Time to time I’m told that I should write a book.
If I did (hey, enough trouble writing a weekly column), it would be about life in the news lane.
So, excerpts from a book that will never be written.
* When somebody tells me about being paid double time (or more) for working a stat holiday, I think of a battle years ago I had with a managing editor over pay for stat holidays. The guy insisted that the Ontario Labour Act didn’t allow the company to pay non-union staffers double time, the same as S-F union employees. (He also believed that the time and half had to be taken in time, not money, because the company didn’t put money for overtime in the budget). This, he wrongly believed, was because the act said persons working stat holidays had to be paid time and half. His interpretation was that this was the maximum amount to be paid. This was the same guy who sent out a memo reprimanding reporters for doing too much research on stories and scolded a talented up-and-comer that he didn’t want to see any more references to “white stuff” in his winter snow storm stories because “white stuff” was a slang for cocaine. (I’m not making this up).
* And then there was the idiotic bell installed in the newsroom by wacky publisher John A. Farrington who was convinced we were ignoring incoming telephone calls (this was before voice mail). So, he had Bell Telephone install the contraption in the newsroom. It gave off a high pitched ring similar to a school bell when a call came through to the newsroom. In those days, a lot of people actually called the newsroom, so there was a lot of bell ringing, up to 20 an hour. If you were talking to someone on the phone, they would ask, “What is that?” My line was that it meant somebody just escaped and any minute they would hear the guard dogs springing into action. The first thing Milton Ellis did when he returned as publisher (replacing the ousted Farrington) was to get rid of the bell. A cheer went up in the newsroom.
* A publisher circa 1970s made it a rule that all the mail that came into the building had to be piled on his desk each morning. He would spend an hour or so opening every piece of mail, regardless of who it was addressed to. And that included mail marked personal. Each Christmas I would get a card from one of the beer reps. Opened of course. The year after the publisher was transferred I received the usual card from the rep, but this time with a gift certificate for a case of 24 beer. A few weeks later I was told by the rep that he had always put a gift certificate in with the card. And all that time I thought the publisher wasn’t a beer drinker.
* The Windsor Star newsroom had two steel trash bins about the size of a casket. One evening while everybody was trying to beat deadline an annoying little guy kept pestering the labour reporter, a Greek with a fiery temper, about having too much work to do. Suddenly, the burly labour reporter grabbed the little guy, about half his size, by the back of the neck, threw open one of the bins, tossed him in, and put a chair on the lid. I can still hear the pest kicking the lid and yelling “Let me out, I’ve got a story to write.”
* Managing editor Ab Gratton, a talented journalist who could write headlines on a scrap of paper while carrying on a conversation, would summon me to his office each morning. He would ask me to pick up a pack of cigarettes on my way to the police station (morning beat check) but to make a detour to the Cornwallis Hotel cafe rather than stopping at Kennedy’s next to the station. That was because a pack of smokes at the Cornwallis came with a free book of matches, while Kennedy’s charged an extra penny. Ab never knew it but for a penny I wasn’t going two blocks out of my way. I always paid the penny.
* I still have my first Canadian Press cheque for passing along a local story to the national news agency – $1.75.
* You could fill a book on the escapades of a colourful sports editor called Ray Shank. His unofficial office was the draft room of the Lloyd George Hotel, just across the street, where he presided over the shuffle board league. Nobody could write a better account of a hockey game (or any sporting event for that matter) without seeing it.
One holiday weekend Ray said he needed a staff car to cover a softball tournament in Massena. Instead, he filled up at Halliwell’s, where the S-F had an account. He also filled up three 20-gallon gas cans and took off for North Bay, to rendezvous with friends.
For six months he lived at the office, literally, after being evicted from his apartment. He put a mattress in the big newsroom clothes closet. He bragged that he had the best apartment in town – free phone, free heat, free lights and four washrooms. He used the press room showers. This lasted, without management knowing, until he slept in one morning (he was first in) after being overserved at the Lloyd George. The female managing editor rolled back the closet door to hang up her coat only to find Shank stretched out on the floor and “dead” to the world. Thinking he really was dead, she let out a scream heard throughout the building and nearly fainted.
HERE AND THERE The federal riding that includes Cornwall hasn’t had a cabinet minister since Ed Lumley. However, a strong, stiff Liberal wind blowing across the riding (Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry) in the fall election could open the door. Justin Trudeau said women would make up at least 50% of his cabinet. If he becomes the next prime minister and Bernadette Clement wins the riding, she will be a cabinet contender.
TRIVIA ANSWER The YMCA moved from First Street West (just west of Pitt Street) to its new building on Fifth Street East in 1962. The hall used by the First Street building was a former army hut from the Second World War basic training centre behind the Cornwall Armoury.
TRIVIA This former pro baseball player was Cornwall’s first parks and recreation director.
SOCIAL NOTES Summer brings visitors from far away back to the home town. Brian “The Cat” Rouleau is in from New Orleans (30 hour drive). Says he is working on a book about his 40-plus years in the night club biz. It’ll be called “Stuck in Stupid”. … Scott Marlin came up from Ohio for a couple of days. … Former MP/mayor Bob Kilger and Courtney May tied the knot on June 27 in Ottawa. She is Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson’s executive assistant.
IN THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR Back in the 1950s one of the service clubs ran a boys’ summer camp near Lancaster. It was called the Fresh Air Camp and was a free camp for underprivileged kids in the city. Eugene Bergeron recalls being one of the young campers transported to the camp down old Highway 2 in everything from pick-up trucks to a dump truck. …. Rustic Camp Kagama on Sheek Island, a summer paradise. It was displaced by the St. Lawrence Seaway Project and rebuilt on Morrison Island.
SPORTS STUFF King George Park ball diamond doesn’t look the same without the club house just outside the right-field fence. It is like Fenway Park without the Green Monster. … Looking like a sore thumb is the portable john just behond the centre field fence. Quite a hike for from the bleachers.
