Monday, February 9, 2009

Montreal Traffic

Remember Len Rowcliffe ,.the name sounded familiar to me ,so I played this film,from the NFB,.it turns out Len was the traffic reporter,from the CJAD chopper.....Maybe we heard this actual broadcast in it's day ( but I doubt i ever listened to CJAD,in those days,.more like CKGM-CFOX-CHOM-FM--or whatever,......in anycase here's a flight over Montreal's Hwy's etc etc & bridges,..you will get an aerial tour of the old city ,I'm sure you'll Remember.......  funny Len Rowcliffe later in the movie complains how after years of flying around Montreal his lungs took a beating from the poor air quality,.............but at the beginning of the film ,he's puffing away ,& billowing clouds of smoke are coming from his exhaust pipe,that's sticking out of his Yap !!!      hahahahaha NO that friggin pipe hanging out of his smoush couldn't possibly have been affecting his lungs,especially while he's in what amount to a tin can for hours at a time,.'m surprised the pilot didn't chuck him out.........hahahahahah    Here's the link to the clip:

                              http://www.nfb.ca/film/trafficopter/             .>>HF&RV

1 comment:

Walter Ryan said...

Les, This was great. You know how stuff sticks in your memory for whatever reason. I remember Len Rowcliffe talking on CJAD about a vacation he and his wife took. They drove to California and Len said that from Chicago to California on Route 66 he didn't need a map. He would just think of the lyrics from the song "Route 66" and he knew which town would be next. I also recall Len Rowcliffe loved the movie Mad, Mad World and kept mentioning that it was a must see movie. I remember Len on CJAD telling a story that when he left CFCF he got a job in Toronto. There was a guy in his neighborhood bar that offered to store some of Len's stuff including his great 78rpm big band record collection. Len worked for about a year in Toronto and then got hired back in Montreal at CJAD. When he returned the guy storing his stuff had vanished. The guy had sold Len's records to the bar and I remember Len saying how sad he was when he saw his old records in the bar's juke box. He did at least get to hear his records on the bar's juke box though. Anyone know if Len is still alive or whatever happened to him? Fresco