Happy St Patrick's Day to my pally....Patrick Francis Marsden..

Today is March 17, St Patrick's Day to much of the civilized world, a happy day to be sure.. Some agency who counts weird things reckons some 12 billion pints will be sunk... no wonder it's a happy day...


April 27 is coming up, it is not a happy day for me and many others.. the day that my pally Pat Marsden was finally taken by cancer in 2006, sleeping in his bed at Sunnybrook.. He was 69.


We all knew him from his sports broadcasting days at CTV and CFRB, mainly his calls of the CFL. I first met him in the Fan590 program director Nelson Millman's office after I'd been hired to produce the morning show, in April 1995 and we hit it off right away. Maybe the fact I'd brought a bottle of Bacardi to he meeting gave me an unfair advantage !...


That was the start of nine great years together on the Morning Show. He retired in 2004, I produced the final show jam packed with an A list of his friends topped by Brian Mulroney who I hooked up live from his private yacht in the Mediterranean where he was attending the 2004 Olympic Games.


At the end of the show I got all our staff, as well as CHFI, and 680 news to form a corridor, and applaud him out of the building. I was at the end waiting, gave him a big hug and he whispered in my ear... "Mumbles, make sure none of these losers steals any of my presents" !


Pat was like me, pretty up beat every morning none more so that on St Patrick's Day where he knew he'd be together with his pals like Dave Draper (Red Wing's Chris Draper's uncle) 'Spy" the late Leif Pettersen, who by the way organized and paid for Pat's magnificent funeral at St Mike's cathedral and Mike Wadsworth former Argo who by then was Canada's ambassador to Ireland.


In 1992, Pat was the Toronto parades' Grand Marshall and Bill Watters told me about about Marsden's Marchers so I joined up paid $110, most of it went to charity and we all met in some army barracks off St George's at 10am on a windy cold St Paddy's day.


I will have a single malt with you anytime you want, but I have always been taught by my father, never before your day's responsibilities are done, and also never before you've thought about the next morning...


I certainly have never been one to start drinking neat rum at 10am, however those barracks had wall to wall cases of Pat's signature drink, Bacardi minatures and slightly warm tins of Canadian, and needless to say when I arrived the Marsden Marcher's were well under way..


We got word to form up in the alleyway between the barracks where we would march out to join our spot in the parade as it passed by.. As always things were delayed and when the whistle went to march out in file, all the Marcher's bladders had succumbed to the cold wind and were relieving themselves up against the barrack wall...


Out we went, pockets stuffed with Bacardi minatures, God knows we needed the walk. I remember marching down Yonge Street where in those days young ladies of dubious design occupied those little lofts above the garish Yonge Street stores and from time to time one of our younger Marcher's would dash from the ranks, up the stairs, only to return 20 minutes later and 20 dollars lighter...


Jack Hutchinson was marching with Billy and me. Jack had been hired from CBC to be the Executive Producer at TSN and he had hired me in 1988. We decided we were tired of Bacardi and needed some good Irish whiskey, so took we each took turns sprinting to a bar 5 minutes ahead of the parade, ordering 3 Jamieson's, waving each other in, toasting Pat, then rejoining the parade again...


The parade wrapped up at City Hall, the Marcher's were to have had a floor on a bar in the Eaton Center reserved, but we were so late it had been taken over, so undeterred we continued to march down to the SkyDome where we had the Sightlines bar reserved..


As if we needed it there was an open bar for the first hour, I remember watching the young men and women who drew the short straw of serving our tables that day who watched with horror as our drunken rabble arrived...It got worse when the free hour was up and they started to try and charge for the drinks...eventually they gave up..


Two teams from Ireland were playing hurly with great difficulty on the artificial pitch, but not many of the Marsden's Marcher's seemed to care..


My last memory of Pat that day was him sitting in sightlines, his usual Bacardi with ice and just a splash of coke, holding court, laughing, surrounded by his pals, knowing that someone would get him home safe and sound..


And that is the way I prefer to always remember him..


Happy St Patrick's Day my old pal.... may you continue to RIP..


Bryan




PS...For those who still ask me Pat was survived by his wife Terryanne (Terry Marsden, former broadcaster with CTV, host of "Toronto Today" 1982 to 1990) and their children Taylor and Connor. Also survived by (ex-wife Barbara) and Pat's children from his first marriage (Mike, Patti-Lee, and Ruth Mary).