When I moved to Vancouver in 1998, once people found out I had been a guest of various radio hosts in Winnipeg and elsewhere, the question was always the same: “Have you been on Rafe Mair’s show yet?”
Outside of British Columbia, Rafe Mair’s name is mostly unknown. But BCers know him to have been a successful lawyer, Social Credit politician, and finally king of talk radio in that province. He died last week at 85, and his passing prompts me to recall the only time we did talk.
We didn’t meet for a radio chat, however, but for a television interview. Well into his seventies, having had a fall-out with his long-time radio station CKNW, Rafe agreed to host a TV series called “The Search” for OMNI. So I met him in suburban Vancouver to promote my new book on Christian ethics, Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World (OUP).
The interview started normally enough. Rafe and I met just minutes before the show started—between my getting made up for the cameras and wired up for the sound people. We shook hands across the desk of the set, exchanged brief pleasantries, waited for the crew to get in position, and then we were on.
Rafe looked balefully into the camera, growling out his intro. “Fair enough,” I thought. I had been warned by countless BCers that Rafe munched Christians for breakfast. “Here we go.”
And we did go. But not in the direction I thought we would.
Having introduced me according to the script prepared by his assistant, and having held up a copy of my book to the camera while doing so, he then laid the book down, swiveled to fix me with a glare, and started in on…
… nothing to do with the book at all. Instead, for the next half-hour, Rafe subjected me to his Top Ten List of Crushing Questions for Kooky Christians.
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