I 'M LOUSY AT BARGAINING
I don't brood about them in my memories but the death of billionaire Ron Joyce did remind me that I have a black hole in my accomplishments. I have a history of the rich ignoring my reasonable requests for donations.
There used to be an expression about living like a prince on a pauper's salary. And journalists knew all about that, although I once used it in front of my friend, Doug Creighton, the founder and soul of the Sun newspapers, and he blew a gasket, to use another old saying.
Yet Doug, bless him, knew what I meant, even though I was never lucky enough to be able to live on my expense account and bank my salary, as Time magazine staffers were reputed to do in the misty past.
Yet if you last in the big leagues of the media, you rub shoulders or bend elbows with many rich and powerful people. They become familiar in your life. Having billionaires as acquaintances or even friends is not that far-fetched, not that it did me much good financially. But then I am lousy when it comes to bargaining or even asking for charities.
I revealed my financial shortcomings early when I took my first big-city newspaper job in 1958 and Jean Burlington, secretary to the formidable managing editor known just by his initials of JDM, asked what I was to get paid. I had no idea. I had just been grateful to get a Telegram job. So she gave me the minimum of $76 weekly. I then spluttered that I did have some experience (editing the Whitehorse Star) but she just smiled.
In the early stretched days of the Toronto Sun, my daily Page 4 column was a major part of the entire Sun's political coverage as I trotted from City Hall to Queen's Park with flights to Ottawa for budgets and big stories.
I was sagging from fatigue when I got a phone call from Dic Doyle at the Globe (a major journalism figure who became a senator) offering me the new post of columnist on the editorial page.
I was stunned and phoned Creighton. He cleverly said we had to have one final blowout before I departed. During the dinner and many, many, many drinks, he made it plain that he thought the Globe was more interested in hurting the Sun than gaining a columnist. Not exactly morale boosting!
It was about 3 a.m. when I was swimming lengths in the Creighton pool, not sure whether I was upside down or not, that I decided to stay with my newspaper family. Doug smiled in triumph, then phoned the next day to announce that I was the world's worst negotiator because I hadn't even asked for more money. (So he gave me a thousand and stock.)
Creighton was a great charmer, but there could be an steely edge over the years when I reported new job offers. He laughed when I said I had the Tory nomination to run federally. When I was offered the job of running the O'Keefe Centre, as it was then called, he announced it was the "stupidest idea I've ever heard of" and dared me to take it and crash and burn.
I didn't really need that insult. My dream of theatre impresario was ruined by the realization that I would be lousy negotiating with the super stars.
After all, to get back to Ron Joyce as an example, I couldn't even get money out of him when it would only have been petty cash.
Both of us were directors of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, which was floundering at the Ex. MPs from the Ottawa area were trying to entice the Hall to the capital city, arguing that Toronto already was overflowing with tourist attractions.
The Hall was offered federal money and two empty buildings there, both now converted to grand federal uses, but then came interference from Sheila Copps and even Jean Chretien.
At one crucial meeting about the future, I said as CNE president that the Ex would continue to cover the Hall utilities but we really couldn't expand our help. The board chair, Trevor Eyton, a rich Tory senator, called for other emergency suggestions. I looked at Joyce who didn't say one word. I then ventured that I would call Paul Godfrey, at that point the Blue Jay president, and ask for a few thousand or even a loan. Joyce still was mum. The silence, as they say, was deafening.
Godfrey, to whom I had reported as Sun Editor, came through with some help. But that was it.
The Hall moved to Calgary (though its administrators still hanker after Toronto by running events here) and the old Hall building vanished under the north end of BMO Stadium.
So you will pardon me if I read about Joyce's philanthropy without enthusiasm.
About the same time as I was on the sinking ship known as the Toronto version of the Sports Hall of Fame, I was fund-raising chair for Runnymede Healthcare Centre.
I certainly played a major role in getting provincial approval for the tens of millions for the new 200-bed building which replaced a century-old public school. But I was a dud in adding to the hospital's share of the construction costs.
I missed major bullseyes when I went after a billionaire I knew, a few millionaires, and a famous doctor who controlled tens of millions in private money. Gee, I really knew these guys. I even made a fund-raising video with me walking through the old hospital desperately trying to remember my lines. I don't know whether they watched the video but I got only $5,000 from the billionaire and the doctor told me I had to lose weight.
If Joyce in his past had to depend on guys like me for sales, he would never have reached the financial stratosphere. I'm not much for coffee shops as a tea drinker. I have only been in two Starbucks (one in California and one in Shanghai, and I drank hot chocolate) and I knew more about Tim Horton as an incredibly strong and weak-eyed Leaf defenseman than the coffee shops that bear his name.
I used to go to all Leaf games and was there the night he hit a Boston player so hard, he flew over the boards. And I remember grisly details of his death in a car crash in which he was so mangled, a dental surgeon told me privately that he had to be called in to identify Horton from his teeth.
Unfortunately, I have to spend too much time these days trundling around to the wait-and-fume clinics of hospitals. As I go into another medical pavilion named after some nice Toronto philanthropists, I am filled with envy. What lucky fund-raiser didn't get turned down when he made his pitch. I sure would like to know what they said.