For some reason April 30th always brings a smile to my face. 

 

It shouldn't.  It's tax deadline day.  Not fun.  But it is payday.  That's fun.  Except when you see the amount of taxes you've paid for the first four months. 

 

April 30th makes me smile because of something that happened 23 years ago.  When I worked the morning news shift on CFNY.  It was called the "Pete and Geets Breakfast" and it aired on Rogers Cable 10 throughout the Ontario network.

 

I'm sure the audience count reached triple figures.  But it didn't matter because Peter Griffin and Geets Romo, along with yours truly and Toronto radio stalwart Fred Patterson brought our goofy morning show to the parking lot at Rogers Cable 10 in Mississauga, hard by your 1979 train derailment site.

 

Rogers in Mississauga back then worked in tandem with Maclean Hunter to bring Peel Region local news and entertainment with a spirited staff of volunteers, many of whom have moved onto professional careers, including Lance Chilton up in Barrie. 

 

I remember it as a warm spring morning with Fred and I dressed as gay emcees from the movie "Cabaret".  Pete was, God bless him, the anchor of the show while Geets would disappear at times to dress in his assortment of characters...climaxing with an appearance of "Lardette" as the show reached its conclusion.

 

Again, the show was loose and maybe we were the only people who thought it was funny.  But 23 years ago seemed a somewhat more innocent time in radio and in local television.  The Toronto Sun's Jim Slotek gave us a tepid thumbs-up review by suggesting the show worked without a net and nobody was killed or seriously injured.

 

I was a happy boy that morning because Claude Lemieux of the Montreal Canadiens had scored an OT winner over Hartford to move onto the second round of the playoffs which, you'll remember, Montreal won over Calgary. 

 

That night, the Leafs lost in seven to St. Louis.  But I didn't see that game because after the Pete and Geets Breakfast Show Fred and I and our producer Kevin went back to Fred's and kicked the top off a bottle of Crown Royal to celebrate our "network" premiere.

 

I'm a huge fan of nostalgia because, to tell the truth, there's not much these days you can look ahead 23 years and remember as "the good old days". 

 

On that note, for my buddy Fred, he and his long time radio partner Humble Howard will get together this Saturday at the Dominion on Queen (500 Queen Street East) at 1:30 PM for a good old Humble and Fred podcast.  No heavy lifting, nobody's going to get hurt.  Humble and Fred worked at the former CFNY and were appointment tuning for many in the 1990s followed by our days at MOJO radio until that thing imploded.

 

I can't make it Saturday but I thought I'd mention that it might be a great time to hoist a pint and enjoy two pros who know how to do morning radio without the worry of process servers outside the studio door when they're finished.

 

April 30th, 1986. 

 

What a great day.