Читать книгу George Garrett - George Garrett - Страница 15

On the excellent sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, announcer Ted Baxter, cupping his ear with his hand, would say in dulcet tones, “It all started in a little station …”

Well, for me it did start in that proverbial little station in the relatively small town of North Battleford, Saskatchewan. I had hitchhiked there from my home in Moose Jaw and was given an audition at CJNB in July, 1952. Somehow I passed the audition and was told I could start as an announcer on August 1. Winning the job was the culmination of years of dreaming about being an announcer. But I did more than dream. I hung around radio stations, getting coffee for the announcers, carrying their equipment for remote broadcasts … anything to get noticed. Finally, I had my first job in radio. I was terrified when I sat behind the control panel and opened a microphone for the first time. I stuttered as I introduced a singer named Tony Martin to sing “Tahiti, My Island.” I think it came out, “Here is T—T—Tony M—M—Martin to sing ‘T—Tahiti, M—My Island.’” I was a bundle of nerves.

However, it was not long before I was doing what the industry called “rip ’n’ read” newscasts. Wire services like Broadcast News (BN), a division of the Canadian Press (CP), condensed stories into short paragraphs for radio station newscasts. One problem was that announcers like me were also disc jockeys playing records that usually lasted less than three minutes. The announcer had to race down a long hallway to the teletype machines, rip off some news copy, and race back to the control room before the record ended. Any rehearsal of the newscast was done quickly as a few records played. Wire copy provided pronunciation guides for faraway places and foreign-sounding names, but struggling announcers like me often mispronounced them. I had no formal training. In essence I was a high school dropout inflicted on the unsuspecting audience of CJNB. Farmers in the area listened to the radio. One said he put a radio in the barn and the cows gave more milk!

I began my career at age seventeen. Within a few days, the Annual North Battleford Fall Fair was underway. First Nations people came from surrounding reserves, often by horse and wagon. They pitched tents and some teepees near the fairgrounds and stayed for the full week of the fair. Although the station had a very small staff, we did broadcasts from a booth in the fair for several hours each day. My first ever interview was with a young girl—probably about fourteen—whose calf had won a 4-H Club competition. I’d had some experience on farms so I wasn’t totally lost, but it was not a very enlightening interview. At the fair I met the local agriculture representative, a government official known as an “Ag Reg.” His name was John Allan, and he was a kindly man. He helped me a great deal with advice on how to cover agricultural stories. I listened carefully to his weekly shows on CJNB. I worked long hours involved in broadcasts from the fair, which was located on the east side of North Battleford, probably about three kilometres from the radio station. I had no car and there were no local buses. Fortunately, I was befriended by a very nice farmer named Russ Ewanchuk. He was also the leader of a country music trio, the Melody Ranch Boys. Russ had a brand new 1952 Ford convertible. He would often give me rides back and forth from the fairgrounds to the radio station. Eventually, I became the announcer for his shows on CJNB and for Saturday night barn dances at Brada, ten kilometres east of North Battleford. The barn was on the farm of Leon, the accordion player. The Melody Ranch Boys subsequently played for free at my and Joan’s wedding.

I had been at CJNB for only a few weeks when a trio of girls came to the station ostensibly to make a request for the announcer to play their favourite record. In reality, the girls probably wanted to see the new announcer in town. I can still see the three girls standing at the counter. One was a gorgeous blonde named Sheila Weir, another a shorter gal named Evelyn Spraque—and then there was the redhead, the one who caught my eye. Her name was Joan McIntyre. Somehow I found out not only her name but her phone number. Later, I phoned and asked if I could take her to a movie. She was only fifteen, so she had to ask permission from her mother, who said, “You can’t go out with him—he’s a man.” But Joan did get permission, and I arrived at the door of the McIntyre home, which in those days looked like a shack. Her mother, Bess, was to say later that when I showed up for my first date with Joan she privately thought, “He’s not a man—he’s a scrawny kid.” She was right!

I was utterly taken with Joan, and within a few months announced to her that someday we would be married. She later told me she thought it was just a joke. Her girlfriends giggled when she told them, but I was serious about Joan. Although I soon moved back to my hometown, Moose Jaw, to work at radio station CHAB, I returned to North Battleford a year later for two reasons. I had been offered the job of program director—for which I was eminently unqualified—and Joan was there. We dated often and I was a frequent guest at the McIntyre home for dinner, sometimes invited by her mother, not Joan! After gaining experience at two stations in Saskatchewan, I was hired by CKNW on Feburary 1, 1956. Joan and I became engaged. After being at CKNW for only eight months I was given time off to drive to North Battleford, Saskatchewan, where Joan and I were married on October 25, 1956. We left North Battleford with a carload of wedding gifts in a 1953 Chevy Bel Air. Someone had written “BC or bust” on the side of the car.

The honeymoon began with a trip to Saskatoon, about 145 kilometres to the southeast. Whenever the car hit a bump the horn would blow. When I checked under the hood I found two little wires that had been connected to the horn. The other ends were inserted into a small vial containing mercury. Every time I hit a bump the mercury would splash and make a complete circuit, blowing the horn. It was an ingenious contraption made by our station engineer, Al Ruddell. Clever fellow! Al knew that frequent blasts from the horn would attract attention to the honeymooners’ car. We headed to BC where we began our married life together.