Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Bill Vigars: Toronto Mike'd #1324

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

In this 1324th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Bill Vigars, friend and confidante of Terry Fox during his Marathon of Hope. Bill's new book Terry and Me: The Inside Story of the Marathon of Hope gives great insight into the man Terry was and how his legacy was furnished. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Pumpkins After Dark, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1324 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything, often with a distinctly Toronto flavour. I'm Mike from torontomic.com and joining me this week is Bill Viggers friend and confidant of Terry Fox during his Marathon of Hope remember CFTR's commercial free Sundays

well there will be no sponsor shoutouts in this episode of Toronto Mike. I merely ask that you visit torontomike.com and click Terry Fox run at the very top. Then give what you can. I'm running for Terry this Sunday,

September 17th, 2023. Thank you for supporting this tremendous cause. Bill, welcome to Toronto Mic'd. Thank you very much, Mike. I'm pleased to be here. Thank you for having me on. Oh, my pleasure. Whereabouts in the country do we find you today? I'm in White Rock, British Columbia. I'm looking out my window at the Pacific Ocean and if I had a 10-pound cannon, I could rule the Straits.

You know, listeners of this program know White Rock as home of Brother Bill. So you're a Bill and then there's Brother Bill, the land of Bills. White Rock is beautiful. It is. It is a beautiful place to live. I lived in uh i do want to say that i lived in toronto from 1980 when i joined terry fox started with the cancer society

and uh lived in the beaches and then lived in the queen west area left in 94 but you had the good sense to get out after working on a television show called Night Heat that shot only at night from five o'clock in the afternoon to five o'clock in the morning for my own to survive I had to leave. So obviously today we're going to heavily focus on Terry I have a couple of points right off the top but there actually is another part of your life your professional life I want to touch on that involves a very famous Canadian musician. So we'll get to that a little bit later. But do you mind if I just share a couple of important notes right off the top, Bill? Please do. Okay, firstly,

I am running in the Terry Fox Run this year, as I've done for, I don't know, over maybe a couple of decades now. I always run in the Terry Fox Run. The Terry Fox Run is September 17th. So we're recording on Wednesday the 13th. I'll drop this episode right away, but that's only a few days before the run. So I urge everyone listening who can get to torontomike.com to go there and click Terry Fox Run at the top of the page and that'll bring you to my pledge page. Give what you can. So that's firstly. Secondly, I want to thank you, Bill,

for writing Terry and Me, the inside story of the Marathon of Hope because as a young boy, I loved Terry and he's played a massive role in inspiring me and I love that your book has such detail of the Marathon of Hope, because as a young boy, I loved Terry, and he's played a massive role in inspiring me, and I love that your book has such detail of his Marathon of Hope and the young man he was. So I just wanted to thank you for writing Terry and Me, the Inside Story of the Marathon of

Hope. Thank you very much. It was a work of love to keep Terry's legacy alive, and I don't know if people can see what you're wearing, but you're wearing a Terry Fox t-shirt. It's one of my favorite. Aspire and inspire. I have many, many Terry Fox shirts. This is my favorite of all. I love the messaging. I love the color.

I'll be wearing this Sunday at High Park. If you're running, track me down there and say hi. My favorite shirt, and I wear it almost all the time, Park. So if you're running, track me down there and say hi. My favorite shirt, and I still wear it almost all the time, every run, every time I go and speak, is the one with the smiling face from 2009 because that's how I remember him and that's why I asked the publisher to put that picture on the front of the book

because that smiling face of Terry Fox is how I remember him. Beautiful. And when people see the photo that's tied to this episode, they'll see both my shirt, they'll see the cover of your book and they'll see Terry's smiling face. So excellent. But let's go back to 1980. What was your role with the Canadian Cancer Society? And like,

just give us a taste of like how you came to meet up with Terry Fox in Edmonston, New Brunswick. The Reader's Digest abridged version is I had always been a volunteer with the Canadian Cancer Society from my teen years. My background was in radio. I was an alderman at 22. I applied for a job with the Ontario Division of the Canadian Cancer Society to be the fundraising PR person for the province. I got the job.

My first responsibilities were bringing the daffodils in for the annual daffodil sale. And we were just wrapping that up when my boss came to my door and had one piece of paper, and he said, there's a kid running across Canada with one leg. Do you want to go see what you can do for him? And he had actually already started out in Newfoundland. So I followed him from far. Leslie Scribner from the Toronto Star was writing about him, but at that time it was like section 4, page 8.

I watched him as he was traversing across the island the first time I spoke to him was on a telephone he called me from a pay phone by the way remember this is long before cell phones and the internet right and that's how that's how we communicated he would call me collect and the first time I spoke to him I knew he was bummed out because things just weren't gelling. He had had some success in the last town in Newfoundland, Port-au-Basque, where there were 8,000 people who raised $8,000. That's where the idea he got that germinated for a while, where he wanted to get $1 for every Canadian.

But that wasn't immediate. And so when the first time I talked to him, I knew he was kind of discouraged at that point. So I was trying to give him some hope, for lack of a better phrase. And I said, when you come to Ontario, what do you want to do? And he said, well, I want to meet Bobby Orr, and I want to meet Daryl Sittler, and I want to go to the CN Tower, I want to go to the Blue Jays game,

and I want to meet Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. And I just moved from small town St. Thomas, Ontario, and I'm sitting at the other end of the line, and I just kind of go, okay. I said, call me back tomorrow afternoon, and I'll see what I can do. And in my world, the worst thing anybody can say to you is no. So I reached out to people like alan eagleson uh standard brands who were representing bobby or it's i was he called back the next day and i said siddler's on blue jays are on cn towers on bobby's in europe but he's going to find his someplace on the road and at the time trudeau was in europe and i i wasn't able to track him down, but we did eventually meet him. And I could hear in his voice that he was going, really? And I said, yeah, yeah, okay.

And I said, I'll come and see you. So meanwhile, back in Ontario, the Canadian Cancer Society is not 100% behind him because it's the structure of the organization. It was a volunteer organization. So it had a national level, then it had provincial level, then it had districts, and then it had communities. One could not tell the other what to do because they were volunteers. So even though one gentleman by the name of Ron Calhoun,

who coined the phrase Marathon of Hope for Terry, endorsed it, not all of the province got behind him. Quebec stayed out of it through the whole thing. And Ontario, up until the very last minute, were not part of it. But meanwhile, I went down to Edmonston and arrived at 4 o'clock in the morning because I knew he was going to get up. I actually got up there about 2.30, climbed in the back of the car. I'm in jeans and a T-shirt.

And all I have is a plastic cleaning bag for a blanket so anyway i i kind of get some sleep the lights come on in the motel room it's a roadside motel room on the trans canada trans canada highway is two lanes there and uh the door opens and the three guys come out doug his allward his friend dary, his younger brother, and Terry. And they were used to dealing with guys in fedoras and long coats, and they were in the 60s. I was 33 at the time. And I get out of the car with a big smile on the face and go,

hi, guys, I'm Bill Viggers. And Doug looks at me and goes, you're the guy from the Cancer Society? I said, I hope I don't disappoint. And I say in the book, the other gentlemen they were dealing with were much more mature than I in many, many ways. And that was my first meeting. Okay, so it's interesting because you're part of the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society. So you don't have jurisdiction, I guess, in Quebec. So you've got to leave them in New Brunswick and say,

I'll meet you when you cross the border into Ontario? Yes, I spend that first morning with him. I get in the van, drive out to where they started. And that's the first time I saw that Doug had to pull up to where they had buried a plastic bag with just a little bit of it showing so that Terry could step out of the van right onto that bag. He did not want anyone to say that he did not run any step of the way. And we got into a buildup area. He'd go over and touch a telephone pole, a fire hydrant, something. And that's how he started each day.

I watched him run in the darkness. I was in awe that morning. I couldn't understand how he was doing. As a matter of fact, I said to Doug, how do you watch him do this every day? And Doug said, I don't, which at first I didn't get it, but I soon came to realize that he just could not watch his friend run. I didn't get it, but I soon came to realize that he just could not watch his friend run. So anyway, I heard him speak. I saw how he affected people on the side of the road. It was rural. At the end of a concession road, there might be 10 people, and they stood transfixed watching him run by.

And then I heard him speak in a small town. I went away after a day and a half a disciple for lack of a better phrase and I knew if I could get him in and by the way I knew he was going to make it so it wasn't if he could make it, I knew he was going to make it that once he got into a populated area it had the potential of exploding I left him at the Quebec border.

I warned him that not much was going to happen. And it wasn't the people of Quebec. I want to stress that. It was one gentleman who, because Terry couldn't speak French, decided the Quebec division was not going to participate. A couple times, he almost got hit by trucks on Quebec Road. The police tried to get him off the road. And meanwhile, I went back to Ontario. I'm driving down the Don Valley. I am listening to Jeremy Brown and Don Daynard, who were in CKFM at the

time. And I always used to listen to Jeremy Brown in the morning because he was always so funny. He had five minutes about entertainment. But this morning, it wasn't funny. He was talking about a young kid that his wife had given him Leslie Scrivener's story out of the star. And she said to her husband, you have to get behind this kid. So he came on the air and did five minutes about and knowing nothing about Terry other than what his wife had told him. And he read in a short story in the Star and said, I'm going to get my station behind it, and I want my listeners to get behind it. So instead of going to my office at Bloor and Young, I head up to Rosedale Valley, head right up to, I think it was St. Clair and Young, buzz the door.

He comes down. We have coffee. He says, come back in the afternoon. I go back in the afternoon, and I make the, many years later, I now realize probably was the biggest pitch I could ever made in my life. And there in the room were all the executives from the radio station, and the standard radio, along with guys like Quentin Wall, who owned Cadet Cleaners at the time, Jackie Creed from the Creed family,

four or five young guys, but very successful. I had two Polaroid pictures. That's all I had, and showing them and telling them about Terry. And after about an hour, they said, leave Toronto to us. You go take care of the rest of Ontario. So I went and spent the next three weeks driving between Toronto and Ottawa, stopping in all the little towns. And I'd pull into the gas station and I'd say,

who organizes events in town? And it'd be, you know, like the Colonist Club or the Ladies Institute. And one woman in particular always stuck in my mind, her name was Glenda Bentz in Caledar. And I remember her saying very nicely, you know, if he makes it this far, we'll do something. And I said, trust me, he's going to be here. And as a matter of fact, I said, I can tell you what date he's going to get here. Because when I was in New Brunswick, Terry and I had sat in that little van and taken a Canadian or an Ontario map, and actually a Canadian map map and gone 26 miles, 26 miles, 26 miles. So I said to Terry, you have to arrive in Ottawa for July the 1st because I

want to crash Parliament Hill and try and get you on TV. And that would mean we end up in Toronto on Friday, July the 11th. By the time we got to Sudbury, he was only two days behind that schedule we made in New Brunswick. And that was laying the groundwork for the run in Ontario. And then the crisis hit. And that was, is Ontario Division in or out? Okay, so we're going to walk through this here.

So it sounds like like in your book, it's clear that Terry made quite the impression on you. Yes. Yeah. Oh, God. By Montreal, and I hope you're listening, I don't know if people realize what happened. I was so impressed with him. I don't know if people realize what happened. I was so impressed

with him. I got to know him quickly. He was easy to get to know. When he wasn't running, that look of strain and concentration and pain on his face, at the end of the day, it was a smile. He was relaxed. He was fun to be around. But it was his determination. It was what he was going through that impressed me the most. And by Montreal, we'd run into Montreal, and we had to go back out and cover some miles that he had to skip to pull into downtown Montreal in time. And we're driving down Rene Lévesque Boulevard, I remember.

And I just turned to him and I said I love you and I said I don't know if you understand that and he just looked at me and smiled and he went yeah I know and that's I wear my heart on my sleeve

my Irish background so I'm not afraid to let my emotions be known. And that love for him grew right until the very end. Oh, God, telling that story, Mike, I've lost my concentration. Well, Bill, let me say this. I'm listening to you tell that story, and I can feel myself tearing up. Like, I'm actually, the whole story in your book as well, I find it so emotional. It's a beautiful story and just a life cut, like what a wonderful life cut so short. He was just a kid. I have a 21 year old son. I mean, he was just a kid and we're going to,

you know, walk through this a little bit, but I don't know if I can hold it together for this conversation. And I'm wondering, do you find it emotionally draining now that you've written the book, you're doing press for the book, you must be telling these stories dozens and dozens of times. How are you able to revisit it so often? I'm just curious how this is on your mental health. I have to tell you that every interview is different. This is different than any interview I've done. I have to tell you right now, I usually break down like you do. Uh, sometime during the interview, I try and hold it together. Writing the book was incredibly emotionally draining. I would be, I realized writing the book that I was having to address things that I thought I had addressed 43 years ago.

I would be writing it and it was just all flowing out. I never took any pictures. I never did any diary. People would say, ask me, are you doing that? And I said, no, I'm making a movie up in my head that's going to last forever. And in reality, that's exactly what happened. And that's how I wrote the book. and in reality that's exactly what happened and that's how I wrote the book so I would be in telling a part of the story and I would be sobbing and crying to tell you the truth at my computer

and emotionally trained and I would come out in my living room and I'd sit on the couch and it was my wife Sherry McDonald actually she was the one who finally talked me into writing it and uh I just a couple twice I remember just slumping on the couch and she just come over and she came over and put her hand on my shoulder and said, you're doing a good thing. And yeah, you're right, it was difficult. And some, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to talk.

Please don't apologize for that. You are doing a good thing, Bill, because it's like I'm in the van and I feel like I've lacked this. I think what we have a tendency to do with Terry, I mean, my seven-year-old knows the story of Terry Fox, not just because her dad won't shut up about him, but because she's learning about him in school every year. And I feel like we almost have him as like he's

a superhero, mythical figure. And your book reminds us that this was a human being. This was a man. And I just want to, again, I thanked you off the top. I'll thank you at the end. I'll thank you again here before I get back to my questions, but you humanize him. And that was my, that was my intentions, Mike. People see him as a hero and he is a true Canadian hero, but he was not comfortable with that.

He was not comfortable being set up on a pedestal. He was afraid that people were losing realization of exactly why he was doing it. He had only one reason to do it, and that was to try and find a cure of cancer. And he said, I may not do it. I may be a dreamer, but I've got to do it. And he was running for those kids in the cancer wars. So what I tried to do is exactly, I really take that as an amazing compliment, Mike, because that's what I tried to do is put the people in the van to

understand what it was like to learn about him as who he was as a human being. And I think one of the things you're going to find in the book is how funny he was. He had a great sense of humor. People are used to looking at that look is how funny he was he had a great sense of humor people are used to looking at that uh look of pain and concentration while he's running but at the end of the day he was relaxed um my kids travel with me they were eight and nine years old at the time and uh they would play with him at the end of the day and he wrote in his diary how they made him uh relaxed and i know you've got lots of stuff but i'm going to tell you one story we're up in susan marie uh we've got to backtrack because there's no motel so we

leave doug and terry out of this small motel out on goulay river and we get back to the motel or hotel and we can't find patrick he's not around and i go you know because three or four cars are traveling and i go anybody seen Patrick? And nobody. I call back to the hotel. Doug gets on the phone. I said, have you seen Patrick? And he said, yeah, Terry hid him under his bed until you guys left. They've gone fishing.

Love it. Okay, now part of humanizing, and I've been doing this on my show with people. I have like a guest that is larger than life. And then I have them back. And in the second appearance they kick out the jams which means what are your favorite 10 songs of all time and we play it and then people discuss so in the book there's some references to music and i'm actually wondering uh what were terry's jams and what music did he enjoy ter Terry liked his music that was his father's music, and it was country.

He liked Johnny Cash. He liked the old, to some people, not to me, you know, 60s and 50s country singers. But he had very little time to listen to music because there really wasn't. The guys in the van were able to listen to music because there really wasn't the guys in the van were able to listen to music so you know we played believe it or not one of the things we played a lot was on the road again uh and i'm not talking about terry i'm talking about the team and the other one was i may be crazy but it might be a lunatic you're looking for and we really related it to what what was happening on the road and uh so yeah terry was uh, and by the way, at the end of the run,

one of the great things he got from one of the radio guys out here in Vancouver was an autographed picture of Dolly Parton. And there's a picture, it was a picture of that in the Vancouver Sun, and Terry had the biggest grin on his face that he had actually a real autographed picture from Dolly Parton. Love it. You know, I'm going to close this episode of On the Road again, because that was, like, just coincidentally, I suppose,

Willie Nelson's big hit was, that was the summer of 1980, right? Yeah, it was the summer of 1980. I'll never forget it. I've lived it every day since. The reason I did not write a book sooner, a couple of 1980, I'll never forget it. I've lived it every day since. The reason I did not write a book sooner, a couple of one, the main reason was I'm not a writer. I'm a storyteller. And when I started writing the book, chapter four, I called Ian Harvey, who worked with me, and I said, this is crap.

I can't do this. I keep going back and editing. It's no good. And he'd say, stop editing. Just keep writing. And by about chapter six it just started to flow out it all started to come back out of my memory as a matter of fact when the publisher said they were going to print it they gave us a deadline and it was like two

months and i was only on chapter 13 at the time and i went up to the sunshine coast checked into this cheesy motel it was like the scene out of a movie. Bottle of wine, bag of chips, Tim Hortons, coffee. And in three days, I wrote three chapters. And it was about up in Lake Superior where so many dramatic things happened. Okay, I'm going to ask you a couple of specific questions before we discuss Toronto. And then, of course, what happens in Thunder Bay. But Ford Canada donates that van that Terry was in. So the van you were in with Terry, that was a donation from Ford, right?

Yes. And by the way, it turned into a hard rock band van out of Vancouver that they put, I think, 300,000 kilometers on it with only one flat tire, and they knew it was the Terry Fox band. And I'm sorry, I can't, a musician was a guy by the name of Bill Johnson, but I don't know the name of the band back then. Okay. Now, so the gasoline to fuel the van during the Marathon of Hope, was that donated by somebody? Was that donated by somebody?

Esso gave him the van. Safeway gave him some food coupons. Terry and his family did some fundraising. But by the time he got to Quebec City, they'd run out of gas money. They were all sleeping in the van. They hadn't taken a shower in a week. And they all had colds. And that was when I got the call from the documentary filmmaker said,

you have to do something or this thing's not going to make Ontario. Yeah. I'm always curious about when corporate sponsorship steps up. I mean, cause even the motel, the cost for the motel, et cetera, like, you know, you mentioned that Canadians were, well, in the book, you kind of nail home the point that Canadians were a little slow to recognize and support Terry's endeavor here, especially in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, which were, you know, the first stages of the Marathon of Hope. So did things change? There's a great story I'm hoping you'll share about Mr. Peanut. Terry wanted nothing. He wanted to gain nothing from this run. He was very clear on that.

The Cancer Society tried at one point to say, we're going to do the marketing of Terry Fox because he's become too big. But I go back, and I'm glad you asked that question because it demonstrates what a funny guy and humor, never any edge to it. But Standard Brands, and I'm sure Bobby Orr did not know this went down, but Standard Brands, who is the logo of Planters Peanuts, the guy with the top hat, the vest, the monocle, and the cane, and he'll give you a brand-new car if you'll let Mr. Peanut run with you that last mile into English Bay in Vancouver. Terry looks at me. He kind of smiles, and he had this smile. It was a very gentle smile, not the big grin that's on the book.

But he looks off, and he goes, you know, Bill, that's a great idea, as long as I can wear the Mr. Peanut outfit, which was his gentle way of going, going, are you nuts? I could use stronger language than that, but yeah. No pun intended. Are you nuts? Yeah. I missed that.

Sorry. That Mr. P. Nutt story is unbelievable. That's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. Can I have time for another quick, funny story? And that's when he's in Sault Ste. Yeah. Can I have time for another quick, funny story? And that's when he's in Sault Ste. Marie, and he thinks he's broken his ankle. It turns out to just be serious shin splints. And he's coming out of the hospital. Of course, media scrum has heard he's come back from the Sault because we had to fly him back from up in Terrace Bay. And as he comes out, some reporter yells, hey, Terry, which one of your ankles is bothering you?

Terry just kind of looked at this guy with that look and went, the one that I don't have. That is quite the question for Terry Fox. Wow. Okay. So as you know, Bill, this is Toronto Mic'd. So we're going to dive into the details of what transpired in July, 1980. I had Steve Pagan on the program a couple of days ago. He's the most recent guest and he was sharing his memory of going to Nathan Phillips square.

And I of course grew up, I've seen these photos of Daryl Sittler and Terry. And of course, Terry's got Daryl's all-star game Jersey. But of course you were there. So how did Toronto receive Terry, and can you share any memories of this part of the Marathon of Hope? The night before, Mom and Dad show up in Oshawa to surprise him.

And it was a great reunion, but at the end of it, Terry comes to me and said, this is really nice, but I'm not going to have any time to spend with Mom. So he goes for his morning nap, which was an hour or two, and by the time he comes about, I got this idea. I said, I think we can get everything in. We're going to stay an extra day in Toronto. I can even fly you over to Nassau Falls, which he wanted to, he actually at one point wanted to run down there. So that the whole schedule got rearranged. The first reception we went to,

which I almost canceled, was Scarborough Civic Center, where he made that famous speech where he said that if something happens to me and I cannot finish the run, people have to step up and keep the marathon of hope going. How pathetic. Then we leave there, and one of the people in the book that i was able to track down was a police officer named john sophie who was 24 only two years older than terry he was a motorcycle cop he was given the assignment to accompany terry and he was the only policeman who was with us all day and he was able to fill in part of the story that i didn't know anyway four weeks before that terry's being kicked off the road in Quebec,

and now we're driving down the 401 and down the Don Valley with an escort of three motorcycles and two police cars. At the moment when it was happening, I thought, well, this is a change. We're not in Kansas. We're someplace special here. We go to the Four Seasons Hotel. We're sitting around Kansas, so we're someplace special here. We go to the Four Seasons Hotel. We're sitting around waiting to run down University Ave. I'm sitting in my room, which is right next to the family room with a gentleman by the name of Ray Bedard, who I brought up. I took him back to help.

He saved a run there, but I brought him back to Toronto to help. Knock on the door. It's Daryl Slippner. I turned to Ray and I said, Ray, come on. You you got to get it out. Ray says, it's my room. I went, great, Daryl's got to change. And Daryl's standing there with a brown paper bag and his little duffel bag. And reluctantly, Ray gets up and shakes Daryl's hand. And Ray says, hi, my name is Ray. What's your name? And I'm, my name is Daryl. Ray says, what do you do? Daryl says, I play hockey. Ray says, oh, who do you play for? I trade for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ray goes, oh, my dad doesn't know who you are. Walks out of the room. I get up and I went, you don't know Daryl Sittler? And he goes, I fish. If he was in a bass fishing tournament, I'd know who he was. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to meet him. Anyway, that was the beginning of Darryl Sittler. Darryl steps

in the room with his shirt and shoes, and he's ready to go. Knocks on the door, walks in, and just, and Terry says, looks at Terry and said, you're ready to go for a run. The, Sophie calls up, said, we're ready to go we go downtown we're at the four seasons hotel at that time it was on avenue road and uh we line up and and jeremy brown's kids are running with us and his brother terry's brother fred has come into town his mom and dad are there his sister's there they ride in i think it was a carling's beer van with us and off we go and i have no idea what those guys in toronto that i had met with had arranged because i was out on the road i knew nothing about what was going to happen in toronto we run down university ave it's packed with people five deep on either side.

I'm sure your listeners know what University Ave looks like. It's a grand boulevard. And then all the windows and the hospitals, where, by the way, now 43 years later, the money that Terry raises goes to them for cancer research, to Princess Margaret Hospital, as an example. And as we're running down University Ave., Daryl Fox is running next to Daryl Sittler. And as they're going down the street, if it's a – you've got to remember, Daryl is 17 at the time.

And as they're running down, if it's a nice-looking girl, Daryl Fox taps Sittler and goes, that one was for me. It was a middle-aged woman. He goes, that one was for you. His people were going, Daryl, Daryl. Anyway, we come to the corner of University Ave and Queen Street. And we make that left-hand turn. And it's just a complete mass of people.

And I'm gobsmacked. And, Daryl, I can remember Doug, who's driving the van, yelling at me, where do I park, where do I park? And I'd just be up on the street on the sidewalk. And he's going, I can't do that. And I went, we can do anything you want. We're with Terry Fox. And he still wouldn't go until the policeman went yeah park over there

and then we try and make our way to the stage there is 10,000 people in Nathan Phillips Square the sound of the crowd is overwhelming it's echoing off all of those big uh office towers and the hotel across the street and we're trying to make our way to the stage and people are crowding in they're trying to hand Terry Fox stuff. And they've handed to Terry and I start walking backwards to the stage in front of Terry. And he's taking the stuff, then he's handing it to me and then I'm handing it off to the side where some volunteers have shown up.

And at one point this woman steps in between us and she's got all kinds of cameras over her shoulders. So I know she's on assignment and she's getting some incredible pictures I can tell. Well, at one point, I'm walking backwards. She's walking backwards. Terry's walking towards us. She doesn't see a cable running across, trips on it, falls backward. And just before she hits the ground I catch her and it turns out to be a

United Press photographer a woman by the name of Gail Harvey who supplied a lot of the pictures of the book for us free of charge and we became lifelong friends and we get to the stage and the crowd just even gets louder and louder and I can remember standing at the bottom of the stage and there's Jeremy Brown who is the emcee for the day Al Waxman from King's King of Kensington he was the honorary chairman of the Cancer Society was up there and a bunch of politicians Paul Godfrey I remember and I in awe and I just cannot believe this reception, the smile on Terry's face is from just this grin as big as, and it wasn't, and I'm repeating myself,

it wasn't that aren't I famous. It was my message is getting out and knowing about the Marathon of Hope. And I stand there thinking to myself, Jeremy, you guys pulled it off. And Jeremy and I became lifelong friends to the day he passed away. And that was, he made that wonderful speech. At one point, Dad, Daryl gives him the sweater, Terry puts it on, Dad reaches over and takes Terry's arm and holds it up like a champion, and immediately terry takes

it back down because terry is no like that's that's not me dad you know um but any proud father would have done that um mom was up on the stage his sister his brother what a wonderful moment for a family that mother uh five or six months before that no even longer than that it's going no you're not running across canada just run across british columbia and terry's going people get cancer all across canada i'm not going to run across bc i'm running across canada and once terry made up his mind to do something you were wasting your time to try and talk him out of it. And that day was just incredible, the whole experience of Toronto. We go to dinner. I have to tell the story about going to dinner.

He goes to the Blue Jays game, yeah, the Blue Jays game, throws the starting pitch. We go to dinner at the CN Tower, and at one point during dinner, Terry falls asleep on his mom's shoulder and I'll never forget that just looking at him and uh and he slept for you know a good 20 minutes just leaning over on mom and then we go down in the basement of the CN Tower and at that time there was sort of an amusement park down there and one of the things were electric bumper cars that are at the X, which is, by the way, my favorite ride. And anyway, at one point, Daryl and his brother broadsides Terry

and pops Terry's artificial leg off. Nobody has recognized Terry to that point. There's a big crowd. Everybody knows. It's an amusement park. There's a big crowd. Everybody, you know, there's people. It's an amusement park.

And Terry has to get in the cart, get the leg off at the bottom of his jeans, and then takes the leg and uses it as a cane, for lack of a better phrase, gets out of the cart, and is hopping across the floor with it, at which point the whole place goes, it's Terry Fox. It was a wonderful. You go, you know, There were so many emotions going through Toronto, the highs. There were no lows in Toronto. Toronto was just an amazing,

amazing experience. What would have your Edmonston self thought of what transpired in Toronto? I didn't know. When I tell you that you get to Ontario and it'll happen I was bluffing and there's nothing planned as a matter of fact I repeat Ontario Division still isn't 100% into it so I'm back in Maritimes I'm bluffing but my background was in community events. I knew it was going to be big. I had no comprehension that it was going to be that big that day, nor how big it has become 43 years later worldwide.

All right, I'm going to do a quick detour and then come back. But unrelated to Terry, in your career, you went on to work closely with David Foster, right? Yes, yeah, I'm still good friends with him. I'll see him in a couple of weeks. He and his wife, BJ Cook, who were in Skylark, had that wonderful hit, Wildflower, that's been remade by so many artists.

They're getting a star in the Entertainment Walk of Fame here in Vancouver. And, yeah, I worked for David's foundation for two years, and that was a surreal experience. I'm a small-town guy, and I'm flying around in private jets with him. I remember one time we were in Halifax. He raises money. His foundation supports families whose children need organ transplants. And the foundation does things like everything medical is all covered.

But when your kid gets cancer or you need a transplant, you may live in northern British Columbia. You have to come down to Vancouver for the operation. Dad has to leave the job. You have to find a place to live. The foundation does things, even they pay the mortgage while the dad can't work. They pay their accommodations when they're away from home. They pick up the tab that nobody else would cover. And he's the real deal. up the tab that nobody else would cover. And he's the real deal. We would go and visit the sick kids hospital. Never once, as a matter of fact, he, by instructions, media were not to be there. It had nothing to do with look at me. And when he spoke to a family, we would have meetings with

the families that are in the hospital. There might be, you know, maybe 10 families. He'd speak to every single family, and when he was talking to them, it was like nobody else was in the room. He is a nice guy. He's meticulous. I had to know ahead of time what door we were to walk in. If he was in a CBC interview in Toronto, I better know which damn door we're going to walk in because he doesn't want to.

Oh, and the other thing, a very funny thing about David Foster, he will not ride in an elevator. He was stuck in an elevator once, so if he has to walk up 23 floors, he'll walk up 23 floors. He could never get in the elevator. And I was going to tell you the story about we're doing a show in Halifax, and he's flying in. He's been out in the Mediterranean on holiday,

and a friend is flying him in on their private jet. And I'm looking at him, oh, I wonder what plane that, I don't recognize that airline, and it's a 747 landing or whatever it is, a giant. And these people get off, and it's a nice older couple with David, and we have a nice chat at the bottom of the stairs. And I'm introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Kardashian. You know what?

I didn't know who they were at the time. Oh, wow. I don't know who they were. But what a difference, right? You were in the van, and now there's private jets. What a different aspect. aspect but sounds like david foster's doing some amazing work himself in an alternate universe bill terry survives his cancer and he's in the chorus of tears are not enough

well wouldn't that be interesting yeah yeah that's that's, how do you, I love how you just put that together. Well, I'm a, you know, it's no secret on this program that I'm kind of fascinated by Tears Are Not Enough and how it came together. And if David ever wants to talk about it, hook me up. I'll happily chat with David about Tears Are Not Enough. I have questions. about tears are not enough. I have questions. Well, you should actually talk to his first wife, BJ Cook,

who lives in Victoria, who he credits for his success. She put together Skylark. He was going to quit the music business and go to work in a bank. And this is years and years ago. And she says, if I can can put this band together will you stay in it and then she goes and gets guys like doug edwards who was in chilliwack a whole list of a-list players all canadian and they go down to california and they they record that album skylar um and and it was bj who put it together it It was BJ who convinced David to come up to Toronto, up to Vancouver here. Uh, they talk almost every day. He's been married five times,

uh, and talk about retributive justice. He's married five times and he's got five daughters. It was nothing but women in his life. Amazing. Okay. Now, because we have limited time, uh, I'll have to have another conversation with you about david foster to keep going there but you know you mentioned one of the big wishes for terry was to to meet bobby orr and i've read the book and people all people listening to this program should pick up terry and me the inside story of terry fox's marathon of Hope by Bill Viggers. Got to check it out. But tell us, please, did Terry ever meet Bobby Orr? We met Bobby Orr at the Four Seasons Hotel. That was the day that Terry came in and spoke to,

I think it was about 800 high-power executives that Izzy Sharp had put together. Before that speech, he was very nervous. He said to me, I don't know what to say. And I said, just say what you say to everybody else. They're no different. And when he was making that speech at the Four Seasons, the only thing you could hear is Terry, for some reason,

had a paper clip that was on the podium. And all you could hear, he was nervously clicking it continually. And there was dead silence in the room, after which Doug and Daryl, Terry, and myself have dinner with Bobby Orr in a room upstairs, and Terry at one point tells Daryl, I'm sorry, Bobby, that if he, they have a picture of, a Toronto Star picture of Terry and Bobby comparing knees. So Terry's showing him his artificial leg and Bobby Orr is showing him a knee with a roadmap of scars. And Terry says to him, you know, I'd give my good knee to you if it meant you being able to continue playing. At one point, Bobby goes to the washroom,

and while he's in there, Daryl starts picking the croutons off the Caesar salad and going, I'm going to tell my grandchildren that I ate Bobby Orr's croutons. And in classy style that Bill always has, I say, I'm going to tell my grandchildren that I heard Bobby Orr take a pee. He was such a wonderful guy. Sittler was a wonderful guy. All the athletes we met, Jerry Organ, Tony Gabriel. And when he got sick, most of these guys went out to Port Coquitlam and visited him and went to his house wow okay let's talk about getting sick here so the terry fox marathon of hope comes to an end in thunder bay ontario the his cancer spread to his lungs i don't want to

i know i know you know we talked about how emotionally draining this all is and then you and I both shed a tear or two earlier in the conversation but do you mind if we just what was that moment like where Terry has to abandon his run and go home for treatment I can't imagine what that was like for you what had happened the day, two days before,

I had gone back to St. Thomas for my mom and dad's 40th wedding anniversary. So I get a call on the Sunday night, and the guy that I've left in charge says, Terry's in the hospital. They think the cancer may have returned. We don't know. I'm on a plane the first thing in the morning. I arrive in Thunder Bay the same thing in the morning i arrive in thunder

bay the same time as mom and dad arrived from british columbia we ride together downtown to the hospital mom and dad go into the room first um then daryl and doug and i go in and terry looks at us and said the cancer's back and my first reaction was i swore like and then i suddenly i'm really embarrassed because i in front of mom and dad and then I went into the lack of a better phrase all my emotions shut down I got to get him home because I'm told that if he's not flying out within hours he's going to have to stay in Thunder Bay one of his lungs was filling with fluid he had to go back to british columbia lying down and that meant no commercial flight so now we're trying to find a private jet to get him home we try the toronto

star a couple corporations to no success and then lou fine who is a district director he's on the phone with uh ontario health and he's saying we need a plane up here to fly terry fox home and it keeps going up the ladder. And they're all saying, well, no, no. It finally gets to the last person. They say, well, we can't do that. And Lou says, he's a gruff guy. He said, I got all of the media from Canada standing outside my door. Do you want me to go outside right now and tell them you will not fly Terry Fox home?

One moment, sir. 30 seconds later, there'll be a plane there in an hour and a half. And so the rest of it was, and at one point, Terry hated hospital food. He wants to go and have a clubhouse sandwich. He asks the doctor, can I go to a restaurant? The doctor says yes. He gets out of bed, gets dressed. We get him downstairs. We're walking across the street. Three days before that, he's running a marathon in the middle of the road. He's so weak, he collapses. I grab him one side. Dad grabs the other side. The medical staff were standing watching us. They come running with a gurney.

They get him back into the hospital, and I just go into work mode. I got to get Doug and Daryl home. to work mode. I've got to get Doug and Daryl home. I shut down all of my emotions while that's all going down. The plane arrives. He does that press conference. By the way, writing the book, I went and visited Thunder Bay and I met the only two guys who were alive who were at that press conference. It was the cameraman who shot it and the local television reporter who's still on the air up there who covered it and uh i relive that standing outside and again even when i visited again this year um

i held it together and i held it together we into the ambulance. We're driving to the airport, and Terry's dad's going, it's so unfair, it's so unfair. And Terry said, what, Dad? He said, the cancer's come back. And Terry says, no, Dad, it's not unfair. That's what cancer is. And he knew that because his visibility had risen so high, there's a quiet moment, and he says, now maybe people will understand why i did it because then he knew that people were going to have to watch him go through treatment

and we get to the airport and uh they load him on the plane it's mom and dad there's a doctor and i'm hugging mom and dad while they're loading. This is all going on. And they get them in. And I go over and I lean into the plane and I hug them. And I tell them I love him. And I say, I'll come and see you. And they close the plane door. And it taxis off. And as it's taking off, I'm thinking to myself, this isn't the way the movie was supposed to end.

And I'm thinking to myself, this isn't the way the movie was supposed to end. And I'm completely shattered. And I was completely shattered for years after that. It affected me deeply. But, you know, his mom said, I know it was hard for a mom to say that. She said it was meant to be. He was called to do something he answered the call people showed up during the run who because of their background when they were needed came to help him and that be speaks of the policeman that be speaks

of the restaurant people who would give us free foods, the motels who gave us rooms, the people out in the Maritimes who would open their doors and give them dinner and have a shower. And I think Canadians now are doing exactly the same thing. They're coming together every September when he needs it. And we go back to that Scarborough Civic Center when he said, if I can't finish the run, the Marathon of Hope has to continue. And Mike, you're doing it right now. You do it every Sunday.

I'll be in Victoria doing it again. And I urge you listeners, a lot of people go, you know, I used to do that. Go back and do it again this Sunday. Just make this a special year. And I have to tell you, Mike, when you came on the air with that Terry Fox Aspire shirt, I loved you right away.

You were a good man. Okay, Bill, this has been very special, and I really appreciate this time here. In Port Coquitlam, B.C., you did get to visit with Terry before he passed. Yes, I sat in when they were putting the telethon together, which was put together in six days. And at the end of it, we were sitting in a boardroom, CTV, and I would say, he'd go, who did he like to listen to? And I said, John Denver. Get John Denver on the phone.

And suddenly John Denver says, yeah, I'm coming. I'm listening to this. It was like out of a movie. This is only three days after I put him on the plane, maybe even two days, because it happened so quickly. And at the end of it, the producer says, where are you going to be Sunday? And I said, I guess home, in the beaches. And he said, do you want to go to British Columbia? They flew me out.

And while the telethon was going on, I sat with Daryl and Doug in the hospital room watching it. And then Daryl and Doug were called downstairs. And I'm sitting on the side of the bed with Terry. And they roll in the drip for this first treatment, and Terry fell asleep on my shoulder as we watched the telethon. And I sat there for an hour until he woke back up again. I didn't move. And then I was able to go back out and visit him about a month later and take the kids with me. And funny, he wanted to go and see the movie Oh God.

One of the things that I didn't know, Terry read the Bible every day, but he never told anybody. He never showed it. He wasn't sure what his religion was. That was one of the first questions I asked him, believe it or not. And he said, well, my mom and dad make us go to church, but no, I'm not religious. And at one point, one of the guys questions I asked him, believe it or not. And he said, well, my mom and dad make us go to church, but no, I'm not religious. And at one point, one of the guys says, Terry,

don't you think you should take Sunday off to go to church during the run? And Terry said, there's Ron Calhoun, he said, Ron, have you read the Bible? And Ron said, well, I've read sections of it. And Terry said, well, I've read it front to back three times, and I'm pretty sure God will wait for me until I get to Vancouver. So he was a special guy, and it was a special time for me and I hold it in my heart and I live it every day. Bill, thanks so much for writing Terry and Me, the Inside Story of the Marathon of Hope and thanks for your time today. Man, i'm emotionally drained but it's so beautiful and

i so proud to continue the marathon of hope i'll be at high park 9 a.m sunday and thank you for sharing these stories thank you very much and i love toronto i was there last week at a wonderful at the black swan ta. We had a book launch. And the reason we had it there, because Kerry ran right past it, and the photographer, Jeremy Gilbert, who works at CBC, had taken a picture almost

in front of the Black Swan, so we decided to have it there. Next time you're in town, I'll buy you a Great Lakes beer. You got a deal. Thank you. And thanks for doing this. Thanks for keeping Terry's legacy alive. On the road again Just can't

wait to get on the road again The life I love is making music with my friends And I can't wait to get on the road again On the road again Going places that I've never been

Seeing things that I may never see again I can't wait to get on the road again On the road again Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway We're the best of friends Insisting that the world keep turning our way And our way Is on the road again

Just can't wait to get on the road again The life I love is making music with my friends And I can't wait to get on the road again Like a band of gypsies We go down the highway We're the best of friends insisting that the world keep turning our way

and our way is on the road again just can't wait to get on the road again the life I love is making music with my friends And I can't wait to get on the road again And I can't wait to get on the road again

All right, thank you very much.