Author: Jim Hagarty

My wife Barb came into the living room and sat down on the couch. I was in my rocking chair across from her.

“Brenda died today,” she said. “I found her in the corner of her aquarium.” Brenda was the matriarch of a family of nine gerbils who have lived in our living room for the past few years. They dwell in four aquariums of various sizes and sadly, Brenda was all alone in hers for the last few months because two of her daughters were beating her up and would have killed her. Gerbils are usually very sociable creatures so it must have been tough for her being alone, but her daughters seemed to think it was time for Mom to go.

We might have sent them for counselling but there is a shortage of gerbil psychologists in our town.

When Barb told me about Brenda, she didn’t look in the direction of the poor gerbil’s aquarium nor did she point to it. But when he heard the news, our poodle Toby jumped off the couch and raced to the little table on which Brenda’s home sat. He looked frantically in the dwelling which still had all its furnishings from the wheel to the hollowed-out coconut in which she slept and her water bottle along with all the wood shavings. When he couldn’t find her, he started pawing at the glass and did that on two sides of the tank. He has always felt these creatures were his and defends them mightily from the cats who want to eat them.

But what was amazing about all this was how he somehow knew we were talking about the mother gerbil, and not just any of them, this one in particular. How in the world did he know? Did he recognize her name? Did he sense something ominous in Barb’s voice? It was scary how he figured it out instantly and it was touching how upset he seemed to be that she was gone. She had been a big part of his life and he’ll miss her.

So will we humans.

©2013 Jim Hagarty

I drove down to the end of the block and knew something was wrong. Another flat tire. I turned around and drove slowly home. I had blown a tire a month ago, but my friendly local tire dealer fixed it. For ten dollars.

So the next day I took my sorry-looking band of rubber off the car, dropped it in the trunk of our other car and headed for my friendly local tire dealer. However, as I pulled into the shop, something seemed different. Sure enough, I had taken a wrong turn and ended up at a different shop. No problem, I thought. I’m sure they can fix it.

A young man came out to have a look at the tire and it seemed when he saw it he might fall over from shock. “I can’t do anything with this tire,” he said. “My God, it’s like paper. There’s nothing for me to work with.” Then he checked it over more carefully and said, “It’s eleven years old.” I never knew tires had dates on them. He showed me where it indicated the tire was made in 2007. I am not an expert at guessing ages but I estimated this young man might have been eight or nine when the tire was fabricated and still in elementary school.

“Sorry,” he said. “Oh, that’s alright,” I comforted him. He genuinely seemed like he felt badly for me. “I’ll be getting my snows on in a week or two.” So, I left, kind of downhearted, and drove by my friendly local tire dealer, the one I would have gone to if I had any idea where in the world I am at any given time.

“What the heck,” I thought. I pulled in. An older fella, maybe in his 50s, came out and looked at the tire. “Think you can save it?” I asked. “We’ll see what we can do,” was the reply. I phoned the next day. “Your tire’s all ready,” I was told. “You can pick it up any time.” A few minutes later, I did.

The tire fixer from the day before showed me where they had patched a hole. I shelled out another ten dollars, picked up a great 2019 calendar for free and came away with what I think is some sort of life lesson. Not sure what it is. Maybe something about age, experience, etc. But I will readily admit: An eleven-year-old tire deserves a rest.

©2018 Jim Hagarty

I was driving into the city of Sudbury in northern Canada from our friend’s cottage when I turned on the radio and tried to find a station I liked. Too hard, too soft, too noisy, too quiet, too much talk; every time I pressed the scan button I landed on another place I didn’t want to be.

And then, finally, there it was: The best radio station I’ve ever heard. Fantastic music. Rolling Stones. Beatles. The Animals. Creedance Clearwater Revival. Bob Dylan. Janis Joplin. One hit after another. In an instant, I was singing at the top of my lungs as I bombed along down the highway.

What a great Saturday morning this was turning out to be. A couple of hours off by myself with the van and the finest songs in the world. I soon began to lament that I live so far away from this place that I wouldn’t be able to hear this station again. I sure wish we had a station like this back home, I thought. Hardly any commercials.

Wow. Life is good. Do Wa Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo. I Wanna Hold Your Hand. The Times They are a Changin’. Perfect.

Then a female announcer came on the air. “It’s 11 a.m.,” she said. “And you’ve been listening to Songs for Seniors.”

It’s funny how you can’t find a good radio station anywhere anymore.

Especially in Sudbury.

©2011 Jim Hagarty

I know you have asked yourself many times, “Why doesn’t Jim Hagarty have a hot tub?” That is a very good question and I compliment your intelligence in thinking to ask it.

I also have wondered, from time to time, why such a body relaxing fixture has never found a place in my home, as I probably missed out on a few rollicking hot-tub parties. But then I remember the real reason.

Hot tubs attract gigantic alligators, boa constrictors and even rabbits. Those were the critters found in a Kansas City apartment recently, when the tenant was being evicted. As a tenant such as the one mentioned here would have had to say, the 150-pound alligator was as gentle as a puppy.

I don’t have much experience with alligators, actually none at all, as the creeks on the farm I grew up on were too shallow to attract any, but my actual puppy sits on my lap at night when I watch TV. I doubt “Catfish” and I would get along as well when my favourite shows come on.

You might say I am overreacting to this news but I assure you I am not. Precaution is nine-tenths of valour, or something like that. In the 67 years I have lived without a hot tub, I have never been eaten by an alligator.

I rest my case. (Not as restful as I might be just climbing out of a hot tub, I suppose, but I rest it anyway.)

©2018 Jim Hagarty

This is a metaphor for how times have changed, literally. In our farmhouse in Canada 55 years ago, there was one wallclock, with a long cord reaching down to an electrical outlet. No clocks with batteries in those days. That was it. One timepiece large enough for everyone to read. One.

When daylight savings time came and went, there was one clock to change. Somebody got up on a chair and changed it. It was always a big deal. And even though it preoccupied us when the big day for the change was coming, we still managed to make it late (or early) to church occasionally.

I am not counting the few wristwatches that might have been in our possession. The owners of those watches could manage to make the changes on their own. Depending on which car we owned at the time, there might have been a clock in it but we could be 98 per cent sure it didn’t work anyway so we didn’t have to worry about changing it.

Today, in our home, I changed 23 timekeepers, again, not counting wristwatches. But that is less than half of the items that keep track of time in our home. My best count is that we possess 55 objects that display time and I am probably leaving a few out. The other 32 devices that I didn’t have to physically change, alter their own times automatically.

To me, this proves that life was simpler back when I was young. Not easier, just simpler.

Here’s a breakdown of our timepieces: four wallclocks; four clock radios; two alarm clocks; two stand-alone decorative clocks; a digital thermostat; four cellphones; four cordless phones and one landline phone; two TVs that display time; a TV digital box; one VCR; one DVD recorder; six computers; two printers; two microwave ovens; two video cameras; three digital voice recorders; four hand-held gamers (DS and PSP); one X-Box; one WII; two iPods; two cars; and one lonely little letter opener. One clock – the one on the stove – doesn’t work.

Fifty-five objects in 2011 compared to one in 1956. Is life 55 times more complex than it was 55 years ago? Maybe all this says is that they hadn’t figured out how to put timepieces in every little thing back then. But maybe it goes a little deeper than that. I’d explain how for you but I don’t have the time right now. Too busy changing our devices that keep track of it.

©2011 Jim Hagarty

This a story about A Great Mind in Decline, aka I’m Losing It Big Time.

One year ago today was my wife Barb’s birthday, so as is my tradition, I went out and bought her a book by her favourite author, Maeve Binchy. (Just to get under Barb’s skin, I used to always call her hero Maeve Bitchy, by mistake, of course. These were misfires on my part.)

Barb and I have been married 22 years and fortunately, Maeve is a very prolific writer and has been able to keep me supplied with birthday presents, Christmas presents and even Valentine’s Day presents. But apparently old Maeve is slowing down and this is complicating my life.

A year ago, I bought my wife Maeve’s 2010 release, Minding Frankie. Barb loved it. Six weeks later, I was back in the stores looking for her Christmas book. I found it, wrapped it up and she opened it Christmas morning.

“Oh, Minding Frankie,” she said. “I love that book.” The one I had gotten her six weeks before was sitting out in the open on a coffee table within sight of us all as we opened our gifts.

Ha, ha, ha. Dad’s an idiot.

So, there I was today, almost 11 months later, looking for a gift for Barb again when I picked a Binchy book off the shelf. I phoned my son and asked him to ask his Mom what the words Minding Frankie meant to her and I instructed him to make sure he didn’t tip her off that this was the title of a Maeve Binchy book.

“It’s a Maeve Binchy book,” I heard her say in the background. “And I got it twice last year.”

As the saying goes, I have a wonderful memory but it’s very short. Tomorrow I am writing a stern letter to Ms. Binchy, instructing her in no uncertain terms to get off her aspirations and write some more books. This retirement of hers is killing me.

In any case, who ever heard of a writer retiring? Writers don’t retire, they just get the ultimate rejection notice one day from their publishers by way of their readers.

With any luck, Binchy will join other great novelists such as Agatha Christie who, after retiring or passing away, keep producing best sellers with their name on them but written by others. Great franchises are hard to abandon.

And who knows? Maybe some day long into the future, you’ll be reading Jim Hagarty stories written by some other poor sap who was also dropped on his head as a kid.

©2011 Jim Hagarty

I was driving through Manitoba on my way home from the West Coast. Sometime during the night, I got tired so pulled over to the shoulder of the Trans Canada Highway and crawled into the back of my car for a nap.

I woke up about 6 a.m., ready to take off again but my battery was dead. I had left the parking lights on all night.

So, I flagged down a trucker who said he couldn’t help me but he said there was a town on the other side of the bush he pointed to and a service station where I could find someone. But it was Sunday morning and I’d have to wait till 9 a.m. for the service station to open.

The trucker told me I could walk the highway around the bend – the long way to the town – or I could just cut through the bush as the town was on the other side of it.

So, just before 9 a.m., I climbed the fence to the field where the bush was located and threw one leg over. But I stopped because of a creepy feeling I had about that bush. It was a beautiful sunshine-filled day and there was nothing sinister about the bush, but I changed my mind about going through it and walked around the long way – a half hour or so – to the town.

I found my service station guy and we got in his truck to go back to my car. When we got there, I almost fainted. The field in front of the bush was filled with a herd of maybe 50 or 60 buffalo – old, young, mothers, fathers and calves. They had all been in the bush that I almost walked through.

I grew up on a farm around beef cattle and developed a healthy respect for them but I’m afraid I would not have been able to handle a bevy of bucking buffalo. My only hope would have been to climb a tree and my tree-climbing skills have never been the best.

It’s been 29 years since that day and I still shudder every time I think about my close encounter with those beasts.

Thank God we humans have not completely lost all our instincts. In this case, listening to that wee small voice within me saved my life.

©2011 Jim Hagarty

My daughter says that I have a quirk when it comes to jokes. She doesn’t exactly say it’s an annoying quirk, but secretly, I think she believes it is.

Her contention is that if I tell a joke and no one laughs, instead of giving up on the joke, I keep telling it over and over to everyone I meet, even though no one ever laughs.

She’s right. But here’s my problem. If I find a joke funny, I come to believe in that joke, and like any good preacher, I want to bring others into the sunshine that warms my face. My jokes are my higher power and I am a humour evangelist.

When I was in university 45 years ago, I hung around with a very funny guy. He had a bunch of one liners always at the ready and he would whip them out when he wanted to make someone laugh.

And laugh they always did.

Here is my favourite quip of his.

When anyone would ask him how he was doing, he would say to them, “Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment.” Now, the reason I found this so funny, and others did too, was the fact that he was standing there, perfectly healthy, explaining that he was just barely alive.

So, for 45 years, I have used this joke. Over and over and over. When a stranger, often a clerk in a store, asks me how I am, I tell them, “Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment.” In 45 years, I have had a total of probably three people laugh at my reply and two of those were out of kindness or possibly even pity. Maybe it’s my delivery or maybe I live in the wrong part of the world.

But I do know one thing.

I am going to keep using this line till the day it comes true. The nurse will ask, “Well, how are we today, Mr. Hagarty?” And I will say, “Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment.”

And she won’t laugh. Instead, she will fluff up my pillow and hand me my pea soup. I will sit up and try to swallow a little nourishment. And whatever might be left of my pride by then.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

I have been involved in trying to solve a very scary mystery at my place. It appears as though someone in the neighbourhood broke into people’s sheds overnight and in those sheds, such as ours, turned the clocks back one hour to keep up with Daylight Savings Time.

The clock on a wall in my shed wasn’t made by craftsmen in Switzerland, but it’s not a terrible clock. It keeps the time pretty well and after all, you don’t expect a lot from a shed.

So, this morning, I was wandering around the house changing clocks in response to the end of Daylight Savings Time, turning everything back an hour. I remembered the shed and went out there. I looked up to see that the time had already been changed. But I didn’t change it.

I went into the house and surveyed other family members to see if anyone else had changed it. They hadn’t. Now I’m afraid of my own shed. I know last night was Halloween, but this is ridiculous.

When I went into the shed this morning to change the clock, I instantly saw that it had already been changed and NOBODY IN OUR HOUSE DID IT. What kind of sick person does that, I wondered. And what else might he or she do? Check the oil level in our cars, clean the leaves from the eavestroughs, fill up the bird feeders?

I summoned up what little courage I have left these days and went back into the shed, afraid the clock-changing felon might have returned. Thankfully, the time-changer was not to be found.

I took the clock, a recent acquisition, down from the wall and looked at the back. It is just one of those battery clocks we all have plenty of but this one has a special Daylight Savings feature. You pick your time zone and the clock sets itself. The clock, it seems, is smarter than I am.

Never mind.

©2015 Jim Hagarty

A word that has, sadly, gone out of style these days is “goof”. It is a useful word.

Some might not know this, but Donald J. Trump has a Masters degree in Goofology from the University of Bullmanure in New York. He is a licensed goofologist and a very good one. To watch him in an official “goof off” with the lesser talented goofs who make up the Republican presidential field of candidates is to appreciate his amazing goofability.

I remember being called a goof many times in my younger years, usually by other goofs, but I would give up my goofulosophy for good in the face of Trump’s complete and utter goof mastery. It’s enough to make you want to go back to just being an insufferable simpleton. But once you’ve gone full goof, there is no recovery.

And I am not just goofin’ around about that.

But it grieves me a bit to be so hard on Trump. Not many people are aware of this, but poor Donald, for many years, has also been suffering from an advanced case of knowmonia, a disease which leads the hapless victim to believe he knows everything when it is clear to everyone within a thousand miles of him that he knows absolutely nothing.

And when you combine a stubborn onset of goofalism with knowmonia, a man’s prospects are slim. He faces the very real possibility, in fact, in being called goofy almost every day of his life. Not to mention a knowitall.

©2016 Jim Hagarty