I once met George Chuvalo while working as a waiter…

Prior to heading off to university, I waited tables at the Holiday Inn in Oshawa. George Chuvalo, the Canadian heavyweight boxing champ (who fought Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Joe Frazier), was among the several rather famous people I met while working in that restaurant located on the outskirts of Oshawa — including quite a few F1 racers, such as Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt, James Hunt and Niki Lauda, who competed for the Canadian Championship up the road at the Mosport track; as well as Stan Klees and Walt Grealis, the dynamic duo who created the Juno Awards and a magazine called RPM Weekly.

After I graduated in 1981, I went on a bit of a hiatus, not knowing where I wanted to go in life, and was then led down the path toward the Holiday Inn near the airport in Toronto, where I was hired to work on the Front Desk. Within six months, I moved from being a Receptionist to Cashier to Night Auditor and then early one morning the phone rang and I was asked (by a headhunter) if I wanted to work in Bermuda. Within a few months, having had interviews, collecting a dossier of paperwork and having said my goodbyes, I was driven to the airport by my dad — and within those few months I needed to track down and get hold of the former General Manager of the Holiday Inn in Oshawa to find out if he’d write a letter of recommendation, which he did — and landed in Bermuda fully expecting to work at the Sonesta Beach Hotel, but to find out my contract had been transferred to the Elbow Beach Hotel.

I was met at the airport by Perry Robinson, who gave me a tour of the hotel, and showed me to my room on the staff floor, and the next chapter of my life was underway. It’ll take another post, and possibly a movie to do that time justice. It was a fun stint for two years and while there, fortuitously, I met many more famous people, and some not so famous, but incredibly rich. For instance, I met Michael Landon late one night — actually at around 3am — in the lobby. I called out “Hey, Little Joe”, as I knew him from Bonanza, and I was curious why he was up and about. He approached the Front Desk, and he asked whether I knew he had a new show called Little House On The Prairie. I did not. We chatted, for a while actually, and he often came through the lobby at around the same hour during his stay, “to think”, but always had the time to say hello, as a normal guy would, and give me some advice. I did not know at the time he was dying of cancer, and he never told me.

When I came back to Toronto, I worked for a few months as a courier and one day was delivering a package to A&M Records, when I had a flashback to the restaurant in Oshawa while walking down their hall filled with Juno Awards and the moment when, before laeving to go to university, Stan had given me his card, saying “If ever you need a job in the music indstry — just call”, and so I asked the receptionist if she knew Stan Klees. She did not. But the chap standing behind her, Jim Monaco, did, and the next morning there I was walking up the stairs of the RPM offices, where I discovered Walt typing and he said, simply and cheerfully: “You’re the waiter from the Holiday Inn.” I was and we had a chat. A few weeks later, Stan called, and asked whether I could write, and I thought to myself who can’t write, and said “yes”. The next day I was in their office again, and this time shown my desk and introduced to my receptionist, Rita, as the new National News Editor.

Flash forward a few decades… I recently launched a talkshow online about boxing, called Talkin’ Fight, and here’s a clip where I discuss with my old pal Neil the career of George Chuvalo: