E. building in the summer of 1975. Fond memories rest there, including one final late-night poker game in the newsroom.

Pyette's newsroom advice for Sun reporters was to write "tight and bright" and to make your copy "sing." My crime reporting training at the Richmond Review fit nicely into the Sun mold.

My first byline at the Sun was for a story about a rooftop shooting at Canada Square. Shots had been fired, a rarity in Toronto in 1975, and the front page photo was of a bullet casing on the roof. The bullet was circled by an editor for emphasis.

My year on the Sun police desk was productive, with numerous plaudits from management for stories and photographs. The most heartbreaking story was the vanishing of four-year-old Cameron March in Burlington. No arrests were made and he was never found.

Feeling secure on the job, I called former Sun city editor Ken Robertson, who had moved on to real estate, and told him I wanted to use the $3,000 saved while at the Richmond Review to buy a house. He called me at the Sun late one night and said he had the perfect house. We were there by midnight with a flashlight checking out this one-bedroom "doll house."

With the $3,000, plus two mortgages, got approval to buy the house, which I called home for 16 years and which kept me within a comfortable 20-minute drive to the Sun.

During my 19 years at the Sun, it seemed every time I had the urge to try something new, the opportunity was there. With a year of police reporting under my belt, Pyette moved me into courts to run a new Sun court bureau, complete with desk, chair, typewriter and telephone.

A few of the more memorable court cases: the arraignment of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards on heroin charges; a bizarre torso murder trial where the defendant said he cut up the victim because he couldn't get her into his VW; the trial of a kidnapper who refused to speak a word from the time of his arrest to his prison sentence.

As a courtroom regular, it was always a good day when Canadian criminal lawyer Edward Greenspan was before a judge and jury. He was, and still is, the Tiger Woods of the courtroom. David Humphrey was another celebrated lawyer, for his courtroom presentations and for his CFL past, when, as a spectator, he tripped a football player from the sidelines.

Following two years in courts, it was on to general reporting, with trips to New York for Son of Sam coverage and an interview with Curtis Sliwa and his Guardian Angels; a trip through Europe for a hockey tournament; an interview in Illinois with UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek; election campaign columns during the 1977 provincial election, which included William Davis from my Brampton days and the NDP's Stephen Lewis, a most eloquent speaker.

During a spring vacation in 1980, I was driving a rural stretch of the trans-Canada in Quebec on my way to Halifax to visit my younger sister, Sylvia. Suddenly visible ahead of me in the light late-afternoon rain was Terry Fox, the one-legged, cross-Canada marathon runner. Drove past him, made a quick U-turn and caught up to him for a 15-minute interview on the side of the road. His escort in a van stopped across the road and waited for us to complete the interview.

Terry said he was feeling let down by the media and people of Quebec, with little support or understanding of his run for cancer compared to the eastern provinces.

"The thing is, anyone can get cancer, it doesn't matter if you're French or English" said Terry.

Standing there in the rain, Terry, 20, wondered aloud what kind of reception he would get in Ontario. Assured him Ontario was waiting for him and after a firm handshake, full of confidence and determination, Terry resumed his run toward the largest reception of his run.

At the next town, I wrote my story from notes scribbled on the backs of cheques and phoned the Sun. Taking the time to file a story while on vacation earned me a $40 bonus, but the biggest bonus was meeting Terry Fox. His handshake is my all-time favourite, hands down.

One of my more bizarre telephone interviews as a general reporter was with a hostage taker during the 444-day Iran hostage crisis that began in November 1979. The young man, one of many holding 66 Americans hostage, was more interested in talking about Canada than the international drama. He had been to the United States and wanted to know more about Canada.

During a telephone interview with Ken Taylor, Canada's ambassador to Iran, I had no idea he was hiding six Americans who fled the U.S. Embassy at the start of the hostage drama. Two days later, after helping the Americans escape from Iran, Taylor was hailed as a hero. Canada/U.S. relations peaked. Americans bought vacationing Canadians beer.

Les Pyette always open to new features, said "yes" to a You Said It man-on-the-street suggestion, which I did for five years; "yes" to a lottery/gambling column called Luck of the Draw, which I wrote for 13 years; "yes" to a video column called Video Clips, which I wrote for 10 years. Plus one of Creighton's pet columns: Changes, a weekly review of milestones.

A lot of reporters detest having to do man-on-the-street interviews, but not me. I enjoyed talking to strangers daily, asking a wide variety of questions. One of my favourite responses came from a man stopped on Mount Pleasant Rd., who was asked: Do you talk to your plants. "No," he said, "but if I did, I would tell them they are a pain in the ass. "

Also enjoyed asking people for favourite jokes, household products they used, favourite current movies, anything but run-of-the-mill questions about politics. Tried a weekly Celebrity Question for awhile, but it was difficult reaching celebrities. Gordon Sinclair's middle-man said why would Sinclair want to ask people a question.

Tried to get Frankie Lane to come up with an interesting question as a popular singer and he said to ask people where they would like to see him perform. Peter O'Toole was the most cooperative. The actor said he was a hot dog addict and wanted to know who sold the best hot dogs in Toronto. The question produced some interesting answers.

Occasionally, I would devote columns to children, asking them their views. As Art Linkletter knew too well, kids do say the darndest things. When asked what they thought God looks like, five young thinkers provided priceless comments, including: "He's 104 and wears shorts."

My favourite man-on-the-street interview story was about a New York Daily News reporter who walked the streets of Manhattan asking questions for 27 years. Talking to strangers in New York is tricky at the best of times and he had to catch five a day. Some confrontations with people who did not want to be interviewed ended up in physical scuffles.

Peter Brewster, an assistant managing editor, came up with Luck of the Draw as a name for the weekly lottery/gambling column in the Sunday Sun. It fit perfectly for a column about lotto and casino news, draw results, an offer to check unchecked lottery tickets etc.

The Lotto Check feature invited readers to mail us photo copies of old tickets. Within weeks, we had found more than $2,500 in unclaimed prize money. Lotto Check was one of those features that become too popular, considering the lone lotto checker (me) had to manually check each and every ticket. Within a few months, Luck of the Draw dropped Lotto Check and stuck to lotto news and draw numbers.

Got a lot of mail from lottery ticket buyers over the years, but the oddest mail came from a lotto addict who began corresponding anonymously by sending me $25,000 worth of losing lottery tickets. He also mailed me photographs of rows of $50 and $100 bills taped to a wall and a wide variety of collectables. Never knew his name, so we called him the Unknown Lottery Freak.

A letter from another reader contained a crisp $100 bill. The reader said he had won a house after reading about the draw in my column. Donated the $100 to charity, but appreciated the letter.

Keeping readers up to date on lottery news prompted another call to the Sun in 1988. It was from a printing plant worker who said a new line of instant-win scratch tickets could be read with x-ray machines. Reporter John Schmied took the initial call and we teamed up for a series of stories that proved the tickets could be read using an industrial x-ray machine.

Our stories forced the Ontario Lottery Corporation to withdraw $8 million worth of tickets and the OLC chairman resigned. It also earned Schmied and I a 1998 Spot News Honorable Mention in the Sun's annual Edward Dunlop Award of Excellence competition. First prize went to George Gross for his sports coverage of disgraced Olympic runner Ben Johnson.

In the mid-1980's, Howard MacGregor and I, both poker players and members of the multiple lottery office pools in the Sun newsroom, were sharing rewrite desk duties. During quiet times, our conversations often turned to lotteries and the stories we had heard. We approached Canada Wide Features, a Sun-owned book publishing and distribution business, and suggested a book on lotteries.

We chose Lotteries: Winners, Losers and Other Stuff for a title and before you could spell jackpot, we were pending authors. It was a slow process, doing the research and compiling the stories, but we eventually accumulated enough stories and photographs to fill 102 pages.

The paperback promotional tour got Howard and I on TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies, for an Elwy Yost interview, and on Hamilton's Tom Cherrington talk show. I had been on CHUM radio doing video reviews for awhile, but being on television to promote our book was a first. Enjoyed the experience, but definitely preferred a desk, chair and typewriter/computer.

The TV exposure and some newspaper reviews helped sell about 3,000 copies. Not in Pierre Berton's league, but it is comforting to know our Winners, Losers and Other Stuff is listed in Canada's national archives library records, accessible on the Internet.

VCRs and disc players were relatively new in 1983 when Pyette agreed with me that it was time to introduce a video column. Video Clips made its debut in the Sunday Sun's TV Guide on February 6, 1983, and continues today from the desk of Jim Thomson. Much like Luck of the Draw, the column filled a readership need in an area that would rapidly grow.

I was a Beta man after buying my first VCR, a monster Zenith, in 1980. Rentals weren't allowed in early 1980, only purchases averaging $100 a flick. Alien and Animal House were my first two purchases. Rental stores began opening late in 1980 following some studio court battles.

It seems strange now to go to auctions and see boxes of original studio releases selling for $5 to $10 a box now that DVDs are so popular. But in the early days of Video Clips, having an easy access to advance video releases was like being a kid in a candy store.

One of the perks of the video column was getting approval from Pyette to attend the annual January electronics show in Las Vegas, where all of the latest home entertainment toys were on display. The shows provided months of Video Clips material and met some celebs while there, including Harvey Keitel, one of my favourite actors.

During the 1991 electronics show, Col. Tom Parker was at the Las Vegas Hilton to mark the release of an Elvis Presley commemoration stamp. Took time out to line up for an hour to have Presley's former manager sign two first day envelopes. He was looking old and weak and his signature was Col with the "l" drifting away.

One of Parker's autographs was for me and the other was for Pyette, a longtime Elvis fan. It was a token payback for hiring me and for all he had done for me over the years.

The years flew by and for someone who didn't know if he would last a day or a week on a major Toronto daily, the 10-year mark was suddenly approaching. Ten years at the Sun meant a two-month sabbatical, plus vacation time. Management let me take my sabbatical a couple of months early, so it was off to Europe in the fall of 1984 for nine adventurous weeks of train, bus and boat travel.

Several years later, I moved over to the rewrite desk to see how it would fit and it fit like a glove. This was before e-mails and attachments, so reporters and columnists near and far phoned in their copy. And there I stayed until accepting the Sun's first of several buyout offers in December of 1993.

For a veteran, two-fingered poke and hunt typist, this rewrite guy managed to keep up with the likes of Bob MacDonald, Mark Bonokoski, Paul Rimstead, Matthew Fisher and others during phone calls from around the world.

Remember the night Mark Bonokoski called from Berlin with his story about the fall of the wall in 1989. He promised to bring back a piece of the wall for me, but I didn't get one.

(Update: After reading this blog, Mark took the time to chip off a piece of his own Berlin wall rock and promptly mailed it to me. Many thanks, Mark.)

Also remember Rimstead's unique calls, when he would phone from a bar sounding rather tipsy and, starting from scratch, would create the most readable prose. He was gifted.

Rimstead, a Sun legend, knew about my battle with the bottle after I wrote a two-page, first-person story. When told to stop drinking or he would die, he stopped. While dictating copy during his dry spell, he told me it was just too difficult to write his type of column sober. Rimstead soon returned to the bottle and was among the first at the Sun to die prematurely.

In the early years at the Sun, there was no need for a union. Management took care of its own with sabbaticals every 10 years, profit sharing, stock options etc. In my 19 years at the Sun, I never had to ask for a raise.

In a nutshell, what the Sun consisted of was a bunch of qualified people coming to work each day with smiles on their faces. Management respected their talent and accepted their laid-back work ethics. It was the ultimate newspaper job. Like the late Jerry Gladman once told a neighbor: I am not going to work, I am going to be with friends."

You never knew what to expect as a Sun reader or a Sun employee. Hiring Lou Grant, aka Ed Asner, as city editor for a day while he was in Toronto for a TV movie, was brilliant. Booking the entire SkyDome for the Sun's 20th Anniversary party, midway and all, was a welcomed extravagance. The lavish party had "Doug Creighton" written all over it.

When the Toronto Sun was named in Forbes as one of Canada's Top 100 companies to work for, it did not surprise Sun staffers. What they didn't know was how long it would last.

Next blog: Toronto Sun (Part 2) - The Day The Music Died