http://www.chfi.com

Emily Dickinson wrote:

“Angels in the early morning / May be seen the dew among, / Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying: / Do the buds to them belong?”                                                                                          

And this from Livingston’s African journal, written in the three years between 1853 and 1856.

“The trees abound, and so does honey. This is evidence of a great number of flowers - though of few varieties. Some would deserve a place in our flower shows, but are born to blush unseen except by the angels.”

Maybe they are born for only that reason, to be cherished by the angels.

So here it is, mid afternoon, and my computer screen is blank. This is my nightmare. I have a general idea of what I’d like to do tonight for the show, but it’s not coming together exactly the way I wanted it to. So, I’ve decided to write my blog instead and give my nightmare free flight…

I’m usually ahead by a week or so with ideas for where I want the program to go, but I wait until the day of the actual program to put it together, so that when I present it on the air, it will be fresh in my mind. On days like today, when the screen is still blank at this time of the day, my heart rate increases slightly. There might even be a drop of perspiration on my brow, as I once again realize that the clock never stops for me, doesn’t even pause for a split second to allow me to take a breath.

I can take a break, go out for some fresh air by the pond, feed the fish, maybe play with the dog, make a few phone calls, read a chapter in a novel I’m currently caught in, to try to get my ‘Muse’ back, but the digital clock on my computer in my home office and the other one on the wall keeps ticking away, reminding me that time is running out.

I’ve found there is a certain cut-off point, a time on that same clock when I must put an idea, that isn’t quite panning out, to bed for another day, and go in a completely different direction.

My day is often filled with distractions. No sooner do I get into the right frame of mind developing an idea for the show, and the phone rings. It’s a telemarketer trying to ply his or her trade. The doorbell rings and it’s someone also trying to sell me something. The dog barks every time the mail person from Canada Post drops another flyer or bill into the mailbox. I go upstairs from my basement office to see if it’s a salesperson at the door. The dog almost seems to smile at me, as if she’s saying, “See what a wonderful watchdog I am!” Our ‘watchdog’, by the way, is a Schnoodle - part Schnauzer, part Poodle, and her bark is definitely worse than her bite. She barks every time someone passes by walking a dog. I think she barks to remind me that she’d like to go for a walk, just like the one that she alerted me to. Sometimes I do take her for that walk, hoping my ‘Muse’ will magically re-appear somewhere along the way. You might be surprised where and when the inspiration hits. Some of my best programs have come together in my mind while walking the dog, riding my bike, running errands, mowing the lawn, attending to the needs of the pond or the swimming pool, taking my son to his hockey practice or a game, listening to the banter at the dinner table.

So, I took a break from writing this blog and decided to get some fresh air, hoping that the change of scenery would entice the ‘Muse’ to return. I ended up sitting in a chair on our front walk. It’s been a quiet afternoon with a fairly gusty breeze to rustle the changing leaves. I was reminded of that wonderful line from Christina Georgina Rossetti, as I watched the trees on our street let loose a fall of coloured leaves.

“Who has seen the wind? / Neither you nor I:/ But when the trees bow down their heads,/ The wind is passing by. “

I was also reminded of another thought that I’ve entertained on the program. The wind passing by is nothing more spectacular than angels on the move. Wherever they were going this afternoon, they seemed to be in a hurry. Maybe they were off to see a flower that has bloomed for their eyes only….

While I was there, basking in the warm late summer sun, listening to the wind in the leaves, and playing with ones on the road, lost in this reverie, that I finally noticed a hummingbird hovering in the air above our flower garden, watching me intently. I was unaware that this little creature of the air was within arm’s reach, but no sooner did I meet its determined gaze, then it was up and over our house, off in search of another source of nectar.

“The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August…” (an excerpt from a centuries old poem by Li T’Ai Po, translated by Ezra Pound.)

In one of my shows this summer, I mentioned a Red Admiral butterfly that seemed to favour the flowers my wife planted. I see butterflies all the time in the gardens, but this one piqued my interest. I knew it was the same one that returned day after day, because it had a flaw on one of its wings. A piece was missing. How it got damaged, I will never know. Some larger creature may have tried to take a bite out of it, or it could have been caught on something, leaving a part of its wing behind. It returned to our garden for days on end, and I actually began anticipating its visits. Again, from many centuries in the past, Chang Tzu  said, “I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”

I haven’t seen the little Red Admiral in a while, and I wonder if its brief life is now over. Rabindranath Tagore  wrote, “The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.” I don’t imagine that Red Admiral lacked for any inspiration over its short life…

It also reminded me of one of my favourite poems. It is called A Yellow Pansy  by  Helen Gray  Cone, that I found in an English collection,  A Victorian Posy: A Treasury of Verse and Prose scented by Pehaligon’s, edited by  Sheila Pickles, published in 1994 by Harmony Books, a division of Crown.

“To the wall of the old green garden / A butterfly quivering came; / His wings on the sombre lichens / Played like a yellow  flame. 

He looked at the grey geraniums, / And the sleepy four o’clocks; / He looked at the low lanes bordered / With the glossy-growing box.

He longed for the peace and the silence, / And the shadows that lengthened there, / And his wee wild heart was weary / Of skimming the endless air.

And now in the old green garden, / I know not how it came, / A single pansy is blooming, / Bright as a yellow flame.

And whenever a gay gust passes, / It quivers as if with pain, / For the butterfly-soul that is in it, / Longs for the winds again!”

In that brief instant, of being caught unaware by this most delicate of Nature’s wild birds, all these thoughts came rushing to me, as if on one of those strong gusts of wind. The next time I’m looking at a blank screen, I will always try to remember a poem written in Hindi by Ravindra Kumar Karnari. It was posted on the internet. This is called “And A Meadowlark Sang“

“The child whispered, ’God speak to me’ /And a meadowlark sang…/The child did not hear…

So the child yelled, ‘God, speak to me!’ / And the thunder rolled across the sky…/ But the child did not listen…

The child looked around and said, ‘God, let me see you’ and a Star shone brightly / But the child did not see…

And the child shouted, / ’God, show me a miracle!’ / And a life was born, but the child did not know.

So the child cried out in despair, / ‘Touch me God, and let me know you are here!’ / Whereupon God reached down and touched the child….

But the child brushed the butterfly away and walked away unknowingly…”                                                                                 

My ‘Muse’ returned today….It came disguised as a hummingbird….

Don Jackson

“Once you are real, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always…”

Margery Williams, from her best-selling Christmas story, The Velveteen Rabbit, originally published in the early 1920’s and again in 1995 by Smithmark Publishers.

After so many years of having some of my hair rubbed off, getting loose in the joints, a trifle shabby, losing a few of my whiskers, having some of the pink rubbed off my nose, and realizing that the stitching on my tail has become frayed, last night I became real to so many listeners….

After all these many years being just a voice on the radio at night, you now have a chance to put a face to the name, a face to the voice.

When I worked in Montreal, I was a familiar face to my listeners. I was one of the most requested announcers to go out on remotes. A remote is when we go on location with a commercial sponsor to highlight a special promotion. Over the years, I have helped introduce the most up-to-date electronic components, new model cars and trucks, heat pump technology, hardware and tools, and chocolate. I was on remote the night Montreal suffered through a fairly moderate earthquake. I was at a pet show in one of the convention centres that was directly over the train station. When the earthquake hit, my first thought was something terrible had gone wrong in the station below. I was sitting at my remote desk with all the electronic equipment surrounding me. The desk and chair swayed back and forth and I was almost thrown to the floor. The power went off, and it was at that moment that all the dogs and cats in this show the highlighted unusual breeds and products, that the animals all let up a cry at the same moment. I have often heard that animals have a sense of these events before they happen. Their behaviour is supposed to be an early warning sign to their human companions that a catastrophic event is about to take place. That night, just moments before the plates beneath the island of Montreal gave way and the tension was released, the animals showed no signs of what was to come. It was only in the dark, before the emergency lighting came on, that their panic was evident.

I made it home safely that night. The earthquake had disrupted power and had shaken buildings and homes to their core, but we survived with no real damage. It wasn’t the first and it certainly wouldn’t be the last earthquake to rattle the city’s foundations. Another pre-dawn earthquake threw me right out of my bed and onto the floor. Talk about a rude awakening!

(My hopes and prayers go out to all the people and their families in Southeast Asia who have just recently suffered through some devastating earthquakes.)

When I was on these remotes, listeners would have the opportunity to stop by, do a little shopping, and I always took a few moments out of broadcast to meet my listeners and spend some time discussing the radio show and hearing their comments. Not only was it an opportunity for them to finally put a face to the voice, but it gave me a chance to see the faces of those who tuned in every night, as well as those who called me on the phone for information.

When I first began my broadcasting career, a very insightful Program Director told me that in order to become ‘real’ to listeners, I had to narrow my on-air approach. Instead of speaking to an ‘audience of many’, he suggested I speak to an ‘audience of one’. He said the easiest way to accomplish this was to set a picture of someone who meant a lot to me on the radio console in front of me. Every time I turned on the microphone to backsell the music and to read the weather, a promo, or a lighthearted story, I speak to the person in the picture. That way, it created an intimate connection with each and every person listening, because, in a sense, I was speaking to the most important person listening: the one who took the time to tune in. It is something I have never forgotten. I no longer need the photograph. I always keep someone in mind when I do my radio show, and imagine that I am having a conversation with that person. When I talk to you at night, even though I may not have a face to imagine, you will now be able to put a face to my voice, and I hope that it helps to make our ‘conversation’ all that more real….

When I first arrived at CHFI in January of 1990, we pondered a different approach. The Programming Department thought that due to the nature of the program, the message was more important than the messenger, and that we keep the host a mystery. Just like that famous line from The Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”, I was the man behind the curtain, speaking into the microphone, pulling the levers, pushing the buttons, flipping the switches, making sure the right background music accompanied what was being said, an occasional sound effect was played to enhance the mood (like Oz’s dramatic smoke and sounds on the stage before Dorothy and her friends). It took a little dog by the name of Toto to eventually break free and draw back the curtain to reveal the little man behind the scenes who tried to make his magic seem real. My Toto was a webmaster and a new programming thought from Julie Adam. It was time to show that the magic is real. It is written and produced by one person who has only ever tried to entertain you, give you something to think about, to make you feel your life is something very special because you are unique. If you have read some of the wonderful comments by listeners to my first blog, then you will know that I have accomplished what I set out to do. And that is not a product of ’smoke and mirrors’, but real magic. The rabbit does poke its head out of the top hat, and smiles at you.

When I read these wonderful comments from people like Penny, Rhonda, ‘TMP’, Sam, Karon, Clementina, Andrea, Pamela, and others, it makes me want to rush behind another curtain, my home office, get the word processor fired up, and work a little harder to make the magic ‘real’ tonight.

I hope you will join me each and every night, Sunday through Friday, between 9 and 11 for Lovers and Other Strangers….

Even though the world does judge by appearance, I hope you realize that it’s what’s on the inside that only matters. It takes a lifetime for most of us to become real.

Don Jackson

This is my first blog and I can’t tell you how excited I am to contribute my thoughts and feelings about the unique radio show that CHFI has allowed me to do every night between 9 and 11 pm. This blog will feature my thoughts and feelings about the show, how it is put together every day, how and where it originated, and what it means to me to hear feedback concerning the material I feature and the music I select for the show.

I have been given the rare opportunity to actually produce every aspect of this radio show. Very few broadcasters in this country have been given almost free reign to let their imagination soar. My inspiration comes from life in general and my family.

As far back as I can remember in this business, I have always wanted to do a program like this. I began working in radio at the age of sixteen. I was on the air at a local commercial radio station in my hometown, just outside of Toronto, even while I was going to high school. At the time, we created special blocks of programming that featured specialized programming. The seed of an idea for my show was in the back of my mind even then. I began collecting material: books, newspaper and magazine articles that dealt with relationships and life. I read everything, looking for inspiration.

It would be quite a few years later before any of that material would come together in some cohesive format. Since there was nothing else on the radio of its kind, I had to come up with a format that would make it an enjoyable listening experience to those who tuned in.

I was hired at a radio station in Montreal in the late 70’s and stayed there until the format changed in the early 80’s. I was immediately hired by a competitor, who saw something in my unique style of ‘personality radio’ that intrigued him. He was the one who inspired my imagination to take flight. We started to brainstorm, and that’s when I brought up the idea that had been in my mind and on a back burner for so long.

There was another broadcaster in Montreal who read poetry on his late evening talk show. He even produced a few record albums of his readings, and he was a huge inspiration to me. He had a wonderful speaking voice and something about the way he read poetry brought those words to life. I felt, however, that my show needed to be different. It needed to be more than just poetry. There needed to be a theme with all kinds of research material to back up the theme. The show needed a beginning, a middle, and an ending, much like a chapter in a book. I believed that my show would be like reading a chapter in a favourite book ‘that one re-reads alone’, as a writer once said. I also felt that the music should enhance each night’s theme, and so I began to compile a file of lyrics to all the songs I thought might fit this kind of program.

The show began life as a fifteen minute feature in my regular evening program. It expanded over time as listener interest was piqued. It eventually became a three-hour- long feature in my five-hour evening program.

There is a lot more that I’d like to share with you about this original idea and how it all came together, but I will save that for subsequent blogs. The one question that I’ve always been asked right from the beginning to the present day concerns the show’s title. It’s the one burning question. It may be the one question you’ve always wondered about…..

This is what I usually tell listeners who inquire about the origins of the show:

When the show first aired back in Montreal, I chose the title for a very simple reason. At the time, the show dealt exclusively with love and marriage relationships. After observing many life-long relationships between friends and family, I realized that two people can live a lifetime together and never really know everything there is to know about each other. Each new day, there could be something else to discover about each other - wonderful, absolutely thrilling discoveries, aspects to their personalities that make them unique.

People change over time, as well. Their likes and dislikes will also change. Sadly, some people wake up one morning in some relationships and wonder who the ’stranger’ is who’s been sharing his/her life for years. People change, not always for the better and some relationships begin to fall apart.

The show now features very positive, inspirational writing. Some of the thoughts delve deep into a part of ourselves that most of us didn’t even know existed. We discover strengths and weaknesses we didn’t know we had. In some ways, now, the ’stranger’ is ourself.

I thought the title of the show appropriate considering some of these realities about relationships and life. Over the years, the show has changed direction quite a few times, but the ‘brand name’ is a ‘mark’ that is too popular to change to match the show’s changing moods. And in hindsight, just because of that fact, it’s probably still an appropriate title.

It was also the title of a popular movie from quite a few decades back. The name itself is so popular that even one author used it for the title of a romance novel. In my daily research for this show, I have run across the phrase on a few other occasions in a few other writings. People often get my name wrong, but they don’t forget the title of my original show….

Lovers and Other Strangers first aired here in Toronto in January of 1990. This year, I am celebrating 17 years on the air on CHFI.

Don Jackson