Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

The CFRC 80th Anniversary Reunion
We awoke to the sound of Iain playing the piano at about 7am (despite the house-rule of not being allowed to play it until 8am). Annie, who was in our room, woke up, and so we did too.

The CFRC Reunion open house started at 10am. We piled into our vehicles at around that time and headed there. We listened to the station on the way in, and heard some of the "old-timers" being interviewed by the seemingly ever-present Jim Birtch, who has been programming much the same show since before I arrived at the station in '85 (though I am told he now plays some '80s material now. ;-) I also learned that the RealAudio feed they have set up can only handle 7 simultaneous connections, which maybe why I have trouble connecting every now and then. As a Web master, I also had to wonder why they handn't snagged the obvious cfrc.ca. domain name, which would save the announcers from having to continually spell out the full "www.queensu.ca/cfrc" URL. (As I found out afterwards, they do have it, but for some reason haven't switched the URL to point to their site. Must send a note to Maureen about this).

Our convoy disembarked in the parking lot beside Jackson Hall at about 11am. One of the first faces I recognized upon entering the station was that of Maureen, now the long-time Station Manager (she started out as a secretary to then-station manager Steve Cutway back in my time).

We started looking about the station. Lots of people were already there, most of people who must've come to the station before my time (CFRC was celebrating its 80th anniversary). Particularly well represent Ted seemed to be the people who had been at the station just before my time in the late-70s/early-80s period, most of whom Jenny and Hugh knew and were happy to see. Slowly, people from "our" era started trickling in: Bryce, Louise, Pierre. I saw two faces I hadn't seen or heard from in years: Kim Roper, and Paul S. Martin, who looked almost dapper in the suit he wore. The "late 80s" group of CFRCers congregated in one of the hallways and chatted about the usual stuff: careers, kids and asking about the whereabouts for others not present.

We all looked about the station. The kids quickly found the Timbits and fruit drinks that were freely available, and loved to twiddle the knobs and press the buttons on the antiquated control-room boards (most of which I had used). My favourite piece of equipment had to be the old CR2 board, vintage 1950s or maybe 60s, with its old large knobs for controlling the amount of signal going out to the transmitter. We met with a few of the older CFRCers who told us about such things as how the station used to be laid out (Control Room 3 used to be a janitor’s closet, there used to be a door between CR2 and Studio A). Perhaps the best comment on the change in technology came from young Vanessa: I pointed to the vast collection of vinyl, and pulled out a sample record for her, and she refused to believe that they contained music, instead thinking that they were very thin books (going by the lavish imagery on the cover I suppose).

There were some scrap-books on hand as well for pouring over. I saw one which was a collection of pictures from the same era that Hugh and Jenny belonged to. There was apparently a second such book that I never did see, though Erika did and commented that I "looked cute" back in those days. ;-) I also found a binder containing all of the Top 20/30/40/whatever lists that dated to my time – man, I remember the painful work involved in getting everybody’s playsheets for the past week and compiling the results. Ugh.

The kids soon grew bored and so we headed off for downtown Kingston to a new (for us) called Pan Chanco in order to get materials for a picnic. Turns out the place is owned by the people who run Chez Piggy, the best restaurant in Kingston.

(Speaking of restaurants, I happily discovered that the restaurant that I proposed to Erika is still in existence: Minos, a Greek restaurant. As we walked past we couldn’t help but remember the occasion: Erika of course said “yes”, but I stupidly made the proposal just as the meal arrived, and after agreeing, the shock of it all made her lose her appetite. ;-)

We found a good picnic seat by the waterfront, and proceeded to feast in a grand style. The kids started feeding the local sparrows (and a few seagulls) from the crusts left over from their sandwiches, and Annie went speed crawling over the grass -- and got her picture taken by some passing tourists who must have found this cute.

Kids (and parents) were getting tired by this point and so we hoofed it back to our vehicles parked by the station, the kids naturally insisting on clambering aboard one of the canons in front of the Sir John A. statue in the park south of the municipal building. Upon driving off Hugh noted that Hondas seem to be "the car of choice" among CFRCers. ;-)

All of us promptly crashed out when we got to Jenny and Hugh's. Jenny woke us up about an hour later -- a short rest, but much-needed. After getting into our more dressy clothes, we left the kids in care of their baby-sitter and headed off for the dinner at the Holiday Inn.

Tricolor balloons were everywhere, and we could see quite a crowd had gathered in the ballroom. We met up with Louise and Pierre there, who grabbed a table for us all at the front. Bryce and Aggie arrived just after the start of dinner (Bryce: What did we miss? Pierre: The olives).

Maureen gave the shortest of speeches (yay!), welcoming everybody to the event.

The dinner was okay, though it was the first time I have ever had gritty asparagus. As for the cheesecake: yum! At $37.50 a head (without drinks) I found the meal a bit on the pricey side for what it was, but then I am guessing it paid for the room rental (and possibly brunch?) too. Of course, if there was a profit, I certainly wouldn't mind if it went to the station.

Erika and I probably spent the most time talking to Paul S. Martin. Few people at the radio station he now works at believe that he was once the head of a popular heavy metal music show -- an idea instigated by myself and Sinister Pete. His was the show that continually got letters from listeners in the local prisons, and as he said "When somebody in the pen makes a music request, you fill it". I filled him in on the mini-career Sinister Pete made in Ireland by re-doing Science Head over there. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Paul still listens to those shows, and that it is not just me who still finds them funny after all these years. We both marveled at how we could all go in for an hour's recording session and manage to come out with 45 minutes' worth of usable material -- all improv-ed. I am glad to see that Paul has done well, sporting confidence and "polish". Erika somewhat brazenly asked him why no girl had caught him yet -- which was more a form of rhetorical question/praise combo.

They asked for music requests from each table. Of course we added such things as Deja Voodoo and Misc. "S", "defining" music of our era. ;-) We also put in a request for a Cuban song, and asked that it be dedicated to the memory of Mary Melenca. Despite a few oddball records I saw in the stacks of material that appeared by the dance floor, none of our requests (that I know of) got played -- it sounded suspiciously like they were playing from a pre-set playlist. During a set of 80s dance music, Erika and I got up to dance. I bowed out to rejoin the group at the table after a few songs, at which point Louise joined Erika.

Soon after I was beginning to fade, as were the rest of our party. Thinking of the kids, we grabbed several bunches of the tricolor balloons (with Maureen's blessing). I said my goodbyes to Maureen, and vowed to return to the centenary celebration in 20 years time.

My only regret was that I had hoped to see more people that I haven't seen for a while, such as Peter Robinson, Jennifer Noseworthy, Paul Calback, Sean Eckford and others. I was surprised that the good Dr. Z didn't make an appearance, and unfortunately Kim Roper didn't turn up for the dinner. Erika expressed the same regret, though perhaps it isn't surprising that it was arguably the people who had invested a lot of ourselves into the station (and two of us continue to do so) were those who turned up. And who knows, perhaps some of them did put in an appearance at the open house, like Kim Roper.

Both ladies fell asleep in the back of the car, this despite the fact that all of the balloons we had gathered with stuffed back in there with them.