Back when I was a kid, radio was all I ever dreamed about doing when I graduated from high school.
In the summer of 1978, my local radio station 1270 CJCB in Sydney, a powerhouse station in Atlantic Canada then, was turning 50 years old.
They had special 50th Anniversary T-shirts for listeners to win if you were the 9th caller to 539-5900 or 539-5901.
Growing up in Big Bras d’Or, about a half hour from Sydney, it was believe it or not, long distance in those days! So calling in to the radio station you basically needed a miracle to be caller number 9!
But magically one night during that summer of ’78 some 46 years ago, I WAS REALLY THE 9TH CALLER when evening announcer Phil Thompson answered the phone and said I was indeed the 9th caller!! It was like winning the jackpot for a 12-year-old.
(Above: Ian as a kid wearing the original t-shirt with my dad on the right.)
I tell ya, I wore that “CJCB 50 T-shirt” so much for the next few years that it was eventually falling apart.
When I moved out, I think my mother through it out as there were so many holes in it.
Flash-forward to May 18th, 2024 when I got a message from my Cape Breton friend Mavs Gillis of Eastlink Sports. Mavs sent me pictures of a CJCB 50th Anniversary T-shirt that he had found on the rack at a second hand clothing store in downtown Halifax, I couldn’t believe it!
On Sunday before the STYX concert, Roxanne and I dropped by and low and behold there was the t-shirt STILL on the rack!
I looked it over, it’s a medium, so it’s not going near my 6’2 frame, I can’t even get my arm in it…
But to have a facsimile of the T-shirt I had as a kid in my possession again, that was actually in a promotional t-shirt box at one time in 1978 at CJCB radio, is pretty cool.
It’s now proudly hung in my home voice-over studio along with the original CJCB Winners Slip signed by Phil that I had tucked away in a scrapbook over the years.
Thanks to Mavs for the heads-up and for reuniting me with a piece of my childhood.
And for the record, I eventually worked with Phil and all my radio idols I grew up listening to when I started at 17 in high school on-air at CJCB-CKPE-FM on Charlotte Street in Sydney, 40 years ago this month. 
-Ian
(Credits: Ian Robinson Photos.)
