“I’m still not sure what pulled me into the career I chose, even though, now, I can’t imagine having done anything else. Mostly, I think I wanted to be a writer, or at least to try for a while.”
Peter Gowski – Canadian Journalist and Broadcaster – The Morningside Papers
The Fifth (And Probably Last) Morningside Papers sat on my bookshelf for thirty years. It was a Christmas present in 1994 from my mom and dad. It was new then and it’s one of those well-made books with thick paper and clean and clear type that makes it easy to read. It looks as new today as if it had just come from the store to be a Christmas present and sit under the tree in 2024.
The book contains thoughts from Peter Gzowski (1934-2002) the host of Morningside and letters and contributions from listeners and guests. Morningside was a long-running morning show on CBC radio where Canadians tuned in for the news of the day and a variety of human-interest stories and interviews. If you want to get a taste of the program you can listen in on Peter Gzowski’s last Morningside show broadcast on CBC Radio on May 30, 1997.
So, this isn’t a book about the show but rather a book composed of chapters around particular topics or themes that the show featured. For example, Gzowski would begin each broadcast with a “49-second essay” to introduce Morning Side. Of couse, these weren’t always 49-seconds. They could be several minutes. It depended on what was being discussed. Might be world politics or it might be the Toronto Blue Jays. The book is divided into three sections. Each section begins with a selection of these short essays from 1991-92, 1992-93, and 1993-94. For example…
November 24, 1993
GOOD MORNING…I’M PG…THIS IS M’SIDE
Notes from a morning the first working hour of which I am to spend with Leonard Cohen. Three forty-five A.M. – or thereabouts, I am not tracking the time too carefully at this hour – The Globe and Mail which clumps conveniently outside my apartment door while the world sleeps, has a note in the department it calls “Short List.” Mentions Morningside. Says Leonard will be here. This fall we’ve had among other people Kim Campbell, Anne Murray, Conrad Black, Margaret Atwood, and the world champion batton twirler among other people. But only Leonard, so far as I can remember, made the news. Five-fifteen. Head out. On the elevator a guy is taking newspapers around to other apartments, the slugabeds. Sees me. Nods. Says, “I see you have Leonard Cohen on this morning.” Oh, read the Globe, I say. Na, he says, the Sun. Gary Dunford talks about you and your buddy. Good buddy? Hey, all right. Finally, seven forty-five, Toronto time, twenty minutes or so before air. Last minute visit to…er, washroom. Guy drying his hands. Sees me. Nods, says, “Hey, I see you have Leonard Cohen on this morning.” “Read the Sun?” I say. Nah, he says, Saw him on the elevator.
The rest of the chapters in the book are dedicated to specific themes or contributions from guests that cover a range of topics including living with AIDS, rutabagas, Christmas reflections and memories, people’s love for their fountain pens, and thoughts about Canadian author Paul Hiebert. Some of these stories are funny, some are sad, but they all reveal something about our common humanity and a little bit about being Canadian. One of the more interesting things the book offers is a little glimpse into how all these people felt and thought about the world thirty years ago. Some of the observations are out dated but other stories and thoughts feel like they were taken from today’s headlines.
I liked some chapters better than others and at times I found it slow going until I realized that I was reading this book all wrong. This book is more like a magazine or a newspaper. You can read it out of order. The book contains sections about a variety of topics with short segments in each chapter. These are more like magazine or newspaper articles and when I read a magazine, I don’t necessarily read every article. Same with a newspaper. You read a particular section and then in that section, you read some of the stories. That also means that over time you can pick up The Morningside Papers to fill five minutes of free time or half an hour of reading time to enjoy with a glass of wine or a cup of tea.
And so, I did make my way through the entire book, eventually. I think it’s a book that is of more interest to Canadians and people who remember the show and remember Peter Gzowski because if you remember his rich smoky voice, you hear him when you read the sections of the book or the transcribed interviews he presented on air.
I’ve done interviews and transcribed them to my blog, and I like these types of interviews. I particularly like the literary interviews in The Paris Review. You know deep in-depth discussions about a particular writer’s life and work. Those, to me, are fascinating. But as much as I like them I have to admit that something is lost when going from audio to print. Print can’t really capture the emotion in the voice. The length of a pause. The giggle. The change in direction halfway through a word. Print is more like a shadow of what was said and yet even those shadows can still have an impact. And so I think while I enjoyed reading the book the material was originally read and I think it was probably more powerful to listen to than it is to read. Even so, I did laugh and I did get a tear in my eye on occasion as I read the book, and the entire time I was reading it I found myself contemplating my own life during the years the book covers.
This fifth and probably last edition of The Morningside Papers was a gift from a Christmas a long time ago. My own parents have been dead for more than twenty years now so reading this book also takes me back to memories of a time when they were alive and that wasn’t something I was expecting and not something another reader would necessarily experience. So, for me, this book has special meaning, and I’m glad it waited patiently on my bookshelf for thirty years so that I could enjoy it at this point in my life.
