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Toronto Sun 2 - The Day the Music Died

Thursday, November 5, 1992, was, for many veteran Sun employees, the day the music died. It was the day we were told J. Douglas Creighton, founding publisher of the Sun and chief executive officer, had been ousted. No explanation then, or now.

Employees working that afternoon were summoned to the second-floor foyer, where Paul Godfrey, an ex-politician sounding much like Al Haig in his "I am in control" speech after Ronald Reagan was shot, announced that Doug was out and he was in.

At Godfrey's side for the announcement was Ron Osborne, president and CEO of McLean Hunter Limited, a Canadian magazine empire and majority shareholder of the Sun.

We listened, but our hearts and minds were with Creighton.

My first impulse was to shout "shame on you all," but stood there speechless, stunned by the news. I soon turned my back on Godfrey and his speech and returned to my desk.

After the assembly cleared, newsroom staff talked about Creighton. Corporate takeovers happen all the time on Bay Street, but this was a much-loved newsman who had worked his way up the media ladder, from Telegram police reporter to Sun founder, with heart and kind words.

Walked over to Christie Blatchford's desk. Blatchford, never one to mince words, said "f... this" and said the best way to support Creighton was to publish a full-page ad in the Sun asking "Why?" Why was Creighton ousted a year before his 65th birthday and his self-declared resignation, with Godfrey named as his replacement?

Blatchford wrote copy for the "Why?" ad, which read, in part: "Doug Creighton was more than a chief executive officer to the people who worked for him. He gave us loyalty, compassion and humanity."

Sun employees lined up to help pay for the ad, which included the names of all who contributed. We showed our support, the ad was published, but the "Why?" was never answered.

On the day of the announcement, Les Pyette, Bob MacDonald and I were talking about what we could do for Creighton to lift his spirits. We didn't know where he was, but we knew he must have been devastated.

Pyette and MacDonald knew that Creighton's 64th birthday was on November 27.

Okay, how about a birthday party?

But where?

How about the old Eclipse building, where the Sun began, I suggested.

Great idea, said Pyette.

After work that night, I drove to the Eclipse building and parked beside it on John Street. Looking up, I saw a sign at the second floor reading "office space for rent." The floor where it all began in 1971 was vacant, as was an upper floor.

Perfect.

Left the "for rent" telephone number with Pyette the next day and calls were made to secure the floors for Creighton's party. We had three weeks to make it happen, so a committee, including Lorrie Goldstein, Tom MacMillan and Blatchford, was set up.


Sun cartoonist Andy Donato, a longtime friend of Creighton's, designed a button with his favourite caricature of Doug below the word "Why" and a large question mark. The button was purchased and worn by employees throughout the building, with proceeds going to a charity.

Donato also demonstrated his loyalty to Creighton by announcing he would include his image in every one of his Sun cartoons until Doug's 65th birthday. And he did just that, very effectively, for 12 months, capping the tribute with a classic cottage scene.

It was quite remarkable to watch media giants like Donato and Blatchford support Creighton with their tools of the trade, and back-stabbing Sun board members be damned. (Creighton considered some board members who voted to oust him as close friends.)

Creighton's party turned into a love-fest, with 900 Sun employees, family and friends, the Toronto police chief, veteran cops and others cramming into the creaky old Eclipse building. We all wanted to be there to say "thanks, Doug" and said it loud and clear.

Some angry, anti-Sun board feelings were expressed by employees and if the gathering had been held in the 1800's, we might have been tempted to light torches, storm down King Street as an unruly mob and level the Sun.

But Creighton, always the gentleman, urged us all to carry on at his beloved Sun, which had been his home away from home for 21 years. Reluctantly, we did. But it wasn't the same without Creighton. The writing was on the wall. If it could happen to Creighton, it could happen to anyone.

(Creighton later set up an office downtown to keep occupied and wrote a book - Sunburned - Memoirs of a Newspaperman. He also attended the Sun's 25th Anniversary party at a noisy nightclub, much to the delight of employees, but a sad follow-up to the SkyDome party five years earlier. Severe foot gout kept me from attending Doug's funeral in January 2004, but Big Red is always in my thoughts. I treasure copies of videos deskman Phil Johnston took at the party and at Creighton's office launch party.)

In the summer of 1993, I was about to call it quits. The newsroom was no longer the fun place it used to be. When rumours began circulating that the Sun would soon be offering buyouts in a cost-cutting move, it was perfect timing. Waited for the buyout package and said adios on December 31, 1993, just weeks shy of 19 years.

I boycotted the Sun until Godfrey resigned and then became a faithful reader again. My daily routine in semi-retirement is a sub, a Sun and a spot to watch trains go by.

In December of 2002, Les Pyette was counting down the days to his retirement when I e-mailed him about my negatives from 30 years of rock and roll concerts and other music events, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin. Many had never been published.

Les said "come on down."

Entered the Sun for the first time in years and thanks to veteran Sun photo magician Len Fortune, my eight-page photo story was published on December 28, 2002. Early that morning, I drove to downtown Toronto to buy a dozen copies in a corner store.

While reading the pages at home, at least two morning radio talk show hosts had praise for the Saturday rock and roll feature. It felt like old times.

Miss Pyette and the Sun as it was from 1975 to that incredulous day in 1992. It was a once-in-a-lifetime newspaper experience.

As I said at a farewell party in January, 1994, I felt blessed, for sharing in the Sun glory days, and for the decades of media memories.

And for the guidance of these men along the way: Dwayne Howe - Toronto Daily Star; Robert Turnbull - Toronto Globe and Mail; William Doole - Brampton Daily Times; Mickey Carlton - Richmond Review, Les Pyette - Toronto Sun.

30

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

Richmond Review - photographer

Time for me to pay homage to the late, great Michael "Mickey" Carlton, editor, columnist, photographer, whose patient tutoring in tabloid journalism and photography at the Richmond Review would play a key role in my eventual 19-year stint with the Toronto Sun.

Carlton, with his signature fedora, was among the last of the Walter Winchell era cops and girlie photo newsmen when hired by the Review's elderly, cigar chomping owner/publisher Herb Gates in 1961.

Richmond, home of Vancouver International Airport, had never seen Carlton-style journalism before and while many readers complained about the scantily-clad women and cops and robbers headlines, Gates watched in awe as the weekly newspaper's circulation jumped by 15,000 readers.

The Review first caught my eye while working at the Optimist in nearby Ladner. It beckoned and when an opening for a full-time photographer was advertised, I was on the telephone immediately setting up an interview with Editor Carlton. He hired me when I said money was not as issue.

In 1969, the Review was a broadsheet newspaper located in a long, narrow office on Third Road next to an adjoining Chinese restaurant. Staff included Carlton, reporter/photographer Stuart Clugston, women's editor Jean Baker, an ad salesman and a receptionist. It was a small staff, but it was making big waves.

It was the Age of Aquarius but Carlton wanted all of the sex, drugs and rock and roll stories the Review could handle. Carlton's focus on gams and gangsters set the Review apart from most other newspapers in Canada (until the Toronto Sun made its debut in 1971).

My first photo assignment was an all-day race car event. Spent seven hours taking photos and six more hours in the darkroom developing, printing and re-printing my favourite photos. The next morning, proudly walked into Carlton's office with a pile of photos.

"Garbage, garbage, garbage," Carlton growled while holding up each photo before tossing it into a waste basket. My ego did a nose dive. I felt like a Broadway play that was being cancelled after its first performance. Several third-choice photos did get published but my future here looked dim.

Carlton, who mumbled something to Gates about this "new guy," could have said don't slam the door on your way out. But he didn't. Instead, he asked what I could do behind an Underwood typewriter. What followed were five creative and exciting years at the Review.

In fact, Carlton's reality check made me realize I had so much more to learn. His patience and guidance improved my writing and photography skills and a dramatic motorcycle accident photo later would win me a second-place spot news award in a B.C. weekly newspaper competition.

Another accident photo haunted me for years. I was on my way to the Breakers nightclub in Point Roberts, Wa., one night when I saw a demolished car part way up a hydro pole. Got out my camera and walked up to one of the constables on the scene.

"Any injuries?" I asked.

The constable didn't say a word, but pointed to something in the front seats. I walked closer and sitting upright were the charred remains of two teenagers. Later, in the darkroom, one of my photos showed the charred head of one of the victims.

(Photo at left: Carlton's tips on photographing beautiful women was productive, as this favourite photo shows.)

Gates and Carlton were always open to new ideas and that is how Backstage with John Cosway began in 1970. The column soon became part of a page or two of entertainment news in Richmond and nearby Vancouver.

During a prolonged Newspaper Guild strike that sidelined Vancouver Sun and Province reporters and photographers, Clugston and I provided extensive coverage of the 1970 Led Zeppelin concert in Vancouver. Clugston's exclusive photos of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page at the airport and at a press conference, plus a full page of concert photos, remain the talk among Led Zeppelin fans today.

We also ventured into Vancouver for concerts by the Rolling Stones, Elton John, the Kinks, Frank Zappa etc. In the early 1970's, the Review hired Rick McGrath, direct from the underground Georgia Strait newspaper, and fulltime photographer Brian Lee. We all shared in writing record reviews for record companies that endorsed our entertainment coverage.

But the most memorable event in my five years at the Review was the 1970 Festival Express weekend in Calgary. I was on vacation for two weeks and heading home to Richmond after a week in California when I decided to make a right turn and head for Calgary. Arrived in time to get a weekend media pass.

Checked into the York Hotel in downtown Calgary and headed for the evening concert with my camera and a good supply of film. Snapped crowd photos and of Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Ian and Sylvia, Delaney and Bonnie and others on stage.

Had a couple of drinks after the concert and while taking the elevator to my fourth floor room, I heard a party going on at the second floor. Left the camera in my room and returned to the second floor. Many of the Festival Express performers were there partying.

Crashed the party and for the next several hours, I absorbed, in great detail, the experience of partying with the likes of Janis Joplin, Ian and Sylvia, Buddy Guy, members of Sha Na Na, the Good Brothers etc. Got to bed at 4 a.m.

The following night, after the final Festival Express concert, there was more partying on the second floor. Left the camera in my room and joined the party. (Photo at left: Jerry Garcia shares a bottle of wine while watching other performers.)

Two hours later, the booze ran out. Ian Tyson and I went downstairs in search of more alcohol but everything was closed. It was too early to end a farewell party, so I hopped in a taxi, went to the nearest bootlegger and bought two 24-packs of beer and several bottles of liquor. Even donated a sealed bottle of Tequila purchased in Tijuana a week earlier.

It was the least I could do for rock and rollers who contributed to one of Canada's most memorable series of concerts. The excursion by train added to the charm of it all.

The Review published some of my Festival Express photos and a story, but many thanks to the producers of last year's Festival Express DVD for reviving the film footage and for the flood of rock and roll memories, some made bittersweet by the deaths of Joplin and The Band's Rick Danko.

Richmond being the home of Vancouver International Airport, an Airport column was a natural and Carlton agreed. Writing the column opened doors to Canadian Pacific Airlines and Air Canada flights in exchange for travel stories. CP flew me to Paris and San Francisco and Air Canada flew me first class to Toronto aboard the inaugural 747 flight.

As entertainment editor, also dabbled in restaurant reviews with a column called The Menu. Two memorable experiences from The Menu: getting food poisoning at the opening of an East Indian restaurant, and receiving a letter from McDonald's after questioning the quality and nutritional value of their food. Well, I did say McDonald's served great milk.

But my pet was the Backstage column, which opened a lot of doors to celebrities appearing at Richmond and Vancouver nightclubs and concert halls and at movie premieres.

Got stuck in a hotel elevator briefly with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie on the way to a penthouse reception following the 1971 Vancouver premiere of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Beatty complained about the muffled sound in the old Orpheum Theatre and became quite anxious when the elevator stalled briefly. He admitted he had a fear of elevators at the best of times.

Management of Isy's downtown Vancouver nightclub allowed me a 20-minute interview with Buddy Rich and up front photographs of the famous drummer. Took a full roll of film catching the many faces of Rich on stage before patrons started to complain.

Also caught up to Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins at Isy's and sat down with him to show him photographs of him and the Hawks taken in Brampton, which he hadn't seen. Plus an interview and photo when Tiny Tim and his new bride came to town.

Xavier Hollander, aka the Happy Hooker, was a fascinating interview in a large stock room following a rowdy stage show in her new nightclub. She was about to demonstrate something when the janitor walked in to get a broom. Didn't get a chance to tell her the man she married was a former neighbor of mine from Euclid Ave. in Toronto.


When invited to a post-Rick Derringer/Edgar Winter rock concert party in a nearby hotel, I had no idea it would involve a personal test. The party began with someone unfolding a huge pile of white powder on a table. It was a snort-what-you-could buffet. Did I want to go beyond booze and pot? Drew the line and stuck to beer.

The Richmond Review was one big, entertaining party, but like they say, all good things do come to an end. The beginning of the end at the Review was Carlton's departure and a decision by Gates to retire and sell the newspaper to David Radler's Stirling newspaper chain.

I was working on a story in the new Review building Gates had purchased to get away from the rat-infested office next to the Chinese restaurant when three co-workers went to lunch. On their return, they said all agreed it was time to join the Newspaper Guild.

With my yes vote, the four-person application for ratification became the smallest union effort ever recorded in B.C. But it succeeded and we all got hefty raises and retroactive pay. Gates was still owner but he understood we joined the guild before the Stirling takeover to protect our jobs.

Not long after the departure of our beloved Gates, my drinking caught up to me. With the help of a former sports writer, who had become an AA executive, I got off the booze in the summer of 1974. Covering the nightclub scene sober just didn't have the same appeal.

Years later, while working on the Sun rewrite desk, columnist Paul Rimstead told me during the brief period he was off the booze that it was too difficult to write the type of column he wrote without drinking. He went back to drinking and it killed him. In 1974, I didn't think drinking to accommodate the job was an option worth considering.

Said farewell to some very good friends and co-workers in Richmond, including Carlton, who came to the farewell party, and headed home to Toronto. I was jobless, but had my payment-free and cherished 1969 Cougar convertible and $3,000 saved from selling used goods at weekend flea markets at the local drive-in and by not drinking.

The Richmond Review had been a dream job for five years and my thanks to the Mickey Carlton for making it all possible.

Next blog: The Toronto Sun - reporter

The Ladner Optimist - reporter etc.

Friends in Ontario called me an optimist for heading west without a job and only a few hundred dollars in my pocket.

Little did they know my first reporting job in British Columbia would be at the Optimist, a small weekly newspaper in Ladner, located in the Municipality of Delta.

The night before my interview with owners Edgar Dunning and Ernest Bexley, I drove to Ladner to check out the town and the newspaper. Someone in the newsroom waved at me through the window. Everything felt like a job in Ladner was in the cards.

During the interview, Bexley was most interested in whether there was anything in my life that would cut short my stay at the Optimist. They probably had seen a lot of young reporters come and go. Assured him that after sleeping in my car and eating once a day, I would be grateful for the job and would be around for awhile.

Didn't ask what the job paid because money wasn't a factor for me when applying for a job. Dunning seemed to appreciate that and my scrapbook from Ontario newspapers.

They hired me for the do-it-all job: reporter, photographer, columnist, sports writer, darkroom technician, driver to pick up the papers at a North Vancouver printing plant etc.

One of the first challenges as a new Optimist staffer was to learn how to spell Tsawwassen, a nearby scenic coastal village that was blossoming as a ferry port.

The second challenge, a week later, was to get my car back after a GMAC repo man seized it for $150 owing after tracking me from Sudbury. Michael Finlay, a reporter at the Vancouver Sun I barely knew, loaned me the $150. (Never bought another GM car.)

Within weeks of settling into the job, I was writing In Our Corner, a community tidbits column mostly fed by stories told around the tables in the local Ladner Hotel beer room.

Got a phone call one day from a reader, a guy named Doug. He wanted to know if the Optimist was interested in a sports comeback story. He was local, so we set up an interview at his house.

Walked into his modest house the next day and it was empty except for limited furniture and barbells and other weightlifting equipment. Not being sports-minded, had no idea I was about to interview Vancouver-born Doug Hepburn, once considered the world's strongest man.

Hepburn, the first man to bench press 400, 450 and 500 pounds and peaked at 560, had wins in the 1947 U.S. Open, 1953 World Weightlifting Championships and the 1954 British Empire Games under his belt. He had also dabbled in wrestling and singing.

In early 1969, he was living an obscure life in Ladner. He was humble, even apologetic for calling the Optimist for news coverage, but he was keen on making a comeback.

The Optimist had an exclusive in publishing the story and a photo of Hepburn lifting weights in his living room. There was a book there, but I didn't have the experience to write it.

The Vancouver papers and Canadian Press, a national wire service, picked up the story and Hepburn was back in the news. Several books on his life were later published and he asked one author if he thought anyone would be interested in his story.

Canadians were still reading about Hepburn's Herculean achievements when he died in 2000.

While sitting in the Ladner Hotel one evening, a regular sat down at my table and tried to sell me on a new method of paying for merchandise. Something called ChargeEx and he was seeking new customers on commission. Told him the idea wouldn't fly because not all stores would accept the card. And what about those interest rates?

Don't know how the sales rep did, but ChargeEx and all of the cards to follow hit the jackpot.

The Ladner Hotel was a haven for local news stories but one story of world interest was the first moon walk on July 20, 1969. It was late in the evening in Ladner and the television was on, but most patrons were not watching the TV.

Being a news guy, just had to walk up to the bar, grab the house microphone and announce to everyone that Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong was about to take his first step on the moon. The noise diminished for a few minutes as folks looked up at the TV. Then it was back to drinking.

Of all of the Optimist assignments, one most complexing involved a public meeting where, in a heated debate, my co-boss Bexley scuffled with someone. Being a small town newspaper, wondered if they would publish my report of the disturbance, which I witnessed. To their credit, and my admiration, they published the story verbatim.

Ladner, where I spent my first Christmas away from home (1968), got me back on my feet thanks to Dunning - who turned 95 in January, 2005 - and Bexley. Met a lot of interesting people and learned a lot about British Columbia geography, including access to Point Roberts, Wa., being the only piece of U.S. land other than Alaska that is accessible only through Canada.

But another weekly newspaper in nearby Richmond, and the tabloid style of its Michael "Mickey" Carlton, had caught my eye. After nine months with the Optimist, it was time to move on to the Richmond Review - as a photographer.

Next blog: Richmond Review - photographer

Powell River News - darkroom technician

The call from the Powell River News city editor to my Vancouver rooming house a few days after bending elbows at the Vancouver Press Club was welcomed, but somewhere along the way wires got crossed without being corrected.

During my five-hour drive to Powell River, with two ferry trips along the way, I wondered if the 10,000-plus community on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast would be a good news town.

It was a scenic and rejuvenate late-fall drive after the long trek west and the two weeks of employment uncertainty. My funds were low and there was still one $150 payment to go on my 1965 Chevy.

Well, Al Dawson's lesson at the Globe and Mail to never "assume" came back to bite me in the butt. The job at the News was darkroom technician, not reporter.

Told the city editor about my Thomson reporting experience in Ontario, but he said they didn't need more reporters in the small coastal community. The reporters were young locals who didn't look like they would be quitting any time soon.

My basic darkroom training in Ontario qualified me for the job, but the urge was to write, not mix chemicals and spend my working days in a darkroom. Two weeks later, quit the job and headed back to Vancouver where the odds of landing a reporting job were better.

On my return trip to Vancouver, police stopped me for a faulty muffler, which had to be repaired ASAP. That depleted my bankroll. In Vancouver, I was down to sleeping in the front seat of my car and eating once a day when a Help Wanted ad for a reporter in nearby Ladner caught my eye

The ad included a telephone number for The Optimist. Made a quick call and set up an interview the next day with the owners, Edgar Dunning and Ernest Bexley. The vibes were good and they hired me on the spot. It was an early Christmas gift and the start of an interesting job.

Next blog: The Ladner Optimist - reporter etc.

Sudbury Daily Star - reporter

In retrospect, joining the Sudbury Star news staff in the middle of winter was probably not the best move for this Toronto-born-and-raised southerner.

It was cold enough in this Northern Ontario city to freeze my beard, stall my car and make weekend escapes to Toronto quite hazardous.

But there was something different about this Thomson daily newspaper. It appeared to be autonomous, free from Thomson budget restraints and newspaper layout guidelines.

The Sudbury Star did not feel, look or act like any other Thomson newspaper and that was a bonus. Perhaps it was compensation for having to live and work in Sudbury.

George Grace, city editor, reporters Brian Gagnon, Don DeGurse and others helped me fit in quickly and within a couple of weeks, Grace assigned me to the court beat, which included a weekly Court Beat column.

On quiet court days, assignments would include police calls. Vividly remember standing in snow with a frozen camera waiting for a murder victim to be removed in a body bag. Frostbite was threatening my toes. Spring could not arrive fast enough.

Sudbury being a mining town, one story the Star wouldn't publish was a negative study that concluded Sudbury had a higher than average number of lost dogs because chemicals in the air dulled their sense of smell.

The place for news staff to be after working hours was the Nickel Range Hotel. It had a lounge, where the occasional Toronto band - Crowbar for one - would perform. And it had a beer room, where the father of Sudbury-born Alex Trebek often held court proudly talking about his son the TV star.

In the summer of 1968, Grace asked me if I would run the Espanola Standard while the sister-paper's publisher was on vacation. He didn't have to ask twice. Accommodations were in the Espanola Hotel and meals were included in my first-ever expense account.

Maybe it was my Thomson training, where you had to see daylight through carbon paper to get a new sheet, and paper clips were used sparingly, but I never abused the luxury of having an expense account. Was always as frugal as a Thomson-trained accountant.

My favourite story while in Espanola was the discovery a small cemetery for three, possibly four, German prisoners of war that had been abandoned and overgrown with weeds and bushes. The markers had been damaged by shotgun pellets. It was a pathetic sight.

J.R. Meakes, the Sudbury Star publisher, followed up on my story with a photograph atop a lengthy editorial and a headline reading "Is This a Measure Of Our Compassion?"

The editorial said, in part: "It is a disgraceful contrast to the carefully tended, neat plots of the Allied war cemeteries in Europe, including Germany. Even isolated graves of our servicemen who died in action or as prisoners are well care for through arrangements made by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission with the West German or other governments."

The story and editorial shamed Espanola officials into clearing the weeds and bushes and repairing damaged headstones. Always wondered if the upkeep continued. Probably not, but always felt good about the story, the editorial and the outcome.

One of the more exciting political assignments was covering a Pierre Trudeau election campaign speech in Sudbury in 1968. Turdeaumania was peaking and it appeared certain he was destined to become the next prime minister that fall.

As a sidebar to the campaign stop colour story, decided to test the security detail by running up eight flights of stairs at Trudeau's hotel after his speech and opening the door to his floor. Trudeau, flanked by two constables, were walking a few feet away with their backs toward me.

One constable turned around, looked startled, and then noticed the camera slung over my shoulder and my Sudbury Star press tag. The constable who approached me was not amused. Trudeau casually kept walking toward his room after glancing back briefly.

Speaking of Sudbury police, marijuana in the late 1960's wasn't tolerated in Northern Ontario and someone in our non-media circle of friends was arrested for possession of a small amount of pot. His sentence was 18 months in reformatory. He was devastated, as were family and friends.

The weather and isolation aside, working at the Sudbury Star was great experience, nine months well spent in personal and professional growth. But the time had come to follow another dream - working as a reporter in Vancouver.

In the two months before quitting the Sudbury Star, numerous letters were sent to British Columbia newspapers seeking employment. Most of the replies repeated a common thread: newspaper jobs in B.C. were going to local applicants.

So in the fall of 1968, with one payment to go on my 1965 Chevy, a few hundred dollars in my pocket, and no job, filled my car with belongings, said farewell to family and friends, and headed west full of anticipation and confidence.

The trans-Canada journey was eventful, with a job offer from the Winnipeg Free Press during a stop at the local press club, a near-collision with a huge moose, a minor car breakdown and a hair-raising first drive through the Rockies.

Reached Vancouver with enough money for a week's stay at a one-star hotel, where hookers came and went all hours of the day. Moved into a comfortable rooming house a week later.

Press clubs have all but vanished in Canada, but in the fall of 1968, the posh Vancouver Press Club in the Georgia Hotel was a prosperous watering hole for thirsty media types. It was a chance conversation at the press club that got me my first job in B.C.

Not at all what I expected, but it was a job.

Next blog: Powell River News - darkroom technician

Brampton Daily Times - reporter

My first positive reaction to the new Brampton Daily Times in the spring of 1965 was how the name rolled off the tongue much easier than the Brampton Times and Conservator.

Brampton, known as the Rose Capital of Canada, was a quiet place to live in the mid-1960's. The minimum security Ontario Training Centre was a mile or two down the road, but the offenders caused minimal disruption to daily life.

It felt like home and it was time to show the Globe and Mail's Robert Turnbull that his instincts about me having what it takes to be a reporter were accurate.

For the next two years, my mixed bag of duties at the Brampton Daily Times included reporter, photographer, sports editor and even one week as the women's page editor.

The long hours were welcomed and after working at four newspapers within a year, the confidence was finally there for me to try anything and everything. Covered the police beat, the courts, wrote a For Sports Sake column, did street interviews.

Even wore a mini-skirt for a photo story about dresses being proposed for men's fashions. Friends and readers pleaded with me to stick to pants. (Photo to the left: You be the judge. :-) Maybe it's the knees.)

It was strictly pants for a Young Liberal Association convention - as a card-carrying member and a reporter - in Ottawa in 1965. A memorable event that included a firm Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson handshake.

Didn't know a thing about lacrosse, which was a big draw in Brampton, but as sports editor had to cover the games. During the first or second night in the Brampton Arena press box, the local radio announcer suddenly told his audience I would be talking to him about the game after a commercial break. Bowed out of that one quickly by starting to cough a lot.

On Thursday, August 27, 1965, while sitting at the typewriter at about 6:30 p.m., fire trucks with their sirens wailing drove by the front of the newspaper. Got on the phone to the nearby Brampton fire department.

"Daily Times here, where's the fire?" I asked.

"At the Daily Times," said the dispatcher.

Hung up, sniffed around the editorial office but couldn't smell smoke. But pushing open a heavy fire door to the mailing room and press room at the back of the building revealed an inferno. Firefighters had driven to the back of the building off George Street and they quickly brought the fire under control. It took awhile for me to live that one down.

As a young, self-taught reporter, Brampton was a perfect fit. The paper was generous with bylines, always good for the ego. A lot of smaller newspapers refused to give staffers news story bylines or photo credits fearing they would lose them to larger newspapers.

With Little Stevie Wonder and Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins on my met a celebrity list, I thought it would be one-upmanship on the competing Brampton Guardian to catch some big name acts in Toronto on my nights off.

One call to Stan Obodiac, PR legend at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, cleared me for press coverage of the Beatles on August 17, 1966, and the Rolling Stones on June 29, 1966, and many other acts in between.

Snapped numerous photos during the Beatles press conference and concert and got backstage for photos of the Rolling Stones exiting a police van and relaxing during an intermission.

Both times, the same Daily Times city editor refused to publish my photos because they did not contain "local" content. What she was saying was push a local female fan into the shot of the Beatles or the Stones and it would be published. (Photo to right: Mick Jagger takes time out for a Coke and a smoke.)

To say the least, her extreme approach to "local" content was annoying, but for a 1967 Johnny Cash press conference at O'Keefe Centre and Sammy Davis Jr. and Donovan photo ops at the same venue, I got local young female fans in the photos. They got published.

Most of my Beatles and Stones photos, along with 1960's Mariposa Folk Festival concert photos, gathered dust and remained unpublished for years.

The Brampton Daily Times run from the spring of 1965 to the fall of 1967 was very productive and rewarding, but it was time to move on to a larger daily newspaper.

Doole again spoke up for me and got me a job at the Sudbury Star.

On the road again . . .

Next blog: Sudbury Daily Star - reporter

Oakville Journal Record - reporter

Another stop in the rocky road to a stable newspaper job.

But my three-month stay here, under the thumb of local news legend John Strimas, did give me the opportunity to write my first editorial, a cliched effort to be sure, and to run a news bureau, on my own, in nearby Milton.

Well, it wasn't a physical bureau. My office was a desk, chair and Underwood typewriter in the screened front porch of my second-floor farmhouse flat atop the Halton Hills mountain range. After the stories were written, I would leave them with a fellow staffer in Milton, who commuted to Oakville each day.

Milton, where the local weekly, the Milton Champion, was well-established, was a tough town for daily news. Nothing much happened day to day, so to justify the bureau, you had to be creative and productive day and night.


One of my favourite feature stories in Milton left me with an indelible appreciation of how the hearing impaired learn to cope. It was an afternoon spent at the Ontario School for the Deaf, now known as the Ernest C. Drury School.

(Years later, after befriending a deaf nightclub dancer, I knew from that memorable session with teachers and students in Milton that she could dance to the rhythm of the music by feeling the vibrations in the floor.)

My first and last experience with wakeup pills occurred one busy day in Milton. Exhausted from morning and afternoon stories, I popped a pill that was supposed to keep me awake for an evening assignment. It knocked me out for six hours. Fortunately, my day copy saved my butt.

Being responsible for covering Milton day and night took its toll after three months. The Journal Record was invaluable experience on my path to whatever. I quit, moved back home to Toronto and wondered about my future.

The tally was Chatham, Brampton, Woodstock and Oakville reporting jobs - all within a year. But what I didn't know a year earlier, I knew then. I would be a working reporter again.

In the months that followed, I did odd jobs, including waiter at Fran's restaurants in Toronto, which I had done off and on in the early 1960's, and selling family portraits door to door.

In the late summer of 1964, Sinnott News, a Scarborough company that delivered a wide variety of magazines to corner stores, hired me as an assistant driver/delivery rep.

I had no idea one of the Sinnott delivery routes would eventually take us to a variety store in Brampton, only steps from the Brampton Times and Conservator. A passing reporter stopped to say hello. I slipped him a Playboy magazine and asked him to say hello to Bill Doole for me.

Before leaving, the reporter, with the Playboy tucked under his arm, asked if I knew the paper was going to become a daily newspaper in the spring and they would be hiring. It was music to my ears. A letter and an anxious phone call to Doole had positive results.

I didn't say anything to Sinnott news about my new pending reporting job until weeks later when they asked if I wanted to be trained as a fulltime driver. To be fair, I mentioned my reporting goals and they kept me on as an assistant for a few more weeks.

And then it was the countdown to Day One at the Brampton daily.

Had very positive feelings about working for the new Brampton Daily Times, across from Perk's Family Kitchen and a few doors down from Murray's Bakery.

Next blog: Brampton Daily Times - reporter

Woodstock Sentinel Review - reporter

The big advantage of being groomed as a reporter in the 1960's was the abundance of newspapers in small towns willing to hire you on the spot. One phone call from Brampton's Bill Doole and I was on my way to this London-area town.

With a whole six months of daily and weekly experience under my belt, here I was at a larger daily newspaper, making slightly more money and with still so much to learn about reporting, photography and style.

While my lack of a high school or university degree was a drawback as a reporter, I discovered that asking numerous questions to gain the knowledge of a subject was more beneficial than thinking I knew it all and not asking as many questions.

Literally, almost every assignment was a classroom and all of the people being interviewed were my teachers. People who said I was a good listener did not know I wasn't talking much because I had little knowledge of the topic being discussed.

Faking my way through interviews was frustrating at times, especially when it came to politics. On my first day as a cub reporter in Chatham, I did not know the three levels of government. Picture not knowing that in daily discussions today.

Fellow reporters in Woodstock included Tim Foley, who would move on to the CBC and the Toronto Star before becoming an Anglican Church priest with a pulpit on Bloor St. W. He was helpful in getting me settled into the daily newspaper routine again.

One timely lesson learned in Woodstock was do not rely on a reel-to-reel tape recorder for a lengthy interview. It took forever to start, stop, rewind, start, stop, rewind to complete the feature story. It was back to scribbling notes and hoping for the best when it came to read them.

My sister, Carolyn, was a Pitman-trained legal secretary and she suggested taking a shorthand course. Just couldn't conquer it, so I developed my own shorthand, using phonetic spellings and abbreviations. It served me well, along with years of perfecting poke and hunt two-finger typing.


In February of 1964, the Sentinel Review introduced a Teen Time section and the boss said talk to folks about this new British rock band called the Beatles. Red Young, a local music store manager, said the demand for Beatles records was hot and heavy.

The lead of my story read something like "local teens are running, not walking to the music store to buy Beatles records." Young said it was the start of something big in the music business and how right he was.

When not partying into the wee hours after work, I was hunched over my typewriter writing and rewriting stories wanting them to be perfect. The late hours and missing the 9 a.m. starting time once too often brought out the Donald Trump in my boss.

"We have to let you go," he said, noting my tawdry starting times. That was less traumatic than "you're fired," but the end result was the same. I was jobless in Woodstock.

But Thomson newspapers being Thomson newspapers, it was only a matter of weeks before the Oakville Journal Record, another daily newspaper, hired me. Love those Thomson guys.

Next blog: Oakville Journal Record- reporter

Brampton Times & Conservator - reporter

In the fall of 1963, at age 21, it was welcome to Brampton, Rose Capital of Canada, a lacrosse fan's delight, Gage Park, the Thunderbird Inn and an easy-living population of under 30,000.

For the pre-job interview, William "Bill" Doole asked me to sit down at one of the Underwood typewriters and write an off-the-cuff news story about a house fire. My "Dog Saves Family" yarn got me the $32.50-a-week job.

The Brampton Times and Conservator was a Thomson weekly newspaper, located on Queen Street across from Perk's Family Restaurant and a few doors from Murray's, the town's favourite bakery. All departments shared the single-storey building.

Didn't know it at the time, but a distant cousin, William Albert "Bert" Roadhouse, had been a reporter at the Brampton Conservator in the late 1800's, before the merger of the Conservator and the Times. He later became Ontario's minister of agriculture.

Also didn't know that fellow reporter Michael Enright would move on to become a long-time, celebrated CBC Radio show host.

One of my first assignments in Brampton was a man-on-the-street feature and the first question was about birth control. What normally takes about 30 minutes to find, interview and photograph five people, took almost two hours. Few people wanted to talk about birth control. In a nutshell, Brampton was, indeed, conservative.

The camera of choice in 1963 must have been the Grafix because that was what we were using at the Brampton paper. On November 13, 1963, slung the Grafix over my shoulder and stuffed my pockets with bulbs and negative slides and headed to nearby Norval.

It was time to catch up to Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, a young rock band I had watched frequently in downtown Toronto nightclubs for the price of a beer. This time, a camera and a press pass cleared the way for photographs and an interview.

Hawkins, then and now, is a reporter's dream when it comes to quotable quotes and going out of his way to pose for pictures with local fans. With him on a small stage that night, were Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm. Still have negs from that gig.

embedded in my brain is the exact moment I heard that John Kennedy had been shot. I was at my desk typing a story when the paper's ad salesman walked in the front door and shouted the news. The city editor laughed and continued working on local news stories.

Never knew whether the city editor laughed because she thought the ad salesman was joking, or she thought it amusing that someone would shoot a U.S. president. But she was big on "local" news and Kennedy, on that Nov. 22, 1963, wasn't local news.

Returning home, the trauma of the day continued with hours of television coverage and recording the news on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which I kept. The story of the decade and reporters at the Brampton Times and Conservator spent it writing local news.

Speaking of local news, while Kiwanis, Rotary and Lions club luncheon and dinner meetings were a good source of nutrition for bachelor reporters, the occasional guest speaker was memorable. Enter William Davis, Brampton's own provincial Tory minister of education and future Ontario premier.

As a guest speaker, Davis would approach local reporters before he spoke and hand them prepared "safe" speeches. Dry stuff, generally. Davis would then stray from the prepared speech and pepper his address with much more interesting commentary. Not knowing better, I went with the prepared speeches thinking that was the way it was done.

My introduction to the word "ecology" was at a public meeting to discuss expansion of Toronto International Airport and increased jet traffic. Tongue-tied, I stood up, fumbled the name of the newspaper, then asked about jet noise. One of the guest speakers thanked me for raising "ecology" issues and talked about airport noise research.

I also covered court cases in the grand old courthouse on Main Street, including juvenile court, with the permission of Judge H.T.G. Andrews. Reporters said the H.T.G. stood for Hard To Get because he was so elusive with the media, but in my books he was always approachable.

After several months of working at the weekly newspaper - and a verbal debate over whether the death of Toronto Mayor Donald Summerville should have been on the front page, instead of inside - Bill Doole thought I should be working for a daily newspaper.

In the spring of 1964, it was off the Woodstock Sentinel Review. But a return to Brampton was in the cards, thanks again to Doole.

Next blog: Woodstock Sentinel Review - reporter

Chatham Daily News - cub reporter

Three eventful and enlightening years as a Globe and Mail copy boy had come to an end, or so I thought. It was off to Chatham, Ontario, a small friendly town not far from the Windsor/Detroit border.

Within minutes of walking into the Chatham Daily News in the summer of 1963 for my first day as a cub reporter, the city editor handed me a heavy Grafix camera, a pile of negative plates and a pocketful of flash bulbs.

"Go take some photographs," he said, leaving what was to be photographed up to me.

In this age of palm-sized digital cameras, the Grafix was the opposite - a cumbersome challenge. Snap a 4x4 photo, pull out the plate, flip it over, slide it back in, put in a fresh flash bulb, take another photo, pocket that slide and used bulb and repeat the process.

For my first on-the-job photo experience, snapped the exterior of the Chatham Daily News (apparently it hasn't changed in 40 years), some street scenes etc. What followed was a crash course in developing the film in the newspaper's small darkroom. Still have those first negatives.

There is something about being in your early 20's and eager to learn. Money and hours on the job didn't matter when you worked for smalltown Thomson newspapers. No unions to dictate what reporters could or couldn't do, so we did it all and appreciated the training.

The important thing for Chatham Daily News reporters was the tavern next door, where we wound down after our 10 to 12-hour days. Plus the Rotary and Lions Club dinner meetings we covered to get a decent meal at least once a week.

One of my first assignments was to interview a local minister about his work in the community. He was quite liberal. In fact, within minutes he was talking about pornographic films and how he endorsed screening them for young people to illustrate how Satan works.

Holy Hearst, I thought, this is going to be a fascinating job. Within the year, the talkative reverend was involved in a widely-reported sex scandal and was all but banished from the community.

Chatham officials were very youth-oriented but in a more positive direction than the wayward minister. There were several arenas, an outdoor community swimming pool and an activity centre to keep teens in the small community occupied.

And there was rock and roll, at pool parties and at Chatham Memorial Community Centre.

The young, blind black performer sitting next to me on a small bench inside the arena for an interview had just turned 11. Many of the 1,200 excited young fans surrounded us and expressed their love for his music and took pictures. He was talkative and agreeable to posing with fans for photos.

That was how Little Stevie Wonder, a wonder boy from Motown Detroit, spent the 20-minute intermission at his soldout Canadian debut. It was the launch of a Canadian tour and more than 40 years later, he is a music icon. My first celebrity encounter, but not the last.

For a small town, this green cub reporter was loving the assignments and the community, but I felt a need to learn more about newspaper style and gain some more confidence. Fortunately, after three months in Chatham, the Globe and Mail allowed me to return to my copy boy job.

In a touch of irony, the reporter who replaced me at the Chatham Daily News was killed in a train crash while driving to a house fire.

In the fall of 1963, after much more guidance from helpful Globe staffers and a couple of news assignments that got published, Robert Turnbull again got me a job at a Thomson newspaper - the weekly Brampton Times and Conservator, with William "Bill" Doole at the helm.

Brampton would be an education for me on many fronts, one involving "local" news guidelines and The Beatles.

Next blog: Brampton Times and Conservator

Toronto Globe and Mail - copy boy

After eight years of delivering the Toronto Star, it was time to look elsewhere for employment. I had dropped out of high school at 16 to deliver papers. My income for three hours a day was more than fulltime pay for some adults in the 1950's, so why bother finishing high school?

While scanning the help wanted ads in the Toronto dailies, found an ad in the Globe and Mail for a copy boy. It was late in 1959 and while the pay was slightly lower than my paper route income, it was the perfect job to keep me in the news biz.

I was shoveling snow outside our Parkside Drive home when called inside to answer a phone call from the Globe and Mail, then located at the northeast corner of King and York Streets. It was for an interview with Clark Davey, managing editor.

My first look at a major daily newspaper newsroom gave me goose bumps. It was right out of Front Page, with the clatter of teletype machines, typewriters and the buzz of the rim, where pneumatic tubes whisked copy to the pressroom.

While Toronto Star agency reps Robert "Bob" Britnell and Dwayne Howe were guiding factors at 22 Barton Street, Davey, who hired me, was the first of many Globe and Mail staffers to give a high school dropout guidance into his early 20's.

Copy boy duties at the Globe included sorting teletype machine stories and delivering them to news, sports, business etc., preparing the daily ticker tape news flashes seen on a sign above the Brown Derby at Yonge and Dundas Streets, cutting and pasting the daily stock market ticker quotes, lunch and dinner runs for editorial and sports staffers.

It was exciting to be among the first Canadians to learn of major international events as news bulletins came in on the teletype machines. Bulletins received as deadlines approached created quite a buzz in the newsroom.

One night in 1961, with the papers rolling off the presses and the newsroom staff heading for home, the distinct bell indicating a bulletin sounded. Late-night copy boy Sam Briggs read the bulletin, ran to a window that overlooked the parking lot and shouted at departing editors.

The editors scrambled back to their desks to stop the presses and revamp the front page to tell readers the Russians had launched the world's first manned space-flight, a 60-minute feat by Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. It was the story of the year and Briggs got a bonus. (Photo at left: Briggs standing outside the Globe's teletype machine room)

In the early 1960's, the Globe and Mail had the ultimate sports department. Jim Vipond was sports editor and under his wing were legends in the making, Scott Young, Dick Beddoes, Trent Frayne, Lou Cauz and Jack Marks.

During a special event at the Lord Simcoe Hotel across the street, Vipond slipped me a $20 tip, which was almost a week's pay. Marks helped me tie my first tie. The flamboyant Beddoes never failed to impress with his colourful garb.

Web Anderson was on rewrite, Robert Turnbull was city editor, Hugh Thompson was entertainment editor, Bev Gray was travel editor, Charlie Oliver, aka Appas Tappas the race track writer, was police reporter, Al Dawson was news editor, Martin Lynch was on the rim.

It was Dawson who gave me sound advice that is applicable on any job: Never assume because it makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me."

I forget his name, but always thought it odd that the guy with the most serious looking puss was responsible for choosing the Daily Smile.

The Prince George Hotel across from the Globe was a haven for late-night Globe staffer poker games and copy boys were called on occasionally to tend to the eating and drinking needs of Norm Baron et al but did it with a smile knowing good tips were involved.

The fact that the large windows of the Globe and Mail overlooked the Lord Simcoe Hotel windows to the west and the Prince George Hotel windows to the south created some mighty interesting evening observations, but that is another blog.

What was remarkable about Globe staffers was how genuine they were in helping copy boys learn the business. The legendary photographer Boris Spremo gave me my first lesson in photography while sitting in the cafeteria.

In public school, I was twice asked to stand in class while teachers read my short story submissions but never received any guidance that would have helped me improve my writing skills. While at the Globe, still didn't know where I was headed.

In early 1963, Turnbull posted a notice asking Globe staff to comment on a proposal by the city to introduce crosswalks in Toronto. The pros and cons etc. I typed out a one-page reply.

Turnbull sent me a memo that changed my life forever. He thanked me for my crosswalk feedback and said I could have a future in the news business as a reporter. He suggested I give it a try.

For the next several months, spent my off hours in city hall courtrooms trying to get a court case published, covered a couple of minor sports events for Vipond, wrote a Copy Boy Capers column in Inside Story, an in-house publication, was assigned to news stories etc.

But my first byline was for a women's section story about horses and a female rider.

By the summer of 1963, I had worked my way up to head copy boy and would have been content with that job for a few more years but another memo from Turnbull change my mind.

Turnbull said it was time to get my feet wet as a cub reporter and there was an opening at the Chatham Daily News, a small Thomson newspaper where quite a few Globe vets got their start.

Starting pay, $27.50 a week. Packed my bags and said bye-bye T.O.

Next blog: Chatham Daily News reporter

In the beginning: Toronto Daily Star carrier

You could say newspapers were in my blood from an early age. It was inherited from my father, Fred, who sold newspapers at the corner of Christie and Dupont in Toronto in the early 1900's.

My older brother, Bill Cosway, was delivering the Toronto Star in 1952 when I got my first paper route, working out of an agency at 22 Barton Street, in the Bathurst and Bloor district.

It was the start of a beautiful, eight-year friendship.

(Photo above: 22 Barton Street agency rep Robert "Bob" Britnell, me and a new bike won in a subscription contest)

In the early 1950's, the Star and Telegram were late afternoon editions and you could deliver both - until they decided to make carriers choose one or the other. I chose the Star.

The number of customers on my routes varied, but at my peak I was delivering the Star to 350 people in a wide range of the Annex, including the posh new apartment buildings on Spadina Road, Walmer Road and St. George Street.

Two things I quickly learned as a carrier: it was cool to always have money in your pocket at a young age and I had a knack for selling subscriptions in contests.

Also discovered that single women living in high rises thought nothing of coming to the door scantily clad to pay me for the deliveries, but that is another blog.

As one of the Star's top subscription contest salesmen, I won six consecutive trips to New York City, three by train and the remainder by plane.

The overnight train journeys cemented a love for trains and for New York City. The royal service in the dining car, the clickety clack through cities and countryside.

In later years, felt sorry for the chaperones who had to manage 150 boys and girls on each trip, but at the time we didn't hesitate to sneak out of our hotel at night and roam Times Square. Or pile into one room to smoke, play poker and tell tales. (Photo at right: Me on the floor trying to fleece fellow carriers in a New York hotel room.)

During a January 1959 New York Rangers/Maple Leafs game at Madison Square Garden, I left with a buddy to catch an Alan Freed concert at the Paramount Theatre in Times Square.

And what a memorable night it was, with 17 rock and roll acts, including Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Ritchie Valens, Eddie Cochrane, Bo Diddley, Jackie Wilson, Frankie Avalon, the Everly Brothers, Dion and the Belmonts, Jimmy Clanton etc. All for a $4.50 ticket.

Another memorable evening was a first visit to Radio City Music Hall, where all 150 young carriers enjoyed the colorful Christmas stage show - plus a screening of Peyton Place. Our escorts, we called them Huey, Louie and Dewey, sounded apologetic for the movie.

Now, a confession. I shoplifted an Empire State Building souvenir. For years, I waited for a knock on the door and my arrest for shoplifting. It never came and I never shoplifted again.

Meanwhile, back on my paper route . . .

Hurricane Hazel ravaged Toronto in October 1954. On the second day of the hurricane weather, carriers were given the option of delivering or not delivering. I delivered. Several days later, when it came time to collect, a woman on my route complained that the paper was wet that day.

In all my years as a carrier, never had to ask my parents for allowance. When Elvis Presley came to town in 1957 for a concert at Maple Leaf Gardens, paid for the $3.50 ticket from my paper route earnings. Paid for all of the rock and roll records etc. In 1958, at age 16, bought a motor scooter from my earnings and later, my first car. It was teenage freedom.

Fondly remember my carrier days. It provided early training in money management, took me to New York and Detroit, won me bicycles, radios, dartboards etc, kept money in my pocket, taught me how to deal with people. My early ambition was to own a corner newspaper sales business, but subways all but doomed that public service. Fate, however, would keep me in the news biz.

Next blog: Toronto Globe and Mail copy boy