Eighty-eight-year-old J. Edgar “Ed” Murdoch is a former football player, musician, trucker, and presently a retiree, radio show host, magazine writer, and novelist – truly an “ace of all trades.”
He is no stranger to travelling long distances, driving from province to province and state to state in his semi-trailer truck, and performing as a baritone vocalist across Europe with most of the major orchestras in Canada.
The senior citizen recently embarked on one of his most rewarding treks yet, packing up his possessions and moving house from Enderby, B.C. (where he resided for 32 years) to Airdrie. after he met the woman of his dreams on social media.
More than a year ago, 84-year-old Marlene Petrow responded to one of Murdoch’s posts on Facebook. The two went mouse-to-mouse and key-to-key over opposing opinions and the rest was history, according to Murdoch.
After a brief hiatus when the two ceased communication, last fall they both reconvened their budding romance, bonding over shared life experiences.
“My wife had passed away three years ago with two deadly diseases, and she was in terrible pain and finally it took her life,” Murdoch recalled. “I was alone and feeling alone and probably depressed.
“Marlene’s husband passed away with cancer five years ago and she was lonely, and we both needed someone to cuddle with at night.”
Murdoch affirmed it was Marlene who first bit the bullet and messaged him, and after some time chatting among each other, he came for a visit to Airdrie for a few days to meet her, adding it was kismet.
“From the moment I got out of the car til this very moment, we just fell into each other’s life, and it’s been absolutely over the top,” Murdoch exclaimed. “I couldn’t be happier as a person, and she feels the same way, so it was a match.”
Murdoch doesn’t shy away from a challenge in love or life, and recently participated in the extreme sport of skydiving at 87 years old. “I loved it and I’m going again this summer,” he exclaimed.
A wealth of experience and with it, wisdom
Looking back on his career, Murdoch said he has always been a bit of a “risk taker,” accepting challenges that would lead him to journey on roads across North America. His lifetime of adventure first began in his younger years when he found success as an athlete in Ontario.
Murdoch recalled he was always a “big kid” for his age and played for his high school’s football team while attending Upper Canada College (a private boys' secondary school) in Toronto. During his high school days, he was invited to take part in a Toronto Argonauts training camp in the spring of 1955 (approximately).
“I wasn’t able to go, but I did end up playing in the Ontario Rugby Football Union, which was a professional football group [at the time],” he explained.
Murdoch played for the Montreal branch of the organization for one year until he broke his ankle, an injury that effectively ended his football career and ushered him into another of his passions – music.
According to Murdoch, he was always interested in music and began taking piano lessons when he was about five years old.
“My sister was four years ahead of me and she was quite the pianist,” Murdoch recalled, adding he was working towards his RCP (Royal Conservatory of Music) designation, and also picked up playing the trumpet. He said his uncle was a baritone soloist, and he gave him his first few singing lessons.
While working towards a teaching certificate as a music instructor, Murdoch shared his passion for music with students at three different schools in northern Ontario.
“I entered all my school choirs in the Kiwanis Festival and every one of them won first place,” he recalled. “The adjudicator noted that my kids had such a big smile on their faces, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
“And he said, ‘That’s what music is all about,’ and he arranged for me to have an audition with the foremost singing teacher in Toronto.”
Murdoch recalled he drove 400 miles for the interview, culminating in the instructor taking him on as a student. Later, while working at a teacher’s college in North Bay, Ont., Murdoch also won a music scholarship for his talents.
Murdoch spent two years travelling with the Festival of Canada Music group, singing opera across Europe. During his tenure as a performer, he entertained thousands of people including royalty, two American presidents, and dignitaries from both Canada and Europe.
Though Murdoch’s passion for music is undeniable, he stated he enjoys performing as a group rather than as a soloist because of the “hype” in the music industry.
“In opera, there’s so much phony baloney – I wasn’t into that kind of thing,” he explained.
Murdoch was studying with a coach from the New York Metropolitan Opera Company when he decided to change careers, taking on his longest-spanning position, working as a long-haul truck driver.
He said his interest in trucking began on the farm where he grew up as a young man and it “extrapolated” from there.
“I spent over 50 years on the road. I’ve been to all four corners of North America in my big wheels,” he stated. “I’ve owned five tractors and a couple of trailers and I enjoyed that very much.”
Murdoch held a commercial driver's license for 63 years and chalked up more than five million miles driving across North America and holding a reputation for record safe driving skills.
Later in life, Murdoch transitioned to a role as a safety supervisor for an international trucking company out of Salmon Arm, B.C. – an office job that he did for 10 years.
“I loved every minute of it. At first, I had a bit of opposition from the other drivers, but I gained their respect and so there was another success that I enjoyed,” he stated.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Murdoch said though he has enjoyed everything he has done in his life and has had a great deal of fun doing it, he has always been drawn to living life on the edge. And never more so than when he drove semi-trailer trucks in all kinds of weather and road conditions and faced some daunting health diagnoses while doing so.
On a trip delivering goods from Canada to the United States and back, he experienced the first of several heart attacks while in Chicago in 1998.
“The pain was so bad when I was in a prone position, so for five days I rested on a pillow over my steering wheel coming through Wisconsin,” he recalled. “I had to turn my whole body when I was turning a corner and changing gears – it was pretty awful.”
Murdoch eventually made it back to Canada where he was sent on another journey through the United States and back to Wisconsin, where he came to realize he really ought to get medical help.
When he arrived home to British Columbia, Murdoch experienced a second massive heart attack.
“I knew this time that it was a heart attack because the pain was down both arms and I was hugging myself and all – it was awful,” he said, adding he drove himself to the hospital at 2 a.m.
"When I saw a cardiologist, he said, ‘You’ve just driven from Chicago to Vernon?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I did,’ and he said, ‘Why aren’t you dead?’”
Thereafter, Murdoch had a series of small heart attacks and eventually wound up in Vancouver General Hospital, needing to have open heart surgery.
“They sewed me all back up with those big staples in my chest and then the surgeon came running,” he recalled. “He said, ‘You’re bleeding internally, and your lungs have collapsed, we’re going to have to put you down.'
“Not only did they put me down, but I died apparently on the operating table, and I didn’t know this until my wife [at the time] told me – I was declared legally dead.”
Murdoch recalls his health troubles didn’t end there, and he also battled a bout with double pneumonia and a diagnosis of congestive heart failure. He currently has a leaky valve and poor circulation, along with severe stenosis in his back and leg – resigning him to a wheelchair in his golden years.
“My neuropathy is poor, the muscles in my leg are atrophying, so here I’ve gone from football-playing to sitting in a wheelchair. But the real reason I’ve survived all these things is sitting right beside me here in the office,” he said, referring to his partner Marlene.
According to Murdoch, the reason he has survived so many near-death experiences (not to mention navigating treacherous roads while driving from the Okanagan Valley to Alaska every two weeks) and numerous heart attacks and other health struggles was so he could meet Marlene.
“I’ve sort of been waiting for this moment all my life. To find each other at this stage of our life and have a romance that really ought to be experienced by teenagers and young people in their 20s – we're experiencing at our age and it’s just absolutely wonderful,” he remarked.
Current day and new beginnings
Now an official Airdronian, Murdoch said he is eager to get involved in his new community, sharing with others his passion for music and volunteerism. While he was living in Enderby, B.C., Murdoch was involved in any initiative where he could put on a musical or theatrical performance for an audience.
Murdoch even emceed Christmas dinner fundraisers and performed in plays for church camps and senior homes, along with other events.
“I’m reasonably good at [performing], but I tend to enjoy sleeping at my age,” he said with a laugh. “So, I’m not looking for anything heavy or professional, but if there’s a need, I’d like to help fill it.”
Presently, Murdoch also enjoys hosting his own broadcast radio program for a Salmon Arm-based radio station Voice of the Shuswap, where he has for the last decade been known as “The Road Dog.” Since 2008, he has also written for a transportation trade magazine called Pro-Trucker Magazine, which has been recently amalgamated with Driver’s Choice Magazine.
He said after sharing his life experience with his readers and listeners, he was coerced into putting all his tales into an autobiography, called Driving Through My Memories.
“I was pushed into it really,” he said with a laugh. “I found a local publisher and I wrote my first book in 2014. I’m now working on my second book, which will be a transcription of my favourite radio shows that I’ve done over the years with a running commentary in-between.”
When he isn’t sharing his wealth of wisdom with his audience, Murdoch loves to share his passion for Harley Davidson motorcycles with his three children and daydreams of hitting the road on a bike of his own, though he added Marlene might voice some opposition to that idea.
