I first tried to get a job in radio when I came back to Sudbury for grade thirteen. I was in need of a job, and I had won a public-speaking contest in grade three. I don’t know why that stuck with me, but I figured, You speak well, so maybe you could announce.
The station manager I auditioned for politely rejected me. “Well, you’re very, very young,” he said, “but you’ve got a good voice.”
Then in my junior year at university, I auditioned for a private radio station in Ottawa. They liked what I did, yet they wouldn’t hire me. “We think we’re one of the top stations in the country,” they said, “and it wouldn’t look good if we hired somebody who has absolutely no experience. Go get some experience, and then maybe we’ll consider hiring you.”
I thought, That’s a stupid argument to make. “Hey, you did a good job, but we’re not gonna hire you because we’re only hiring people with experience.” What does it matter, for crying out loud? If I can do the job just as well as somebody with experience… the fact that you hired me, does that make you look bad? Doesn’t it make you look good that you discovered a fresh talent? You should say, “We found somebody new! He’s good!”
But they didn’t see it that way.
Maybe my rebellious streak kept me from taking no for an answer. That same summer I applied for an opening at the CBC. I still have the audition tape. I wore a nice herringbone suit and carried a pipe. I was trying to look mature while I did my best Walter Cronkite–type introduction. They had me read from a script and do some ad-libbing.
I got the job. It was a temporary summer position. Then over the Christmas holidays, I went to them and said, “Hey, you’ve got a lot of married guys on staff who are going to want to be home with their families. Why don’t you put me on temporary for the Christmas holidays?” And they did.
The radio station was on the top floor of the Château Laurier hotel. So they got me a room and had me sign on the station at 6:00 a.m., work all day, sign off at midnight, and sign it back on at 6:00 a.m. They were happy with the work I did. In February they came to me like in The Godfather, with an offer I couldn’t refuse.
“We have two full-time openings on our staff, and we’d like you to have one of them.”
“Sure,” I said, “as long as I can finish my school year.” This was my last semester of university.
“Okay.” They hired me as a staff announcer and arranged a schedule that allowed me to attend class in the morning and work in the evening. I enjoyed the work, and I was good at it. To be honest, I didn’t have anything particularly complex to do. Mostly it was local news and weather. And the stockyard report: “Canners and cutters, so much a pound.” Every night just after midnight, I’d sign off by reading a passage from the Bible. Then some mornings I’d be back in early to sign on at 6:00 a.m. Then I would go to class from 9:00 a.m. to noon. But because I was so invested in the job, my marks kept getting worse and worse, and I ended up graduating in the fall rather than in the spring.