John Stall

A little self indulgence in this space as I reflect on the life and talent of Canadian broadcaster Keith Rich who passed last week at the age of 80. 

I began my radio career as Keith’s technical operator in the early 70s at 590 CKEY. It was my first radio job, I was in my early 20s at the time and he was in his mid 40s. There was a 25-year age difference between us. He was a major mentor to me.

I loved radio and I came to love him and his extraordinary talent. My love for radio intensified because of Keith’s unique communicative skill.  His natural ability to speak one on one through a microphone to millions of people who felt as though he was speaking only to them was extraordinary, and in my view is the essence of radio -  talking “to” people not ”at” them.

Wally Crouter had the talent (it’s no accident he sustained a huge audience for 50 years), so did Arthur Godfrey and Johnny Carson … but in my view and personal experience, Keith Rich was king in an era when just talking to people through the radio and keeping them company was it.

Keith and I worked closely together as a team on the Morning show at 590 for about about eight years. We became very close friends. We travelled on vacation together, spent time with each others’ families, flew together in planes that he owned and piloted throughout Ontario and into Florida on occasion. Then came the time when I wanted to progress and to make the move to “the other side of the glass” as a broadcaster. It was a move he thought I shouldn’t make because he didn’t think my voice was any good for radio and tried to discourage me. “Alright,” I said to him, “then I’ll become informed and knowledgeable like Charles Templeton, Pierre Burton, Stephen Lewis and Joe Morgan (who were our colleagues at the time). “I will become so informed,  creative and develop so many contacts, that it won’t matter what the voice sounds like, what I have to say and how I say it, I told him, (like I was asking permission ) might make up for the timber of the voice trying to say it.  He had his doubts, but gave me his blessing.  That was almost 30 years ago.  

We stayed in touch on and off throughout the years. We were last together five years ago when he came over to the house to share my 50th birthday. He praised the voice as “distinctive.”

Although radio broadcasting has evolved like all other aspects of life,  the uniqueness of his talent during his time was as good as it gets. 

In the words and Lyrics of current Canadian country singer Brad Johners latest hit: “Like Coca Cola and Levi Straus, Johnny Carson and Mickey Mouse … lots of things are imitatable - but nothing beats an original.”

I don’t know about you, but I am not yet enjoying this first snow fall of the season. It came to soon and too fast.

I am trying very hard to remember some good advice passed on to me many years ago by Canadian gold medalist Nancy Green about getting through a Canadian winter. ”Embrace it,” she said, “don’t reject” it. Nancy of course loves winter more than any other season. She and her husband now operate a ski resort complex called Sun Valley in British Columbia.

Nancy’s idea of embracing winter is to dress warm in bright colorful clothes, to decorate the outside of the house with lots of colourful lights, to play in the snow, skiing, or walking or snowshoeing or tobogganing or snowmobiling or ice fishing. To always curl up in front of a fireplace if you can, to huddle in kitchens preparing soups and chili, to bake break and drink wine. 

It’s a great outlook and we do live the life she promotes, but I wasn’t going to be ready to embrace it for another few weeks or at least until the leaves got raked and the lawnmower put away!

I watch and listened carefully and with a great deal of interest to how defense minister Peter Mackay looked and what he had to say after a rocket-propelled grenade whistled over his head and exploded near the Kandahar base he was visiting.

To me, he looked a little pale and quite shook up as he praised the reaction of those in charge who got him out of harms way very quickly describing their action as cool and professional.  I could write and talk about this for hours and hours (and I have along the way with those who have the patience to listen) because I know what it feels like to come under attack in a war zone. I won’t go on forever but want to make a few points in this blog just because I can.

War is hell! But only those who have been there “get it” — to the rest it’s just a phrase. Peter Mackay now “gets it” and so do I.

I went to Saudi Arabia to cover the first Gulf War in 1991. As a 40-year-old reporter/show host, I knew nothing about war other than what I’d heard or read from other who had lived through one. I had a couple of days training before departure at CFB Borden. My decision to go was a business decision and so was Peter Mackay’s. At the time, I was hosting a top-rated radio interview show on CFRB and  for several years had pursued the pattern of actually going to the hot spots of the world. Saudi Arabia was very hot indeed - and loud! Almost every day for almost a month.

Within hours of the first coalition strike on Sudam Hussein’s army who had invaded Kuwait, the incoming Iraqi scud missiles began exploding around our base in Saudi. We never actually knew if the explosions we heard and felt in our chest were the result of the missiles hitting the ground or colliding with American patriot missiles taking them out over head before they hit.  I can assure you though, the sound is terrifying and stays with me today. I can only describe it as ten times as loud as the loudest crack of thunder you have ever heard letting loose directly over your house, and you feel the concussion from the inside out. The difference between Mackay’s experience and mine is that I didn’t have any Canadian military whisking me out - although the Mulroney Government did make a deal with the Bush administration after about three weeks to get the area evacuated of me and several hundred other Canadians, leaving on American cargo planes.

Mackay’s experience may not make a difference to Canada’s role or future commitment in Afghanistan,  but I think it’s useful to the decision-making process to have a defense minister at the cabinet table in Ottawa who has had to dive under the table in the field and who has had to (whether he likes it or not ) stop his heart from entering his throat as a missile or grenade whistles over his head while the men and women in Canadian uniform keep cool and professional.

I’ve surprised myself with this little blurb because I don’t like to talk or think too much about the month I spent in a war zone with anyone other than the nucleus of family and small circle of friends who will listen. It wells up in me only when something triggers it
– like Mackay’s close call, or when a journalist is killed, or when I meet up with a soldier returning from Afghanistan or at this week of the year … at the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month.

Another week and another confidence vote in the House of Commons. This time on the Finance Minister’s economic statement/mini budget. It might not become a weekly occurrence but it’s shaping up to be the way the Harper government plans to operate more often than not.

The federal Tories seem content to govern as though they have a majority perhaps sensing the only consequence is the chance to form one – if and when the Liberals have had enough of staying out of the house when it come time to vote against something that would bring the government down.

Stephane Dion said again this week that he will bring the government down one of these days but not this week.  He won’t say which week or over which issue. 

I appeared as a panelist on Anne Rhomer’s CityTV open line show the day after the economic statement and heard at least one caller conclude that Canadians don’t want an election and that he and others are not being fooled by the tactics being used in Ottawa, leaving the impression that both Liberals and Conservatives would face a day of reckoning, but I’m not clear what he meant . Does he mean that Canadians will eventually punish one side or the other at an election or both?

Who do you think would be punished more at the polls?  The party who provoked an election? Or the party who pulled the trigger?