Both CFRB and GNR 640 went dark during the Christmas Eve drive home, with 1010 doing a reroll best of "The Rush," while its Corus counterpart predictably went to old time radio shows with a focus on the holiday.
 
So I was surprised to find CKTB was live with Larry Fedoruk from 4-6 PM. He began the show by admitting that Xmas Eve wasn’t the best time for a talk show – “what are we going to do, talk politics?” he wondered.
 
Instead he lead off with a wonderful Dec. 24th story about how this was something of a milestone for him. He noted that a few years ago, he was working at a radio station when he was told in no uncertain terms that his talents, whatever they were, were no longer needed. (Welcome to the club!) I suspect that station may have been CHFI, but he didn’t elaborate.
 
So rather than try to immediately get a gig somewhere else, he took a few months off, living off savings and thinking about what he wanted to do next. After a few weeks, he realized he still had “to pay the rent and eat,” so he began asking friends in the biz if they’d heard about anything.
 
He says it was Erik Tomas of Raceline Radio fame who tipped him off that CKTB might be looking for someone. So even though he’d never done talk radio before, he went to the White House of Talk in St. Catharines for an interview.
 
They had nothing for him then, but added they’d keep him in mind. And they did. He got a call in late December of that year, asking him if he’d be interested in doing the 4-6 shift on Christmas Eve. He jumped at the chance, all the while knowing it was probably the worst time to be on a talk radio format – let alone having never done one before.
 
Despite that impediment, he went on the air, muddled through it and was eventually rewarded with a full time gig at CKTB, where he remains to this day. And he finished the story by saying that while he’d worked Christmas Eve shifts in the past, this was the very first time since that fateful day where he’d been doing the same time slot.
 
All of which led me to think of my very first year in radio. As the new guy, I naturally was working the night of Dec. 24th. It was just neophyte me and veteran newsman Bob Crabb, almost alone in a giant –but empty – CKEY at the top of the Toronto Star building.
 
I remember coming out my studio around 8 PM, and there was Crabb, chain smoking cigarettes one after another, having already written every newscast for the rest of the night. I went up to this crusty but wonderful old veteran and said, as a joke, “Well Bob, looks like it’s just you and me on Christmas Eve. I guess Santa Claus won’t know where to deliver our presents.”
 
And with a puff of expelled smoke (you could still do that in newsrooms back then) he looked at me and snarled in that terrific broadcast voice, “Santa’s dead kid. And I should know, because I killed him!”
 
I laughed and walked back into my cubbyhole of a control room with its giant Ward-Beck board. I worked a lot of Christmases since then – some 33 in all by my calculation – before ever getting one off. But I still remember that one the best.
 
Rest in peace, Mr. Crabb. Maybe you and Santa have finally met up. But I didn't need Kris Kringle. Because Bob gave me a wonderful memory that night that still makes me laugh to this day.