https://www.tvo.org/article/my-dinne...BWIY4yuRxwp1Dc
My dinner with Gordon Lightfoot
I went to a gala to help raise money for arts and culture in Toronto. I ended up having an unforgettable evening with a music legend
Written by Steve Paikin
May 3, 2023
It started as just another evening at yet another arts fundraiser. But it led to one of the most unforgettable nights of my life.
Former CTV anchor Ken Shaw, who was emceeing the evening, announced that the big auction item of that 2016 gala would be a multi-course dinner prepared at the winner’s home by one of Toronto’s best chefs, from Piano Piano. That sounded pretty nice, but nothing I had any intention of bidding on.
Then Shaw decided to have some fun at my expense. He got the bidding off to a strong start by picking me out of the audience and saying, “Hey, I see my friend Steve Paikin in the audience. Steve, how’d you like to start the bidding at $1,000?”
Being the good sport I am, I raised my paddle and nodded, secure in the knowledge that someone else would outbid me. And someone did. Phew.
Then Shaw paused the bidding. “Here’s an additional surprise for the winning bidder,” he said. “There will be a surprise guest at this dinner. The surprise guest is Gordon Lightfoot!”
Well, that changed everything. I now had a big problem. Because sitting at my table was none other than Gordon Lightfoot, with his wife, Kim. I knew Lightfoot a little bit, since I’d previously met him at an intimate concert. I’d actually asked him to autograph an old LP vinyl record of his. I was totally caught off guard when he actually recognized me and complimented my work on The Agenda.
Gordon Lightfoot knows who I am? How fabulously crazy is that?
So I suddenly decided that I would not permit Lightfoot to be embarrassed at that arts-foundation gala. He had to know how much the audience loved him — how much I loved him — and I was going to see to it that the special dinner fetched a handsome sum.
Shaw egged me on. “Steve? Are you going to let someone else win this?”
I looked across the table. I saw Lightfoot and Kim both look back at me. I looked around the room. Seven hundred sets of eyes were on me. My wife and I had both been lifelong fans of Lightfoot’s. We played his LPs all the time on an old record player at our camp on Manitoulin Island. That voice, those songs, the north channel of Lake Huron: it was all pure Canadiana. So, sure, I was happy to get the bidding started. But I could also see where this was going.
I raised my paddle again. Game on.
Someone I couldn’t see on the other side of the room then outbid me. I suppose I should have left it there, but that little voice inside me kept saying, “I can’t have Gordon embarrassed. This item needs to fetch a lot more money to show how much we love him.”
But another voice — my wife’s — weighed in, too. She has always been the more sensible one when it comes to finances. She was thinking of the cottage roof that needed replacing and her increasingly infirm mother’s care that needed paying for.
I was thinking, “Gordon, you are loved. And I will prove it.”
“Eight thousand dollars!” I yelled.
Quickly, I turned to the woman sitting beside me, Lisa Brown, from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, whom I’d met once before during a TVO shoot there and who was also expressing interest. “Let’s go in on this together,” I said to her and husband, Michael. They said yes. Things were moving fast. We got totally swept up in the excitement of the moment. That all contributed to my being more aggressive in my bidding than I otherwise would have been.
My wife was… how shall I put this… unamused. No, that’s not quite right. Infuriated. Yes, she loved Lightfoot, too. But, unlike her husband, she was being sensible.
The bidding wouldn’t stop. Every time we raised, the folks on the other side of the room bid more. Eventually — thank the Lord — we prevailed. Did we spend $13,000? Or $14,000? Truth be told, I can’t remember. It was something off the charts I couldn’t afford. Naturally, the arts-foundation volunteers descended on us like vultures with credit-card machines, lest we come to our senses, realize what we’d done, and try to get out of it. I provided my MasterCard, and, with that, we were official. Michael, Lisa, and I felt terrific about our purchase and posed for pictures with the Lightfoots as the evening ended. As far as I was concerned, mission accomplished. The arts foundation raised some good dough, and the Lightfoots felt loved.
As we walked out of the hall, my wife first gave me the silent treatment, then exploded.
“Are you crazy?” she blasted me, not without cause. “Do you know what we could do with that much money? We owe money on the cottage. My mother’s care costs so much money every month. We have so many other priorities. How could you do this?”
“This will be a wonderfully memorable night, and it’ll all work out,” I assured her. “I’ll figure this out. You watch.” Did I know how I was going to fix this?
Not a clue.
The next day, Lisa and I spoke on the phone, laughed at our profligacy, acknowledged getting caught up in the moment, then started to talk turkey. Could we charge some of our neighbours a small admission fee to have them come, meet Gordon, and hear him play? Could we sell rights to a broadcaster and have me interview Gordon in an intimate setting? We kicked around a bunch of ideas — each one nuttier than the last — as we considered how to defray our costs. But the more we talked, the more we struck out. We just realized these ideas were too bizarre and couldn’t happen.
Shortly thereafter, I was out to dinner with my brother and some of his friends. I mentioned in passing that I’d just purchased dinner with Gordon Lightfoot at a charity auction. Everyone at the table suddenly perked up. They all loved Gordon, too, and wondered how they could score themselves an invitation to my little dinner.
I made some joke about charging them an admission fee, at which point they’d all be welcome to attend. Lu Cacioppo chimed in first.
“Done!” he said.
“And I’ll host it!” added Paul Paletta.
In 10 seconds, I’d managed to ensure two things: first, the evening would be immeasurably more fun because I’d be sharing it with my brother and his friends; second, I’d dodged a financial bullet, just as I’d promised.
On May 6, 2017, my wife, daughter, and I showed up at Paul’s house for what would turn out to be an extraordinary evening. Gordon and Kim were side by side in the middle of one side of the dining-room table, and Lisa and Michael were across from them on the other. Knowing what a huge Lightfoot fan my wife, Francesca, was, I suggested she sit beside him on his right, and she didn’t argue.
At this point, Gordon was 78 years old. He was mentally very sharp but looked gaunt and spoke very quietly. So the one thing I insisted on was one conversation, so we could all hear him. I started it off by saying, “It all began for you in Orillia, eh?” Gordon picked up the story seamlessly and began talking about how his career got started as a singer and dancer for a local show there.
The questions and answers kept coming, and so did the food, one course after another: salad, gnocchi, risotto, beef, red wine, white wine, chocolate mousse for dessert — it was amazing.
Gordon was in an expansive mood, happily sneaking bites of food in between telling us stories of his life. He told us he still did 75 to 80 shows a year, which seemed like a lot for a guy of his vintage, and there were about a dozen songs, he said, that he had to do every show. We started to guess them: “Sundown,” “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Carefree Highway”... Francesca shouted out one of her favorites, “Black Day in July,” but he said no, that didn’t make the list.
part 2 - next post