CHOO Radio Recollections

An on line scrapbook of images & text for former staff and listeners alike

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UPDATE MARCH 2013

Welcome back... We've moved to a new address on line... this is a result of changes made at our last webhost that were counter-productive to the longterm well-being of this site. And... happy birthday to us! This site is now four years old... many thanks to all of our contributors and supporters without whom this site would not be worth doing...

Please BOOKMARK our new address (URL) so you can find us again easily. And - spread the word - we're back!

We are now proudly hosted at VCN - the non-profit Vancouver Community Network - located on computer servers housed at the Vancouver Public Library system. If loading is a little slower than usual - please be patient or come back again during off-peak use hours (Pacific Time).

Our new email contact address is on the INDEX PAGE. Please note: the old email @ radio recollections dot com is now dead.

The CHOO FACEBOOK page has been unilaterally moved (by FB). If you're having trouble finding it, contact this site and I will forward your request to its administrator (Gary) to reinstate you on it.

The 2012 Annual CHOO Reunion Lunch held this past January was another great success. (Excess?) Many thanks to Pat Gonsalves and Dave Hughes for masterminding it as usual. It was very good to see everyone again looking so well...

Now this site is back up and running your recollections of CHOO days gone by are very welcome again... email address is on the "index" page... some big surprises ahead so... keep reading!

First up... great memories from the early days of CHOO from Ron Routh... Ron, over to you...

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RON ROUTH'S RECOLLECTIONS

An Original CHOO Announcer (Sort Of)

My name is Ron Routh and I was an announcer on CHOO for two different genres.

I was bitten by the radio announcer bug at a young age. My father, Bud Routh, was a part-time square dance caller. One of his mentors was a caller from Florida, Don Armstrong. Along with being an internationally known square dance caller he was an owner of WGUL ­ Golden Gull Radio in New Port Ritchie Florida. We paid a visit at the station while on a family vacation. Don was doing his show while he entertained his unscheduled visitors. He opened the mike and invited me to speak. My stammer was limited and likely all but inaudible but the mold was set - I had the bug. It had been a seed but it germinated in my teens when a friend, Brian MacKay who was a few years my senior set up a “radio studio” in his bedroom! I looked up to Brian and when he let me “announce” and then told me I had a voice for radio I was in “airwave heaven.”

I stumbled my way to become a high school graduate in June of 1967. They printed too many centennial year diplomas and decided to give me one for number of years service. It was time to find a job. My family had a home on Squires Beach in Pickering. Our next door neighbour, Hugh Clark had held various executive positions in broadcasting during his life and I’m sure I drove him crazy with “I wanna be a disc jockey” questions. The Clark’s eldest son Godfrey had a small construction company. Godfrey had just won the contract to construct the CHOO transmission tower site on Ontoro Beach and the studios at 97 McMaster Avenue in Ajax. I became an unskilled labourer.

Bill Jones the owner of CHOO had a timetable to be on the air. The construction fell behind. Several announcers destined to be the opening day staff had quit their jobs too soon and required work. They were given the opportunity to trade their voices for construction calluses. By that time I was no longer unskilled and to a degree held sway over the dj’s /labourer tasks. I certainly spent time picking their brains about a career in broadcasting.

“CH Double O” went on the air in November 1967 with construction continuing.

My workers became:

Brian Farr - General Manager

Rick Adams - Program Director

Ken Day - Sports Director

Others in those early days included...

Peter Oosterholt - News Director

Blair ? - Announcer (Velvet Voice)

The first “all night man”, who’s name I don’t recall, drove a motorcycle and lived in Brampton. With winter rapidly approaching management asked him to move closer or buy a car. He refused either option. He was fired. With no fanfare or time to catch my breath I also transitioned from labourer to announcer!

“CHOO” was a totally forbidden term. It was “CH Double O Radio.” We were a tight format “Middle of the Road - Easy Listening” radio station. You could play a vocal only after you had played three instrumental records. Usually I was alone in the station from about 12:30 a.m. to about 5:00 a.m Occasionally when I was running back and forth clearing the teletype etc. all during the couple of minutes a record played I realized someone else was in the building. Bill Jones the owner would come in the middle of the night. International communications were not as easy and cheap as they have become. “Jonesy” had a son in Africa and he would come in to call him in the wee hours of the morning on the company phone. It sometimes appeared that the parental urge was empowered by alcohol. He would engage the lowly all night man in conversation while waiting for the international operator. A later career would teach me to note, “His clothing was disarranged, his speech was slurred and he smelt strongly of an alcoholic beverage.”

I became a “jack of all trades” at the station. After my shift I was the operator for the morning man, Brian Farr. I got all the traffic, ski, weather, etc reports. Then the News Director, Peter Oosterholt would send me off to cover something for the news department. When I returned and filed the stories he would ask me to cover evening council meetings in places like Hampton. I was burning the candle at both ends and my Dad started tracking my hours. He put it at 100 hours a week and I was getting paid $60.00 a week! Financial rewards were not given but titles were - eventually I was Transportation and Recreation Coordinator.

I did love the job but the long hours had some negatives... The tight format would fail when I would awaken to the sounds at the end of a Barbara Streisand LP and recall I had put on the first cut on that side.

I also recall massive giddy fits from fatigue when you simply could not regain your composure to complete an announcement or newscast. The news booth microphone was omnidirectional, however, everyone learned that there was a dead spot at the top. The airflow vent was directly over the mike. If anyone said anything next to the air intake at the back of the building the announcer heard but it did not go on air! The art form of breaking up the “on air” man had a new venue. This was added to the bulletin scripts that were handed to you during a news cast like, “Breaking news just handed to me - the world's largest milkshake was created today” - it did go on to describe an accident with a milk tanker in Manchester but getting the composure to continue caused the mike to be turned off and on. More than once a fellow announcer would enter the booth while you were reading the news. The first thought would be that he was bringing you a breaking news story but you soon noticed your script was on fire. As you beat out the flames you continued to calmly read the story and fabricate the end if the combustion had consumed the copy.

One night I had some high school friends come by the studio. I was "COOL”. I was running around performing all my duties and looking “The Part”. The tight format I mentioned included news. Every newscast had to end with a sports story. I was smoothly announcing the news, casting an odd side glance through the windows to my “admiring fans” in the news room. The sports story I had chosen was a hockey game between St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Ron, the “COOL” announcer continued, “In sports tonight the game at Shittsburg ...”

There had been a few changes in staff. I was to become one of the changes but one announcer that had arrived befriended me. He was from Newfoundland and his name as I recall was Garth Bennett. That friendship augured well later.

After Ajax I was employed at CJSS in Cornwall at 237 Water Street. The Program Director who hired me was Dave LeFeave. The News Director was Prior Smith who went on to a long career with a syndicated program aired mainly in Florida “Calling All Canadians”. Dave Marsden (formerly Dave Micky at the old CKEY) was the evening man. Dave took great pride in the fact Marshall McLuhan had mentioned him in his book, “The Medium is The Message.” Dave was a great mentor. Since the station went off the air at midnight we would stay late to do our “voice overs” etc in the main studio. Part of the reason was at that time the smells in Cornwall kept you inside if you were not a local by birth. The pulp and paper mill, the rayon mill and the city dump meant the only fresh air came from across the St. Lawrence via Massena, New York. One of Dave Marsden’s stories related to being called by the Ontario Provincial Police to announce a story he had been reporting was not true. The police clamed they had a traffic jam along the roads by the parks on the St. Lawrence due to his weeklong broadcasts promoting the submarine races that were happening on Saturday night!

Being a true small town radio station CJSS had the very typical noon time programming brought to you by the local funeral homes - In Memoriam. I had a mental block with the pronunciation of one local town, Plantagenet. No matter how many times I rehearsed it off air when I opened the mike it came out Plant-a-gen-et. All the phones would immediately light up. That was minor however since the “break up the on air guy” was particularly aimed at the “In Memoriam” announcer. The studios were much older than CHOO. The “discs were spun” on Gates turntables. They were heavy reliable old beasts that were geared so well they could turn an elephant. That is all mentioned to tell of the ultimate “break up”. There was an on air personality that was renowned as a “Stone Wall” who could not be broken. That was until the day his curiosity got the better of him. He knew something was happening in the next studio and he looked up from his script to see a fellow announcer spinning in front of him at 16 rpm - naked.

The station was block programming and although only 1000 watts took great pride in being the only station to have a 100% BBM rating on one of it’s shows. It was a country show - Cousin Keith Klingin. I would cover his show when he was away or off sick etc. I learned a great deal about country music but even more about country music fans.

My life in Cornwall was cut short when the management decided that each member of the news department (I was assigned there along with program) would be on 24 hour call one weekend in three with no pay. I had a girlfriend back in Scarborough and only got one day off a week to see her. The first weekend that I was scheduled to be on call I pointed my 1961 Austin Cambridge A55 Mark II toward my parents in Pickering. The following Monday I went to work and the new News Director met me in the parking lot, took my station key and fired me!

I was at home licking my “you’re fired” wounds when a surprise call came in. It was Garth Bennett. He was now the Program Director at CHOO. He had listened to me on CJSS while driving past Cornwall and was impressed by a more mature Radio Voice. He then offered me a job! I went back as the all night man but this time it would be block programming. I would be doing a county show. The first country programming on CHOO.

It was a great run. I had come back under my terms and pay. I soon found out that I had a command audience. The show was being piped through the intercom system at General Motors on the night shift. Immediately after the 11:00 p.m. news The Buckaroos would play “Chicken Pickin’” and the entertainment of the late night masses was my responsibility. As anyone who has done a country program knows if you connect with your listeners they are loyal and interactive with you. It was great. I did have a small fly in the ointment. I was still dating the same girl in Scarborough and her father did not want his daughter involved with someone in show business. That issue was about to be solved. I had been there several months when” Jonesy”, the owner Bill Jones, realized that I was the second highest paid “on air personality” at the station and I had one of the lower revenue generating shows. Management came to me and suggested a pay cut. I was very full of myself and felt I earned what I was being paid. I was fired.

That did end my radio days. I had always wanted to be a police officer if I wasn’t in broadcasting and there was the issue of the girlfriend’s dad. I applied for and joined the Metropolitan Toronto Police force in May of 1969. I used my first post Police College pay cheque to buy a diamond ring. I did marry the girl with her father’s blessing. It all worked out since that girl and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in September 2010.

There are a couple of add ons to the story. I became known as “The Voice” around my police station since the old radio pipes were used every time I used the intercom. I had been a copper a few years when an older “rookie” joined our platoon. We learned that he was a Country and Western singer but eventually I discovered that Gary Hooper had been a celebrity at CHOO after I had been there.

I spent 27 years policing. During that time my wife became a real estate broker. I decided to get my real estate Llcense in 1983 (to see my wife I told everyone). I retired from the 42 Division Sexual Assault Unit while seconded to the Homicide Squad in 1996. From that time I have been a full time realtor at Re/Max First Realty Ltd. in Durham Region.

- Ron Routh

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Many thanks to Ron for sharing such well-written, colourful anecdotes about his time at CHOO with us. Ron also supplied that photograph of himself (above) on the air in the very early CHOO studios. (Photo by Rick Adams).

(BELOW) Caricatures of some of the CHOO staff from Ron's days with the station...

(ABOVE) Ron Routh also sent along these terrific caricatures of station staff from his time at CHOO drawn by early CHOO announcer Blair ...? Sorry we don't have your last name Blair. Please write to us and we will correct that omission asap. Our email information appears on our "index" page. We'd also love to hear your CHOO Radio Recollections too!

THAT'S ALL FOR THIS UPDATE... but stay tuned for more CHOO Radio Recollections...

Cheers from, John - your friendly neighborhood CHOO Radio Recollections web guy.