by Marty Forbes
September 30, 2024
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In one of my earlier ‘so long 630’ pieces I alluded as to the importance of the Engineers (tech) guys in our business.
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The late Bruce Bedford brought it home once during a Standard meeting when he stated to The Bear announcers “just remember…you guys are nothing without me!”
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He was correct.
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At 1080/630 CHED, they had two ‘lifers’ running the Department over the many decades in two buildings.
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Clint Nichol and Tom Davies. Hard working. Salt of the earth people. And they had to work around ‘the crazies’ as the announce staff were known as back then.
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When I was in high school Dad brought home a strange black box they had built. It was called ‘the do nothing box!’
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So I fell for it. “What does it do Dad?’
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You know the answer.
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In reality it was a series of lights that, when you ran your warm hand over them, reversed their blinking order. I took it to school once and our gym teacher was the legendary CFL star Johnnie Bright who played with it while we were on the gym floor.
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The sight of about a 275 pound black man in a pink sweatshirt laughing at the box in action is forever etched in my brain
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CHED was owned by both the Moffat and Rawlinson families early on.
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During the annual Christmas party Ed Rawlinson would attend and hand the last remaining four original employees a card with a five figure bonus Cheque in it.
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Three were the same. Dads was a tad larger. (Dad, Bill Sysak, Old Dad Taylor and Clint)
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Dad passed away in 1981, and during Expo 86 I was working in Vancouver where the fair was held. Moffat had meetings there one week and I went over to chat with the management crew that attended.
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In the Hotel Vancouver lobby Dorothy Nichol, Clint’s wife, answered a question from one of us that was directed to Clint.
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“Clint you’re 65 this year…when are you going to retire?”
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Before he could respond Dot jumped in quickly and said ‘soon!’
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Clint politely then stated…”well we are thinking about it…but no date is set yet!”
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Sadly, they both went up to bed that evening and Clint never woke up as he passed away peacefully in his sleep.
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Those are moments in life that resonate deeply with me.
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“Beautiful people” as Dad would call them.
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As mentioned Dad passed away in September of 1981 at age 58.
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It is in no way an irony that I retired at age….58…a glorious 16 years of (almost) retirement in the memory bank so far…hopefully many more!
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BTW Tom Davies spent ‘decades’ in the buildings as well. He retired a few years ago and scuba dives all over the world.
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Two…absolute…gems!
