Transcript
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The Selkirk collection.
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Of The Pioneers of Selkirk communications.
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The following interview with Fred Ken was recorded.
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In January 1978 by **** Meister.
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Delightful conversation.
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That I am having in Victoria with Myrtle and Fred Cannon.
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Fred, I first met you, I think when.
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When I went to CFCF in Montreal.
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And you used to come in and bludgeon was into buying some of your crummy programs.
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How did you get started in?
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In the broadcasting business?
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And roughly when Fred?
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Well, I thought I knew guy Herbert.
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With the Canada life.
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For about 7 years.
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And that was in Toronto and.
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Calgary, Calgary.
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Ohh yes, in Calgary.
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Those seven years, I forget whether Guy got fired or wasn’t making enough money or got fed up.
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Anyway he.
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Quit and went over.
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To his friend, Harvard Carson, who had taken an interest in station CSFAC.
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Taylor Pearson and Carson Broadcasting Company.
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And the guy said that he was on a salary.
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I still was in the insurance business, straight Commissioner on the State Commission or in advance, which is the same thing.
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I decided that I was going to do anything in this insurance.
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I was to have the Chartered Life Underwriter degrees CLU and I had just finished writing my last paper.
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And incidentally, it was successful and I was awarded the ACLU degree but never allowed to.
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Use it because.
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I met Guy Herbert as I came out of the office.
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In the.
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Lancaster building and he says, come over here.
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Kenyan, you always tell me Kenya?
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So now I have a coffee.
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So we did and.
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He said.
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Do you want to?
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I said, what do you mean?
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I mean a job with a salary.
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And in those days, that meant something.
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I’m sure it did.
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So I said, what kind of work I said I I just finished writing my ACLU degree.
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Well, he said this is something and I think it’s an opportunity.
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Because my friend Harvard Carson has just got back from Hollywood and he brought back a whole bunch of transcribed shows.
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And I said shows for.
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What? Well, well.
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It shows the radio programs.
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And I said.
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I don’t know anything about that.
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Well, he said.
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That’s what he wants you to come over and look after and and supervise and the well just come over and have a talk with him with.
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And I said, well, if there’s any salary tied up to it, I might be interested.
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Trying trying to conceal your impatience.
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So new patient.
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Yeah, I couldn’t believe my ears, but guy had always been a good friend.
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Incidentally, Guy was a director of the Calgary Stampede and I worked as a supervisor of the automobile gate.
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All the Stampede for 13 years.
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From about 1927 to well, 13 years later anyway.
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And it was the last year that I was on there and I got up to $80.00 for that week and I worked 15 hours a day for six days and got 80.
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And it was.
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That 80 bucks.
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That got me my honeymoon money to.
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Go to bed.
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Anyway, to get back to Guy and meet hard Carson?
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Which I did the next morning.
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Now, which happened to be a Good Friday, but that didn’t mean anything in the broadcasting business.
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And I met Harold and he knew a little bit about me because of Bernie McCullough and Macklin Motors and.
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And also my girlfriend Myrtle, who is now my wife.
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He said.
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Well, here’s what we got.
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We’ve got about 20 or 30 different shows.
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Some are 5 minutes, some are 15 minutes, some are 30 minutes, and they’re called transcriptions.
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And the radio stations play these instead of having regular people come on.
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Yeah, I said.
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That’s handy.
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It’s like a a phonograph record day.
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And he’s the same idea.
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I’ll show you them upstairs.
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But are you interested in this kind of a program?
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A position I said?
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Well, all depends because I know you.
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I know how much money and I said yes.
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How much is? Well, I was going to set the rate at $115.00 but.
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Does that sound all right?
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And I said well.
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My dad does. That’ll.
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Work and they’re kind of depending on me to bring home some money.
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Here’s the violin music in the background, can’t you?
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Well, I think we could stretch it to $125 to start.
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The last of the big spenders.
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So also the big spender.
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And believe me, that was a lot of money to have of your own.
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And not have to pay back.
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You know, you mentioned transcribed programs and transcriptions.
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Would go for it.
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And there’s a whole generation of broadcasters, at least, maybe 2 generations.
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We’ve never even seen what we used to call.
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A big 16 inch.
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As the fate platters.
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Oh, so you’re hardly laminated disks?
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They were about 1/4 of an inch thick.
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There’s scratches and you could hear the fuzz coming out.
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However, we had different ways of making them sound real and natural as much as possible.
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So anyway, I started him Harold’s when can you start? And I said, how soon do you want me and.
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He said tomorrow.
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So I started in the next day.
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And the job was to sort out all these different shows, 15 or 20 of them, some of them having as many as 65 or up to 104. And I think talking drums had 156 quarter hours.
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And I had to learn each program and write a a letter or a sheet of publicity so that other people would know what that program was all.
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And send this publicity to the other stations.
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And say now we have these shows like nonsense and now they and fun fest and comedy and music.
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And this is going to sell hardware and this will sell drugs and this will sell, sell and sell like the family Doctor is a good show for the drug stores.
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And I had to not only describe the shows, but to suggest the type of sponsors for which they might be used.
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You know, in spite of the imperfections of the.
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Of the electronic aspects of broadcasting in those days there was just a wealth of very interesting programme.
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It may have come across sounding a little scratchy, and some of it was.
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Hammy, but it was seldom not entertaining.
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Well, I could just illustrate that by this program talking drums, which tiny Elphick sold to jacocks of the Great West Garment Company, and it played on about five or six stations.
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Our talking drums was an African adventure.
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A 15 minute.
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The continued drama.
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And I would start home shortly after 12 and I walked home on 2nd St.
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W for lunch.
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And all the way home.
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I could hear through the windows and doors all the different homes I could hear African drums.
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They’re talking and the different adventures of my show.
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And was I ever proud, Sir?
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Do you remember that show?
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I remember the title, but I can’t quite visualize the program itself.
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That was followed by Chandu, the magician, that I remember and great West garments also sponsored for some time.
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The Lone Ranger, didn’t they?
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All that came quite a long time.
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Later was that one of.
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Yours too.
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Very much so that the that show came from Detroit.
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Oh yes, that show put us in.
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Tiny was, I guess our best.
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Sales representative because he gave us ideas and he told all the other boys about our shows and he told many good sponsors about our shores.
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We talked briefly about Walter Dales a few minutes ago.
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And you may recall that Walter stumped Western Canada for GWG doing a publicity job for that same Lone Ranger program.
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That must have come later.
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I didn’t realize that.
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That’s really working out of the trail or CJC and Edmonton.
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Trail, I think. Oh.
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Well, I first met Walter.
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He came in, I think, to CWX.
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And he was traveling the country.
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Trying to.
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Warmed up a storm of publicity about The Lone Ranger.
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For great West Carmen.
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Ohh that that was much later.
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Yes, we got that from King Trendle in Detroit and that’s after I had gone down to.
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Toronto, of course, and that would have been handled out of the Western Office.
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And to just.
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To jump ahead a couple of years.
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Guy Herbert, who was.
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Directly instrumental in in your beginnings of the radio.
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As commercial manager of CKY, the management telephone system.
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Yes, that yes, yes.
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And then he ultimately that was United broadcast sales.
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Yeah, and that’s about the time they connected with Dawson Richardson.
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Yes, who had the our Canada broadcasting system.
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And they joined up and called it All Canada radio facilities.
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And 1st Gainer came back.
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From Toronto to Winnipeg and Guy went to Toronto about the same time that I did.
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And you worked out of the Toronto Office for the rest of your career with the company.
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From from 19.
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38 to December 38, I came to Toronto.
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Incidentally, I’d just like to throw in this that we own Mitchell, who is getting more prominent today with his writings.
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And now I understand the they made a movie of his show who has seen the wind build used to hang around, see F8.
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As just a.
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Little punk, as we thought in those days.
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And if he could even listen to one of our shows, it was a big.
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But he was getting the seed planted.
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And later I got to know Bill done in trouble.
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And of course he made history.
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With Jake and the kid.
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Do you remember the people who were?
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Excuse me, in the All Canada operation in the Toronto office when you.
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First went east.
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All Canada operation was major.
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I think I was about 4th or 5th in.
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Well, there was no.
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Of course, Harold Carson and his secretary, Miss Elva Brown, and Alf Gibson, the accountant.
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Then the 4th member I think would have been Jack Kavanaugh, who came just ahead of me.
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And I guess I would have been about 50.
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And was united broadcast sales.
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And then Guy followed along and something after that from Winnipeg.
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Well, yes.
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After the amalgamation Guy came to Toronto and first came back to Winnipeg.
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As the Winnipeg manager, well did Harold Carson ever live in Toronto?
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No, you wouldn’t go to Toronto, you wouldn’t live there if they give him the place.
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He was a died in the Little West.
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How’s your?
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There was one early story.
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Some people say it was Jack Gammat, some say.
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Chalmers, Lockhart, and oh, it doesn’t matter who the announcer was, but we had one program called House of Dreams, a very beautiful musical show.
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15 minutes.
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And we thought it would be ideal for the Jordan rug company.
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Who was one of the early sponsors at Calgary?
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We got this announcer and we commercial manager, I forget who he was at that time, maybe with Norm Baker.
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Anyway, they got the manager of the.
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Jordan Rd.
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Company to come up?
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And that we set up this House of dreams.
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Already time for the theme and the commercial.
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And be announcer and let it go.
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And the manager was sitting there and everybody was on their toes because this is going to be a big sale if we made.
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It on one of our shows.
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And the finally the.
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Noise abated.
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And the commercial came out.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to bring you.
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The hosts of dreams.
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Sponsored by the Jordan Drug and Raper shop.
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Or is that?
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That’s that’s correct.
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I don’t know why that’s the truth or not.
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It was credited to Dennis or.
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It just will tell you the same story.
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Probably have.
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Chess will confirm it.
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Anyway, but the industry is so riddled with famous stories that it’s hard, almost impossible to find out who was the first one.
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Drug and rape friends.
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So that was the end of that interview and they said if you do that while we’re sitting here, what will you do when it goes over?
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There I had a painful experience.
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The like of which I hope I never have again.
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In selling the shadow, we’re trying to sell the shadow in Kelowna in the Okanagan.
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And I had been working on this local merchant.
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Which shall be nameless.
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For a long time.
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Trying to persuade him, an agent who’s radio advertising and B to buy a transcribed program.
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And it seemed to me from the kind of man he was and his taste, that I got to know better, that the shadow would probably appeal to him.
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So I finally inveigled him over to the studio.
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Saddam in the studio turned the lights down for atmosphere, for the shadow.
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And I can still remember the story.
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Margo and Lamont Cranston.
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Our their car breaks down on a lonely stretch of Rd.
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at night.
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The rain is pelting down.
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And the whole thing is, it’s pretty scary.
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There are no cars coming by to help.
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So they start walking and so finally they come to a huge old mansion.
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Great stone.
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Fence around the iron gates.
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The whole creepy but.
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And they blocked this winding gravel driveway to the front of the darkened house.
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Pull the ancient bell, pull on the door, which echoes Hollowly.
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Inside the building.
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And finally, the door creaks open.
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And you?
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Can hear the.
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And Lemote takes over and his voice says yes.
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Said that we our car had broken down, we wondered if we might use your telephone.
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And in the best.
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Creepy fashion the voice.
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Just a moment, please.
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The door creaks closed.
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And Margaret says the Cranston teaching partner, Lamont, did you see that man?
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And he looks horrible.
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He’s only got one ear.
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So did my client.
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Oh, oh oh.
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I have never been so embarrassed in my life.
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I could have dropped through the floor.
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Those things come up.
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Never to be seen or heard of again, he didn’t even notice.
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He was so wrapped up in the story he just sat there and listened to it.
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And bought it.
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I felt just horrible to you and your.
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Transcribe radio program.
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You can’t do anything about.
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It if I’d had any sense, I would have auditioned it first, but I hadn’t done that.
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Well, do you have the whole of Canada?
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Yes, I had the whole Canada and.
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At one time, I knew every station call letter.
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And manager, not to mention all of my programs, which eventually were more than 400 in number.
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I had to get out the catalogs.
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All the programs as they increased in number, yes, and they did increase in number.
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Very quickly.
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At the.
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The time when.
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The musicians went on strike.
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If Petrilla had the big strike in the states, you know, and everybody was playing Jeannie with the light brown hair.
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Well, I had to look at all of the American.
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All over.
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Putting shows out without any music on them.
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It was terrible.
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We had to get themes.
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And I looked elsewhere and I heard about.
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We were looking billboard and we were looking these other magazines and all for new ideas, new shows, new products.
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And I got to Australia and Greece.
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Gibson, who happened to be.
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Yeah, it’s you as the A sales manager.
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For CC Pyle’s cash and carry pile, they called it of Hollywood and he produced most of our good shows originally.
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She had gone to Australia and she had set up the Grace Gibson Productions and she was just grinding them out by the mile.
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So I wrote to her, and of course she had lots of shows.
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She’d be very glad to have us represented in Canada, and that was the start.
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So we had those yuran, Demetrius and and many of.
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These old timers.
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And that grew into our transfer, which was another big producer down there.
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And then EMI Australia PY or its proprietary limited.
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And they were so interested and so thankful for the sales job we did.
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That they sent men up to 12 to meet us and interview us.
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How do you do it?
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We were selling those.
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Those Aussie cockney shows up here right and left.
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Well, you know, at about that time, I guess you acquired the reputation of having the largest library in the.
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World you transcribe.
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In the world as it was.
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For us.
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There’s no question of.
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It about it.
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Down in Newfoundland, I went down in Newfoundland.
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Before it became a part of Canada as a matter of fact, I.
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Had to have a passport.
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Gordon Haley of the.
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Local station vonf down there. He was my sales representative and I gave him 15% and he just went to work and saw these things right and left.
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So he’s just come on down.
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We we’ve got all kinds of sponsors down here, Lever brothers were.
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The big ones?
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So I got a passport and I flew down.
00:23:06 Speaker 3
On one of these little was a DC3 or DC and I’ll never forget leaving North Sydney and heading out over the Atlantic Ocean with this thing flipping and flopping and then nothing but the water underneath.
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Probably a DC for you.
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Not much of the.
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Was I scared?
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But we got to Gander.
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With the news that the Fargen closed in at the St.
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John’s and St.
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And we had to wait.
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But they said don’t go away because the fog may lift any minute.
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We’ll have to get going fast.
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And we finally got into St.
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John’s and.
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Gordon was there at the.
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And he brushed the customs man aside and uses this is Fred Cannon from Toronto.
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Now, don’t you go bothering with his suitcase.
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There’s nothing the matter with him.
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Come on.
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Fred and he pushed the key right through the customs.
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That there was nothing.
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Two of the whole thing.
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He had a beautiful.
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Room for me.
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He had it all set up with the.
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Screech and the other kinds of rum and Coca-Cola and rice and everything else.
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Oh, what a welcome.
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I got down there.
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But the next welcome I got down there was in 1951.
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When I went down to help program CGO.
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Dan Jamieson.
00:24:34 Speaker 3
Yes, Jeff Sterling and Jeff Sterling, yeah.
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And they turned out to be actually our biggest and best customers, they.
00:24:45 Speaker 3
I came back with a $13,000 contract by ship. I couldn’t get back on the plane.
00:24:53 Speaker 3
It was still a Blizzard in May.
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I heard from Stu Mackay that the.
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The good lady, my wife was quite ill and I didn’t wait for anything more.
00:25:06 Speaker 3
I jumped on the next ship.
00:25:08 Speaker 3
And I was never so sick in my life.
00:25:10 Speaker 3
But we got out to Halifax two days later and it’s onto the next day.
00:25:18 Speaker 3
But I brought home a $13,000 contract and the laser dance shoes desk. And he has Fred, I think you.
00:25:26 Speaker 3
Need a rest.
00:25:28 Speaker 3
I guess he just took one look.
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At me and.
00:25:30 Speaker 2
You’re probably still a little green, right?
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I did have.
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A rest Myrtle and I went over to.
00:25:37 Speaker 3
Niagara Falls for a week.
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They turned out to be our best customer, by far the biggest and best.
00:25:50 Speaker 2
And you know, whether it’s the talk yet or not as far.
00:25:52 Speaker 2
As Don is concerned, but he’s.
00:25:54 Speaker 2
Moved a long way.
00:25:56 Speaker 3
Ah yes, they were.
00:25:57 Speaker 3
They were good customers.
00:25:59 Speaker 3
Very, very crude, very sharp.
00:26:02 Speaker 3
But good fellows to deal with.
00:26:04 Speaker 2
Fred, you saw.
00:26:06 Speaker 2
Uh, some of the most creative.
00:26:10 Speaker 2
Years, I guess in the history of.
00:26:13 Speaker 2
Of all Canada.
00:26:19 Speaker 2
And before, well before it became a part of what?
00:26:23 Speaker 2
Is now in breach by the umbrella Cold Silker holdings.
00:26:29 Speaker 3
Yes, I was particularly.
00:26:34 Speaker 3
And almost entirely concerned with radio.
00:26:38 Speaker 3
And that had something to do with me having a setback.
00:26:43 Speaker 3
Or in 1959, when I was given the responsibility of handling a TV plus about 75 motion pictures which we bought from a bankrupt movie hosts or a movie distributor.
00:27:01 Speaker 3
And I had to sort all this out and I couldn’t tell you.
00:27:06 Speaker 3
The price of a TV show.
00:27:10 Speaker 3
I couldn’t tell you how many episodes or whether they ran in sequence.
00:27:13 Speaker 3
I didn’t know the first thing about them.
00:27:16 Speaker 3
And this whole thing was tossed at me over in the new office on Wellington Street, where I was made manager.
00:27:24 Speaker 3
When Danny?
00:27:26 Speaker 3
Then the good run.
00:27:28 Speaker 3
Went to Calgary.
00:27:31 Speaker 3
This is a little bit too.
00:27:32 Speaker 3
Much for me and as.
00:27:35 Speaker 3
It happened.
00:27:36 Speaker 3
I had to take a.
00:27:38 Speaker 2
Rest what you didn’t know at that time and you have long since recognized.
00:27:44 Speaker 2
Was that no one else knew anything about television either.
00:27:48 Speaker 2
Well, I started building a station for Marconi in Montreal and.
00:27:52 Speaker 2
But I didn’t.
00:27:53 Speaker 2
Know build channel 12 and got the license and everything else.
00:27:59 Speaker 2
And what I didn’t know about television would fill a dozen complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
00:28:06 Speaker 2
But you know, I had to do it.
00:28:07 Speaker 2
Nobody else knew anything.
00:28:08 Speaker 2
So you just.
00:28:09 Speaker 3
Did it?
00:28:09 Speaker 3
Yeah, no comparisons to make.
00:28:11 Speaker 2
No president.
00:28:14 Speaker 3
Well, anyway, I was always a bit of a perfectionist and if I couldn’t give the right answer, I couldn’t want to give any answer.
00:28:22 Speaker 3
So then when I did come back, we cleaned out all of the old transcriptions in. By this time there were over 400 shows.
00:28:32 Speaker 3
Out of which we only salvage it, I would say 50 or 75 of the best.
00:28:37 Speaker 3
And this is for quality records had.
00:28:42 Speaker 3
Windfall because we gave them hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds of the vinylite discs that otherwise would have been thrown down and thrown out as the garbage but.
00:28:58 Speaker 3
We found they could use a lot of them.
00:29:01 Speaker 3
Some of them couldn’t.
00:29:05 Speaker 2
They’re very fruitful.
00:29:07 Speaker 2
Moment in history too, for a couple of people whom we both know well.
00:29:12 Speaker 2
Norris mackenzie.
00:29:13 Speaker 2
God rest him.
00:29:15 Speaker 2
And and France Caldwell.
00:29:18 Speaker 2
Both of them got their start and then they started the library of transcribed shows from that same all Canada.
00:29:26 Speaker 3
Yes they did.
00:29:27 Speaker 3
We we were very happy to sell off.
00:29:30 Speaker 2
Spence, Bob. Whatever.
00:29:31 Speaker 2
Get his hands on or Harold game.
00:29:33 Speaker 2
I’m not sure.
00:29:34 Speaker 2
Which a little of both.
00:29:36 Speaker 2
And then in turn.
00:29:39 Speaker 2
Spence did a similar thing with Norris Mackenzie.
00:29:41 Speaker 2
When Norris went out on his own.
00:29:45 Speaker 3
And then when Maguire died, we had to buy back his shoes.
00:29:55 Speaker 3
Because nobody else wanted them and Howard Carson told me definitely.
00:30:02 Speaker 3
To do whatever was necessary to see that Marge McGuire got a good deal.
00:30:09 Speaker 3
Which I had to do through the lawyer, Mr.
00:30:14 Speaker 3
I was very sad about Mac.
00:30:17 Speaker 3
As it was with many of our other.
00:30:22 Speaker 3
But the liver couldn’t hold up to the.
00:30:29 Speaker 3
Drubbing it was getting.
00:30:31 Speaker 3
And he just took one drink at the wrong time.
00:30:38 Speaker 3
I don’t like talking about these things.
00:30:39 Speaker 3
There’s many other nice things to discuss.
00:30:43 Speaker 2
Well, you know the broadcasting business, like the advertising business has traditionally being a pretty.
00:30:51 Speaker 2
Pretty heavy business for entertaining.
00:30:55 Speaker 2
Very true and a lot of men and women.
00:30:59 Speaker 2
Face the consequences.
00:31:01 Speaker 3
They did.
00:31:02 Speaker 3
It seemed like the thing.
00:31:05 Speaker 3
What you’re supposed to do?
00:31:08 Speaker 2
It was generally conceded by or felt by a lot of people that the only atmosphere in which you could do this was the social atmosphere.
00:31:17 Speaker 2
And I’ll bet you that you will agree with my experience, Fred.
00:31:20 Speaker 2
I don’t think that I ever made a useful sale.
00:31:25 Speaker 2
Over a drinking lunch.
00:31:28 Speaker 3
Not one that you’re proud.
00:31:30 Speaker 2
Of no.
00:31:30 Speaker 2
The ones you made really that were good sales you made in?
00:31:33 Speaker 2
The office, yes.
00:31:37 Speaker 3
I remember a little incident.
00:31:40 Speaker 3
You recall PDL yet, of course.
00:31:42 Speaker 3
Well, Pete was in Quebec and we’re having a convention there.
00:31:46 Speaker 3
And Harvard.
00:31:47 Speaker 3
Carson was the running short on his drinks in Toronto.
00:31:53 Speaker 3
About Quebec had different laws.
00:31:56 Speaker 3
This was in the war.
00:31:57 Speaker 3
And so Harold said to Pete, I’d like to take back or send back 10 bottles, 40 ounce bottles of the Canadian shop.
00:32:08 Speaker 3
Can you get them for me?
00:32:10 Speaker 3
And Pete said sure.
00:32:11 Speaker 3
And they went out and they bought our brand new.
00:32:14 Speaker 3
Heavy suitcase leather suitcase and they fill this with either 10 or 1240 ounce bottles of.
00:32:24 Speaker 3
Canadian club.
00:32:25 Speaker 3
Then hurl called me and anytime there was any trouble, he called me.
00:32:29 Speaker 4
And he said the.
00:32:32 Speaker 3
Ken and or Fred, I want you to take this back to Toronto.
00:32:36 Speaker 3
Now I would suggest that you go back on a different train than the rest of the game, so I took the afternoon train out of Quebec and got into Montreal about the 5:00 or 5:30.
00:32:49 Speaker 3
And I went straight up to CFCF with this.
00:32:53 Speaker 3
Heavy heavy case of 12 bottles of Canadian club.
00:33:00 Speaker 3
And I had a boy, a red cat, a meet me and take it on his little wheelbarrow.
00:33:06 Speaker 3
And I only knew about 3 French words and I said.
00:33:13 Speaker 1
Get lost.
00:33:15 Speaker 3
Stay with me.
00:33:17 Speaker 3
And he got me a cab and we went straight up to see CFCF.
00:33:21 Speaker 3
I think Jim Shaw was the manager then.
00:33:24 Speaker 3
And Ernie.
00:33:26 Speaker 3
Just so happened to be in the station at 5:30, closing up.
00:33:32 Speaker 3
So he sees me come in with this great big suitcase.
00:33:36 Speaker 3
This is one world that I said this is something that has to be yet or put in the safe because the bar is the hard person and I’ve got to get it.
00:33:44 Speaker 3
Back to the.
00:33:45 Speaker 3
Hotel so, he says.
00:33:47 Speaker 3
My God, man, what is it?
00:33:48 Speaker 3
I said this Canadian club.
00:33:51 Speaker 3
Oh, God no.
00:33:54 Speaker 3
Or I don’t know what to do with, though I said well put it in the.
00:33:56 Speaker 3
Safe or something?
00:33:58 Speaker 3
I’ll get it tomorrow.
00:33:59 Speaker 3
Well, did you be here tomorrow and get it as your room?
00:34:03 Speaker 3
So the next day I came and I got back in the morning and I cut the 9:00 o’clock train for travel or 9:30 in the morning. Whatever it was, and I get into Toronto, where I was at 5 hours later.
00:34:16 Speaker 3
And I got this up to the office.
00:34:19 Speaker 3
Believe me, that costs money.
00:34:21 Speaker 3
Tipping of these porters?
00:34:23 Speaker 3
I even had them bring this case and set it beside me in the pilot cars all the way from Quebec to let you all and then from Montreal to draw.
00:34:36 Speaker 3
I wouldn’t leave it.
00:34:36 Speaker 2
All on my side.
00:34:37 Speaker 2
And you were never so.
00:34:38 Speaker 2
Glad as to get rid of it.
00:34:39 Speaker 3
And I finally got to up to 305 victory build.
00:34:43 Speaker 3
And then Harold came along a day or two later and said.
00:34:47 Speaker 3
Where is my.
00:34:48 Speaker 3
Where’s my keys?
00:34:49 Speaker 3
Where’s my stuff?
00:34:51 Speaker 3
I think it’s under my.
00:34:52 Speaker 4
It’s under my desk.
00:34:53 Speaker 4
I got it.
00:34:55 Speaker 3
Oh, my God, you’d better hurry. Is it getting? I said here’s a little bit what it cost me to bring that home. And he never did that night he just handed me whatever was $10.00 bill.
00:35:11 Speaker 2
Praise you.
00:35:14 Speaker 2
We could talk for hours and it would be good.
00:35:18 Speaker 2
But I’m going to have to to sort of keep both of us on the rails so we don’t ramble all over.
00:35:26 Speaker 2
Jump ahead a little bit.
00:35:27 Speaker 2
You retired from the All Canada organization plan.
00:35:32 Speaker 4
196262.
00:35:40 Speaker 3
I was 60 years.
00:35:41 Speaker 2
Old while your guilty secret is safe with me, you certainly don’t look it.
00:35:47 Speaker 3
And that was let me see.
00:35:50 Speaker 3
Well, this is.
00:35:52 Speaker 3
To figure it out.
00:35:54 Speaker 3
Next March will be 76.
00:35:56 Speaker 2
That was sixteen years ago.
00:35:59 Speaker 2
And you saw an awful lot of good people.
00:36:02 Speaker 2
Come and go through the organization during those years, I’m sure.
00:36:07 Speaker 3
Yes, some some stand out.
00:36:10 Speaker 3
You said you’re a manager at CFCF.
00:36:13 Speaker 3
I kind of resented you a little bit because Rio Thompson was an easier man to sell.
00:36:21 Speaker 1
Yes, I’m sure he was.
00:36:26 Speaker 3
Well, was a good friend of mine.
00:36:28 Speaker 3
I missed him very much when he went on.
00:36:30 Speaker 3
I guess Bob Tate was probably the closest and best friend that I missed the most.
00:36:37 Speaker 3
Of the gang that had the goal of one guy, of course.
00:36:42 Speaker 3
But he lived out a full life.
00:36:44 Speaker 3
Johnny tringale.
00:36:48 Speaker 3
Long list.
00:36:49 Speaker 3
Oh, and well, they could ground the Winnipeg Ralph Burns in Edmonton and just right and left general.
00:37:02 Speaker 3
And then Ann Carson had a very sad.
00:37:08 Speaker 2
And **** Carson, where is good?
00:37:11 Speaker 4
In Toronto.
00:37:12 Speaker 2
This is good, he.
00:37:18 Speaker 2
Jointly sort of run an enterprise called the Florentine shops or and they have.
00:37:26 Speaker 2
Oh, I don’t know.
00:37:28 Speaker 2
A half dozen at least.
00:37:30 Speaker 2
Located in very class shopping center, Florentine furniture.
00:37:36 Speaker 2
You know they.
00:37:38 Speaker 2
Yeah, the green and gold Italian.
00:37:42 Speaker 4
Oh, that’ll be type.
00:37:44 Speaker 4
Fire, Thunder and Myrtle would know.
00:37:47 Speaker 2
And they’ve done quite well.
00:37:48 Speaker 2
I think they’ve got nice, very nice.
00:37:50 Speaker 4
I love this.
00:37:51 Speaker 2
I like them too.
00:37:52 Speaker 2
I haven’t seen them in years, but he does live with travel.
00:37:57 Speaker 2
Seems to be doing alright.
00:37:59 Speaker 4
Travel must be a big place now.
00:38:01 Speaker 2
The robbers got a little too large.
00:38:04 Speaker 2
I think it’s a little bit it’s got in New York.
00:38:08 Speaker 2
Syndrome have.
00:38:11 Speaker 2
Well, foil too large for my taste.
00:38:11 Speaker 4
Got a little.
00:38:13 Speaker 2
I always used to say that I by choice would either live in it.
00:38:17 Speaker 2
A penthouse on top of the highest building in Times Square or in a small town, and there nothing in between.
00:38:26 Speaker 2
Well, I’ve never quite made it that way.
00:38:29 Speaker 2
I’m sort of in between and mostly always, probably probably continue to be.
00:38:38 Speaker 2
Not because I don’t think against Victoria, but you know I I haven’t been wet for a few years until this trip.
00:38:45 Speaker 2
And and I’m your little friends have said, what did you like to come back to the coast to look?
00:38:52 Speaker 2
Why don’t you retire and come out and live in a civilized planet?
00:38:57 Speaker 4
And it prompted me to.
00:38:59 Speaker 2
Think a little bit about that.
00:39:01 Speaker 2
I think there’s nothing sadder.
00:39:04 Speaker 2
Then to see a man and his wife who have spent.
00:39:07 Speaker 2
Most of their adult life.
00:39:10 Speaker 2
Putting down roots in a place like Vancouver and Gelato or wherever.
00:39:15 Speaker 4
And then when?
00:39:17 Speaker 2
If they reach retirement age, pull up stakes and go and live in Florida or California.
00:39:22 Speaker 4
I’m on strangers.
00:39:23 Speaker 4
That is the temptation we have.
00:39:26 Speaker 4
But thank goodness we selected the Vic.
00:39:31 Speaker 1
This interview was recorded in 1978 by **** Meisner.