I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.
It is hard to take in the enormity of the good fortune that has befallen me this week. I just received an email from barrister David Kalala informing me that the late Mr. William Winga, of South Africa, has made me a beneficiary in his will.
I am choking back the tears on the recent passing of my good friend William Winga, but am comforted by the memories of all the good times we shared together, and I am heartened to know he has left me $16,702,000. I will be informing Mr. Kalala, however, that having recently received $7.5 billion from Western Union and Mr. Peter Campbell, I am not in the need of $16,702,000 at present and that I would prefer he spread those funds around to all the little Wingas, especially Joey and Suzanna (my favourite twins).
If they somehow are not in need of it, I will ask Mr. Kalala to direct that money to the Society for the Preservation and Promotion of Cherry Pie.
Please do not contact me for the next few weeks as I am in mourning for Mr. William Winga although I hurt my hip diving for the last jar of peanut butter on the store shelf and will not be able to make the flight to Pretoria for the funeral.
RIP my dearest Willie. May you float to Heaven on the wingas of a dove.
Those of you who have read my stories might have picked up the fact that I’ve always wanted to be a hero. My record at saving damsels in distress has been pretty dismal, but my goal is to save a life. That, I think, would earn me an award of some kind.
Unfortunately, life-saving opportunities for me have been rare to non-existent. But I stumbled across one yesterday when I saw a big earthworm slithering through the grass in our backyard. I sprung into action, as any worthy hero would do, and struck up a conversation with the worm, the first worm I can remember ever talking to. It was a one-sided conversation as the worm, if it heard me at all, didn’t reply.
I told the fat, stretchy creature that it was dangerous for it to be wandering along above ground. I explained there was a hungry robin about and it would make short work of a guy like that. I advised the worm to seek shelter below the turf.
But worms, I now think, are either hard of hearing or in no hurry to be saved. It kept creeping along through the green blades as though it was on some sort of mission.
I went back up towards the house and was beside myself to see the robin come bobbin’ along, headed straight for my new little friend. The bird stopped here and there to peck away at the ground for insects, and then finally spotted the worm. It trotted directly towards it and to my horror, slurped up my little buddy like a long noodle of spaghetti.
My capacity to feel badly about things like this seems to know no bounds. But such is life and nature, I tried to comfort myself. Then, however, it occurred to me that I might have led that robin right to that worm as the robin follows me around the yard, especially if I have a shovel in hand and am digging up some ground. It will get pretty close to me to see what consumable treasures I might uncover.
I don’t think a normal person would fall asleep in bed worrying about a poor worm that had gotten a good look at the inside of a bird. But also disturbing my attempts to sleep was the regret that yet another stab at becoming a hero had fallen short.
Today I went back to looking for damsels in distress. I don’t think robins are known for giving them a hard time so I might have better luck in that direction.
I like reading the news on the Internet. I like it probably more than is healthy. But what I find most interesting are the comments people make after the stories. Some of these people know more than the writers of the stories themselves and they don’t hold back on voicing their takes on things.
One of the news sites I follow everyday attracts a lot of commenters and it insists that people use their real names. No hiding behind made-up false ones. They want readers to have the courage to stand behind their convictions. I like their insistence on authenticity.
My favourite commenter is Hugh Jassole and I have to say his insights are a credit to the entire Jassole family, including Hugh’s younger brother Lar.
Then there is Eboneezer Goose, doing the Goose family proud every day. No indication he’s from Canada but he does apologize a lot to anyone who might be offended by his views.
Other writers who catch my eye are Trevor Heehaw, Plaid Pants, Billyjoe Jimbob, and the Real Snidely Whiplash.
Of course, who could ever forget the offerings of Delicious Frizzledrip, The Mammal and Pissed Old Lady. There is also Blackeyed Beaver, Sonofroyrogers, Luckiest Duck, Franka Footer, Shaydee, Cereal Killer and Stinky Pete.
But write as they might, none of these commenters can hold a candle to Hugh Jassole. He says what he means and means what he says. I hope he never quits writing. That would really disappoint Bumm Herr.
I have spent a bit of time again this past year with my two favourite psychiatrists – Dr. Hans Sawe and Dr. Klaw Hammer – and I savoured every moment I shared with them.
Dr. Sawe, especially, never fails to calm me down when my nerves are frazzled. As I was apparently born with a worried look on my face (I shamelessly stole that line from a friend) he has a lot of pacifying to do. But he manages, time after time, to cut everything down to size to a point where it all fits together. We end every session with a little inside joke, claiming that all my worries are from that moment forward “just Sawe dust in the wind.” We laugh.
When I am with my Hans Sawe, I am, within a very short period, at peace. He makes me exercise in a rhythmic pattern and I guess that activity must release all those precious endorphins in me because even my breathing slows down. He is sharp and loves to sink his teeth into things.
As I get older, I long more and more for the things of my early days on this planet as so many of them have pleasant associations for me now. One of those was the time spent, not only with Dr. Sawe (yes, he’s getting up there), but with his cousin, Dr. Krawscutt Sawe. My father and I would go visit Krawscutt under the evergreen trees by the “driving” shed (to differentiate it from the woodshed, I suppose), and spend the occasional afternoon chatting as we cut our problems down to size.
To anyone with rattled nerves, I would recommend using a Sawe to calm you down.
As well, Dr. Hammer has been a lifesaver for me on so many occasions. There’s just something about the way he can put things all together that is truly awe inspiring. Like Sawe, he insists on rhythmic motions and a fair degree of physical exertion. As well as concentration. Many a patient has had his feelings bruised because he failed to pay attention to Hammer. He’s fair, but if you drift off, sometimes he’ll nail you.
I look around me and see what other professional people are using to help them relax and I say, more power to them. But some of them just don’t do it for me. Dr. Ard Likker, for example, just seemed to make things worse, though he always held out such promise at the start of a night. Ditto for doctors Bier and Ail. Dr. Toe Bacco also wasn’t much help either, though I relied on him for many years. Our relationship went up in smoke eventually.
One talk therapist I have not yet visited is Dr. Mary Wanna, though I might book an appointment some day. I know a few of her clients and they seem pretty laid back.
And there are even new generations of Sawes and Hammers that are glamorous, even powerful, but they’re too charged up for me.
No, just good old Hans Sawe, Klaw Hammer and Jim around a wooden table under a maple tree on a nice summer day (even not so nice a one) and I’m a happy guy. Or as close to happy as I ever get.
Because try as I might, my life often seems like one big construction site.
I am a singer. During the first 20 years of my life, I performed hundreds of free concerts. They were well attended.
My stage was the leather seat of a 1950 John Deere AR tractor. The concert halls were the 335 acres of fields on my family’s farms in Canada. My inattentive audiences were the birds, mice, snakes, foxes, squirrels, ground hogs, raccoons, dogs, cats and cattle that occupied the fields where I practised my craft.
No humans ever heard my dulcet tones. And that is just the way I wanted it. I learned how to project my voice so I could hear myself over the noise from the tractor. I always knew I could not be heard by anyone in the vicinity of those fields. The tractor sounds were too loud. That was fine with me.
One afternoon, towards the end of my John Deere days before the city called me away, I was standing in our farmyard when I heard something going by on the concession road at the end of our lane. It was a farmer singing at the top of his lungs as he rode past our place on a tractor. I couldn’t hear the tractor. I realized the tractor noise must have been travelling through the air on a lower and slower sound wave than was the farmer’s voice. His voice reached my ears loud and clear; the tractor putt putts, not so much.
It was an awakening. I realized that at least some of my back forty concerts were probably heard by humans somewhere who happened to be in the vicinity, even if just the occupants of the surrounding farms.
If I had known I actually did have non-critter audiences, I might have charged admission to my shows and would still be a big star today.
All those farm critters were such a bunch of tightwads and would never have ponied up enough to even keep me in toothpicks and straw hats.
Last time I go to church in Altoona, in the state of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. (Unrestricted Shooters of America). I was sitting in a church service there on Saturday, enjoying me some good old-fashioned hellfire and brimstone and just this close to choosing the straight and narrow pathway to Heaven instead of the Road to Hell that I’ve been speeding down, when a fellow worshipper (of guns, not so much God, but He’s okay too) suffered the misfortune of having his gun go off in his pocket.
Thinking quickly and brilliantly as any man who brings a gun to church in Altoona would do, the pistol packing pocket pray-er handed the weapon off to someone else who hid it in the pages of a program, that guy also being a quick thinker, if a somewhat shifty sinner. The firearm’s safety was off and the trigger caught on the man’s pocket, firing off a shot and grazing the man’s hand. Other nearby extremities in the pocket region were not grazed, too tiny, apparently, for a bullet to hit, hence the man’s need for the gun.
He was taken to hospital but very reluctantly as he had to enter that place without the security of knowing he had his gun in his pocket. However, they fixed him up, decided not to shoot him, and sent him on his way.
Now, as it happens, a fellow parishoner did some shooting of his own during all this, pulling out his phone and photographing the event. And this is what has me so angry I will not go to church in Altoona ever again, Salvation be darned. I cannot believe, in 2015, in the state of Pennsylvania, that they would allow a cellphone in a church. I wish that guy the best of luck now trying to crash the Pearly Gates. His only hope might be to take his gun-totin’ Yosemite Sam of a buddy with him. St. Peter, I have heard, does not have a concealed carry permit.
If you are squeamish, or a self-appointed skin doctor (or a real doctor), don’t read this.
For a couple of years I have had two big wart-like growths on the side of my head, just to the right of my forehead. They didn’t worry me much and my dermatologist always referred to them as “friendlies” and left them alone.
It wasn’t fun walking around with two miniature muffins attached to my face but the rest of my Brad Pitt looks seemed to keep me out of Shrek the Ogre territory on most days. This winter, however, there were developments. The dermatologist decided to biopsy my gruesome twosome and she did.
So I went home and worked on my will for a week. Don’t worry. You are all in it. She finally phoned one day and said that everything was okay. As it happened, I was scheduled not long after that for an event which required me to appear before a couple hundred people. And there would be a spotlight on me and my face for almost an hour.
A few days before the event, I was looking in my bathroom mirror and scrutinizing the mini hockey pucks on my head. And becoming concerned. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a pair of toenail clippers.
I will spare you the details. But I am happy to announce that the practice of Dr. Jim Hagarty MD, Plastic Surgeon, opens Wednesday. Check my website for hours of operation. Rates reasonable.
My daughter has an app on her phone that lets you take a picture of someone and then ages that image somehow to make the person look old.
She showed me the photo she took of herself and it’s amazing. Her 14-year-old face was all wrinkly and drawn, her long dark hair was gray. It’s kind of creepy because it’s a still image and yet the eyes blink and it looks like it’s moving.
So we laughed and got all excited and I asked her if she wanted to try it on me. Of course she did, so she snapped a picture and excitedly, we looked at the result.
Absolute truth here. I looked exactly the same in the “aged” photo as I do in real life. We could not find even one difference. If anything, it made me look a little younger.
So, we laughed about that. At least shed did, her eyes blinking away many tears of mirth. But I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. A restaurant once offered me the senior’s discount when I was only 48. I was with a friend who received no offer. He was 60.
After all that, my daughter then she showed me another app that makes you look fat. She took a picture of herself and sure enough, her cheeks and neck were all puffed out. And, again creepily, her eyes blinked.
“Wanna try it Dad?”
My first reaction was that, ya, that would be cool. Then I remembered the first picture and I declined. Once bitten, twice shy.
Bring me an app that makes me look young and thin, and I’m in. But, in my case, I’m afraid, that might exceed the limits of modern technology.
I am about to be murdered. It is true. I don’t usually joke about my own violent demise, but the crime is about to be committed.
I can’t tell you the exact time or place or the method that will be used to end my existence, but I do know who will perpetrate this misdeed. The murderer even now preparing to do me in is my neighbour, ten houses to the west of me. He used to be a good guy, as far as I can tell, but life has made him hard. And determined. I have no doubt about his determination.
Why, you rightfully ask, would anyone want to take the life of such a terrific soul as me, you? What have I done to so enrage my neighbour that he is willing to spend the rest of his life behind bars to right what he sees as a major wrong?
Not to make excuses for myself, and you don’t have to believe me, but I have done nothing. However, in this weird little passion play, the fact that I have done nothing is a big part of the reason for the passage of the death sentence upon me.
The fault lies with Bell Canada, and as my neighbour hasn’t got the resources and know-how to kill Bell Canada, his murderous intent has been directed towards a simpler target – me.
Five years ago, Bell Canada, for some reason, gave me the wrong address in its phone book. Instead of my own address – 550 My Street, they put me down as living at 500 My Street, where, coincidentally, my neighbour actually lives and will continue to live until his arrest someday soon by a SWAT team.
Because they steal Bell’s phone book listings, all local phone books produced by other companies over the past five years have also listed the incorrect address. As have Internet directories. The result has been that my neighbour’s mailbox, for five years, has been jammed with mail that is meant for me.
At first, this merely annoyed my neighbour. He would knock on my door, hand me my mail, and politely ask me to please correct the phone book listings. I said that I would. And I meant what I said. And I have tried. For five years.
But with every new phone book, I would see the mistake has never been corrected. Over those years, my neighbour’s attitude towards me has deteriorated. He used to scribble, in small letters, across every piece of mail, “Change your address!” The scribbles turned to scrawls. And now, each envelope is covered in lettering worthy of a kidnapper demanding ransom: “CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS!!!!”
And this is where, I have to declare, that I could get a sex change, and then have it changed back again, easier than I can get an address change. I could have had cornea transplants, hair weaves, stomach-staples, and joint replacements with more ease and speed than getting Bell Canada to change my address.
I floated a few alternatives with my neighbour. Maybe we could just switch houses. Maybe he could nail his mailbox shut. Maybe I could move to another town. But I am pretty sure he has settled on neighbourcide as the best solution.
And I think I know how he might be planning on ending the torment that I have become for him. He has a grumpy dog named, ironically, Jimmy. I think Jimmy is being prepped for his first kill. At least I assume it will be his first.
So, this week I decided that my past failed attempts to right this wrong had to be set aside and I needed to try again. Therefore, in the only life-saving move I could think of, I phoned Bell Canada. I talked to numerous people at Bell Canada, in fact. And I began each conversation with this life-saving plea, spoken in a trembling voice: “My neighbour is going to murder me. Please help me!”
Well, points to Bell Canada employees. They expressed full support for the idea that my being murdered was not a desirable outcome. I spoke finally to a wonderful woman who I really think wants to know that I die peacefully in my bed someday and not by wounds delivered by the sharpened teeth of Jimmy the dog. She put me on hold to talk to a supervisor and came back with the good news that I would be receiving a call within 48 hours by people from another department, fully trained in saving lives. They would sort it out.
I was relieved. But rightfully terrified that I would miss the call. I carried my cordless phone with me everywhere. Everywhere. I was careful not to get beyond the 75-foot range that my phone is capable of reaching. I was bound to my property at 550, not 500, My Street
Forty-eight hours passed. My fully in-range phone never rang. Yesterday, I phoned Bell Canada again. Gonna be murdered. Please help. Talked to several wonderful people. None of them up for contributing to the slaying of a customer.
Finally, I reached a sympathetic woman who I think should consider counselling as an alternative occupation. She put me on hold. Went to talk to a supervisor. Came back with the information that my file is still being worked on and that Bell is very busy. If I do not hear from Bell by the middle of next week, I should call back and re-start the process.
Please do not send flowers to the funeral home. Instead, make a contribution to our local, understaffed Humane Society. When it is all over and done with, I think it only fitting that two Jimmys be laid to rest. But not side by side.
The only cemetery in our town is so big it has streets and numbers. Bury Jimmy the dog at 500. AND ME AT 550!!!!
My final wish: Do not let Bell Canada be involved in the arrangements.
I mentioned in a recent post that the best popular song ever written is Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?
I am confident in my assessment of that piece of musical brilliance for a very good reason. When I judge a song for its quality or lack thereof, I rate it on its uniqueness along with other factors. Has that song employed any words that cannot be found in any other song? I think this is important as it indicates a maximum level of creativity.
So, for the song mentioned above, I have always been delighted to know that the word “tonsils” is repeated several times, in reference to the chewing gum: “Do you put it on your tonsils, do you heave it left and right?”
I challenge song lovers everywhere to come up with another pop song that uses that word. If you know of one, please forward it and I might be forced to reassess my adjudication.
A possible worthy runner-up might be All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth. What other song in musical history, I ask you, refers to the singer’s “two front teeth.”
