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CHOO Radio Recollections An on line scrapbook of images & text for former staff and listeners alike ================================================================= | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FALL/WINTER 2010 UPDATE
Attention All CHOO Radio Alumni! A Message From Pat Gonsalves... Our 2nd annual CHOO Radio Alumni lunch is booked for: Friday January 14, 2011 @ noon at the Boston Pizza Scarborough Town Centre. The Boston Pizza is located at 400 Progress Ave --- phone number (416) 290-0029. Reservation is under CHOO Radio/Pat Gonsalves. I have made an initial reservation number of forty (40) and will adjust depending on how many of you are able to attend. Feel FREE to forward this to any and all CHOO Radio Alumni and current KX-96 staff who may want to be part of the festivities. RSVP to me no later than Monday January 10th, 2011... Pat Gonsalves - E mail : [email protected]
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(ABOVE) Thanks to website reader Jerry Richard for sending along these cassette covers from the 1980s. David Webster reports that, according to Jerry, "They are special promotional music tapes packaged with the CHOO label on the inner sleeve. I guess Columbia music did a special promo with CHOO." Does anyone else remember these tapes? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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(LEFT) From a local paper, circa 1970s, before CHOO went all country. According to Dave Hughes, who sent it - thanks Dave!... "The Penthouse Motor Inn was in Highland Creek at Military Trail & Old Kingston Road and it was later a strip joint... The place was frequented by bikers such as The Golden Hawks and later Satan's Choice... So it was a pretty rough place..." Does anybody else remember it? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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(RIGHT) Thanks to David Webster for this great CHOO photo, from October 1982. He says: "Regarding [this photo of] the Nashville trip, every Fall CHOO hosted a trip to either Wheeling, West Virginia or Nashville, Tennessee. Bill Johnson must have been out trying on hats when the call came cause Brian and I wound up hosting two bus loads of listeners for the trip to Nashville. Here's Brian Belfry and I pictured with two of those lucky listeners [Bessie and Leonard Merritt] who bought alcohol for us as we were still quite young and obviously underage." LOL! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
................................................................................................................................... MY CHOO RECOLLECTIONS by Sean Carmichael (CHOO 1985-1992) I was reading your site and had to share a few memories. As a fifteen year old in September of 1985 I remember walking along Fairall St. from the Go Transit bus depot on Harwood Avenue, into an industrial area that was anything but glamorous. Eventually I came to an old looking building tucked into the commercial plaza with a small sign indicating it was C.H.O.O. Radio. The inside was no more glamorous than the outside except for one thing, it felt like a home. The people welcomed me with open arms. I remember just a few names of course Brian Belfry, Gord Taschuk, Jay Mandell, and Joe Frechette. So many other names have slipped from my memory but for a co-op student who had no idea what he was going to with his life this was a place I enjoyed spending time and dreaming of the fame and fortune that awaited. I can still picture the coffee machine at the back pushed up against the back window in what was never meant to be a room but became a place to say hi to everyone each day. The massive reel to reel machine (master) that just begged a fifteen year old to press the stop button and make the alarm go off. The scanner going off in the background announcing Police, Fire and Ambulance activity and the occasional truck driver going by on the 401. Plastic mike flashes, large tape recorders to be carried to council meetings for interviews and giant (antique) typewriters for putting together stories. What a life, enough to push me to college for Broadcast Journalism despite the protestations of many who already worked in the "business". I stayed in touch doing election coverage and occasional sports coverage while at school and went on to work full time at the radio station for more than two years after graduating from Loyalist College. I still enjoy reminiscing back to those days. A sports broadcaster, that radio dream stayed strong and alive as I finished off my co-op placement. (Some days I still wish I could buy my own station and give myself a job). Alas I have moved on to bigger and better things that were only made possible due to the small confines of that building and the life experiences those confines presented. ============================= Many thanks to Sean for his terrific recollections. We'd like to read more! Please send yours along to the e mail address on page one. On the next page... Ron Marshall recalls his days at CHOO and we look back at Lill's 2010 Summer BBQ... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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