This won’t mean much to most of you, but trust me, this is seriously blowing up on the texts in the booth at CJSW
I started volunteering at CJSW the year after I moved to Calgary, and I’ve been doing the show in one form or another for near 18 years. I mentioned it briefly during my last show, but pretty much every good thing that happened to me in Calgary happened to me because of my ties to CJSW. It’s been an absolutely huge part of my life for the last two decades. For example, for a while I was part of the CJSW executive, helping out with web stuff. We’d meet weekly on Mondays in the CJSW offices to check on the status of various projects, but this one week for whatever reason we decided to meet at Broken City. The meeting ended pretty early but I was hungry so I stuck around the bar and ate dinner. I’d recently started DJing there because a friend of a friend (who I met at CJSW, natch) dropped my name to the then-owner (who had a show on CJSW). Not much after I finished dinner that night, I met the woman who would become my wife at the bar. I wouldn’t have been there other than because of CJSW. I’ve actually got several more stories a lot like that one.
I mention this just to give a slight glimpse into the effect that CJSW has had on my life. The station and the people directly involved is one thing, but there’s also the listeners. It’s been such a joy to be invited into the living rooms, kitchen, cars, bedrooms of listeners and be able to share music with you all. I’ve loved every moment of it and am incredibly thankful and grateful for the opportunity to do so.
Leading up to and during my last show, many of you reached out to me via email or text and those messages were incredibly powerful. I think a lot of community radio DJs have kind of an abstract idea of who their listeners are, and we tell ourselves, “If I only reach one person, it’s all worth it.” I mean we tell ourselves that because the truth is we’d do it regardless because it’s not about who we reach, our ego or anything even remotely that, it’s just about passion for music and wanting to share the joy that these songs bring us. Regardless, that night I was able to hear from a lot of you, and it made it all worth it and more. I don’t really have the words to express it, but thank you all so much, from the bottom of my heart.
Some sample messages…
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