Brownstein: Terry DiMonte vowed to never move back to Montreal. ‘Well, I’m here to eat crow’

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A little over three years ago, Terry DiMonte bolted from Montreal, moving to B.C. and vowing he would never return to live in his hometown again.

He decided he could no longer deal with the gridlock, the politics, the divisiveness et al. Nor did it help that his contract as CHOM morning man had not been extended, much to his dismay and that of his legions of fans.

But reality was to kick in for DiMonte.

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The great American writer Thomas Wolfe penned the novel You Can’t Go Home Again — published posthumously in 1940 — whose title has since served as a warning to those contemplating such an action. DiMonte now hopes to prove Wolfe wrong.

DiMonte has moved back. Turns out the anticipated B.C. bliss was not to be for him and his wife, Jessica Dionne.

“Well, I’m here to eat crow,” quips DiMonte over a cocktail at Ziggy’s. “Sorry, Mr. Wolfe.

“When the plane took off for Vancouver, I looked down at Lac St. Louis and told Jess: ‘Say goodbye, because we ain’t never coming back here again.’”

It was with a heavy heart they had come to the decision to leave. After nearly four decades mostly spent on CHOM as well as on CJAD and Mix 96, DiMonte, a Verdun native, had become an icon on local airwaves among both anglos and francos.

“It was an itch I felt I had to scratch,” DiMonte says of deciding to move to Langley, about 45 minutes east of Vancouver. “We would go vacation in B.C. on occasion. We would be oohing and ahhing over the mountains and majestic views and Vancouver. So we told ourselves we had to live there.

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“If you’re an irate Montrealer, I get it. The schools, the cones, the potholes, the health care, the parking, the politics … all the stuff that everyone pisses and moans about. That can wear you down. And I must admit as a Quebec anglophone, I was pissed off. We’ve made a contribution, too. So stop it. I just concluded then that we had to get out of here.”

DiMonte’s mood was further dampened by the fact he hadn’t slept well for decades, having to get up at 3 on weekday mornings for his radio gig. Apart from doing the Standing By podcast with one-time radio partner Ted Bird, DiMonte is retired and sleeps better. Dionne is still in the marketing trade, able to operate virtually.

But starting a new life in a new domain with new neighbours proved daunting.

“We couldn’t make any friends in B.C. We couldn’t make any connections. People had their families and friends with whom to connect. Just like we used to have.

“It all started simply enough with: ‘Geez, I’d love a bagel or some Chalet Bar-B-Q chicken.’ Then it all came down to missing everything. You miss the crazy here, and you understand what makes this place so unique.”

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During his time in Langley, DiMonte recalls standing on the corner of Fraser Highway and 200th St. and suddenly coming to the realization he was a stranger in a strange land and had no history there.

“We didn’t want to admit it: We had to move. We didn’t want to live in Toronto. We both said we just had to go back. Jessica is a francophone and I’m happily bilingual. So here we are.”

But DiMonte doesn’t harbour any desire to get back into the radio game here.

“We didn’t come back for that. I’m happily retired. I had a great run during a great radio period here, populated by the likes of George Balcan and Paul Arcand, and I’m so grateful for the time I had. I bear no ill will, no resentment. But I love the fact that I don’t have a schedule with a place to go every day, and that I can sleep, and that I no longer have to get stressed having to deal with traffic.”

So DiMonte has gone from morning man to mellow man?

“Mellower.”

He had to.

DiMonte is grateful to be alive. In January 2023, he suffered near-fatal complications after undergoing a heart-valve operation in Vancouver. He ended up spending 25 days on a ventilator on life support in an ICU.

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“The operation had been planned,” he recalls. “I got the call just before Christmas and they opened me up on my 65th birthday. The heart surgery itself went very, very well, and then things went very, very badly. I developed severe pneumonia, infections and a blood clot. I was essentially in a coma for a couple of weeks.

“I just can’t say enough about how hard those doctors and nurses at the Vancouver General worked to save my life.”

No surprise that his brush with death has changed his outlook on life.

“We decided that we’re no longer going to do things that don’t make us happy anymore. That’s how we decided to cut our losses and come back here.

“If you like to hike in the woods or snowboard, or if you like to go seashell collecting on the shores of the Pacific, it’s a great life out west,” DiMonte says. “We’re not snowboarders or seashell collectors. We realized that the most interesting place to live, that’s just never dull yet often annoying, is Quebec. And I missed it so much. … Je suis Québécois.”

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

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