Two days after his 65th birthday on Saturday, Jan. 30, CBC Radio host Andy Barrie told listeners of CBC’s Metro Morning that he plans to retire in one month.
Barrie has hosted the top-rated show for 15 years. He previously hosted the morning show on Toronto station CFRB. The Maryland-born Barrie, who came to Canada in 1969 as an objector to the Vietnam, lost his wife Mary to cancer last year and is himself suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
He sent out a message to friends and colleagues on Sunday night:
"I'm heading back into the world of a full night's sleep. On Monday, March the first, I will be vacating, relinquishing, abdicating the host's chair at Metro Morning.
Let me explain. This past fall Metro Morning went to its new start-time of 5:30, fifteen minutes earlier than it had been. Might seem like a small thing, but if you know anything about the circadian rhythms that guide our sleep, this was a big deal. And Daylight Saving time had just ended, making it kind of a double whammy. And there's my Parkinson's Disease, so make that whammy a triple!
All I know was that (my) body was getting a very loud wakeup call of its own, and the call said: "Fifteen years is more than anybody's held this job. A guy's got just so much stamina. You have been there and done that, and it's time to do something new."
If we go back to my student radio days hosting something called The Suppertime Show in university, I've been doing daily radio now for forty-five of my sixty-five years. Forty-five years of me doing the talking and you doing the listening. Well, it's that part of the conversation where it's time to say, well, enough about me.
When I joined the CBC 15 years ago, I told my wife, Mary, I felt like an immigrant all over again.
The day I pushed the mic button and introduced myself as the new host of Metro Morning it truly felt like I was taking the Oath of Citizenship a second time. On Monday March first, someone else is going to have that thrill, too, that someone named..... To Be Announced.
Until then, our producers here have very kindly allowed me some on-air time to study up on starting new, with some well-known Canadians who have re-tooled rather than re-tired. As far as CBC is concerned, the adoption papers were signed long ago. I'm family. So I'll be here at the Broadcasting Centre trying to do less talking and more listening, sticking my nose into all kinds of interesting projects, and turning my ears to Metro Morning from the comfort of home.
Again, this is, for me, good news! This is my idea. Once I convinced Denise Donlon, CBC Radio's executive director, that this is what I'm really ready for, we could start talking about the future: Metro Morning's and mine.
But listen, hey..... I'll be at the mic for another month. My alarm clock will continue to wake me up so I can wake you up until, come March, someone new wakes us both up."
