Author: Jim Hagarty

If you are going to be a curmudgeon, be a good one. No half-hearted attempts. I am developing an online how-to course on the subject so look for that soon.

But I would like to share one little piece from the coming curriculum. To be a decent curmudgeon, you have to find a few things to hate that no one else in the world would take the time to hate or even think to hate. Like apple pie, for example. Hopefully you love your Mom because if not, there goes the whole “Mom and apple pie” bit for you.

I hate apple pie but I loved my Mom so I am batting .500 on that.

But I also loathe an annual flower called impatiens. I will go out on a limb and suggest you don’t know of anyone who hates impatiens and even I can’t think of anyone else who despises them. No sense trying to figure it out. Just go with it.

Every year our flowerbeds get planted with a nice variety of annuals but eventually, they are flooded by impatiens, like way too much whipped cream on a piece of pie. The coloured ones I can almost tolerate but the white ones drive me crazy. It is like going out for ice cream and finding the shop sells only vanilla.

I complain mildly every year, for all the good it does. Sooner or later, we have impatiens.

This year, for reasons that are still not clear to me, the job of planting the flowerbeds was assigned to me. I pretended to be mildly unhappy about the order, but secretly, I knew this was my chance to set things right.

Off to the garden centres I raced. Three of them in all. The last one suited me the best. They had all kinds of pretty flowers and I set my sights on one beautiful bunch. There were several trays of them but when I returned the next day to buy them they were all gone.

I looked at others. Some were too expensive. Some needed sun, no shade, and our beds are under a maple. I finally was drawn to one section that had lots and lots of very pretty blooms. Purple, orange, red, pink and even white. The price was right. I grabbed a bunch of them.

“What did you get?” asked my wife, who has always looked after the beds, when I brought my bounty into the backyard.

“Impatiens,” I answered, and here is the reason we are still married after 31 years.

“Oh, they’ll be nice,” she said, giving up her golden opportunity to remind me of how much impatiens hating I have done over the years.

I planted them. And as flowers have a tendency to do, even impatiens, I guess, they’re growing on me. Even the white ones.

The Curmudgeon Course will be a flat $300 fee.

©2020 Jim Hagarty

It was so hot and humid out today and I worked like a trooper outside for hours to get ready for Canada Day.

In the process of doing this, I happened to squeeze out every last ounce of moisture that my body had managed to capture and I was left desperate to replenish the lost fluids. Little did I realize the tragic circumstances I would face in my search for something to drink.

There was no lemonade in the fridge and no orange juice. There was a little bit of apple juice but apple juice is not high up on the approved list of thirst quenchers. Lots of cold pop but I have never turned to pop to rehydrate myself. Maybe some orange pop, now and then, but we didn’t have any.

I made a mad dash for the freezer, hoping to find popsicles. There were only a few banana popsicles there and those things are the devil’s handiwork.

So, I was beat.

Then I noticed a tall pitcher of something in the fridge which I had overlooked. The pitcher was filled to the brim with a clear liquid. Almost in full panic attack by this time, I filled a large glass with this liquid and headed out to sit under the maple tree.

I sipped away at this odd material until ounce by boring ounce, it disappeared. I was to learn later, upon inquiry, that what I had consumed was water.

I was surprised to find that it went down fairly well on a blistering hot day but it’s bland as baby mash and the sugar content seems to be very much on the low side.

However, I am glad to know that should I ever again face death by dehydration, I could, as a last resort, try a glass of water.

I shouldn’t complain but water doesn’t seem like a very manly beverage so if you don’t mind, I would like to keep all this between me and you. Thanks a lot.

©2020 Jim Hagarty

I have been spreading a lot of B.S. this week.

“This week?” asks a cynical reader. “You spread that stuff every week.”

Ouch!

To answer more clearly, perhaps, I have been dumping a lot of cattle manure on our flower and vegetable gardens as I work them up. I can’t honestly say I know for sure whether or not any actual bulls were involved in producing the cattle crap sold in big 28-litre bags, but I will go right ahead and assume a few of the big brutes lent their lovely sewage to the mixture of cattle feces and compost.

My parents have been gone almost 40 years now but if by some miracle, Dad could call me up to ask what I was up to today, I can’t begin to imagine what his reaction would be to the idea that I drove to a grocery store and brought home four big bags of cow poop which I willingly paid for.

Nevertheless, back then, on our farm, we were well aware of the value of the stuff our 300 big beasts pumped out every hour of every day. We used tractors and manure spreaders to fling the smelly golden goodness all over the fields where the soil was greatly enriched once the poop was well worked in.

Unfortunately, as a family, we were not enriched in the way we could apparently have been if we’d bagged up the stuff and sold it for $2.50. And if I had even suggested we do that, assuming I could have foreseen that this would someday be a thing, I think farmers everywhere would have taken to shunning me in church and at the general store.

It is probably just as well I didn’t raise the issue. Besides, there were enough hard jobs to handle on the farm without running along behind ornery cattle, trying to train them to poop inside big plastic bags.

©2023 Jim Hagarty

It’s funny how life goes. You can be right as rain and the next moment, you’re staring at a big black stain on the heel of your left foot. It won’t wash off. Soaking your foot in a pan of hot water does nothing. Hmmm. You try to figure out where it might have come from, but nothing occurs to you. You spend a nervous night in bed tossing and turning in bewilderment and fear.

By morning, two more spots have shown themselves, on the tops of toes on both feet.

So, nothing left to do but consult Dr. Internet. He puts his head together with Dr. Google and they soon present some very bad news. You have a deadly form of skin cancer called Melanoma. The symptoms all line up. There is a second assessment suggesting it could be Tinea Nigra, a less serious condition that results from coming in contact with compost. You have been working a lot in the gardens this week. You don’t wear socks in the summer.

But in situations such as these, it is best to go with the most negative evaluation available and so skin cancer it is. A wave of self-pity washes over you. But you’ve had a good life. No complaints. Never been to Disney World, but oh well.

Your family is alerted. They do a careful inspection and your daughter takes photos of all the spots. The suggestion is made to go see your family doctor. You phone. He can see you at 2 p.m. The quickness of the appointment suggests urgency on his part. When you leave your house to drive there, will you ever see home again? You forgot to say goodbye to your son, the dog and the cats.

Your family suggests a vigorous shower before seeing your doctor and your daughter offers a special soap she uses for stubborn cleaning jobs. You sit down on the seat in the shower, take a rough washcloth, and start scrubbing. You scrub harder than your Mama used to scour you in the kitchen sink on Saturday night in preparation for church the next morning.

A miracle takes place.

You phone the doctor, embarrassed, and call off your appointment, explaining that every bit of the stains came off during the vigorous self-cleaning. You were suffering from, not Melanoma, nor Tinea Nigra, but Dirty Foot Syndrome. All is quiet on the other end of the line. The nurse cancels your appointment and has a story for her co-workers.

You begin planning your trip to Disney World.

©2019 Jim Hagarty

There are several levels of lazy. I am sure you are acquainted with some of them, if only because you have watched the slackers around you tweedle deeing when they should be tweedle doing.

You, of course, don’t have this problem, and I am proud of you. So proud. But please, in the name of every sloth currently hanging by its toes from a tropical tree somewhere, uninterested in any activity involving movement, I beg of you not to be too smug. Because all the Laziness Levels eventually touch most people’s lives and even if you are strong enough to escape them, you might not be able to evade the Hall of Fame level – The Laziness of the Retired.

And while you may think right now that you will have well devised strategies ahead of time to combat the temptation to sit like a frog in a pond all day and wait for insects to fly too close to your tongue, you might find yourself drawn to Total Idleness on only your second day after retiring.

I just don’t have the energy to go into all the ins and outs of Retirement Lazy, but maybe this example will do.

Leaving the bathroom after your premiere morning visit, you feel an old familiar nether region cooling wind and realize your fly is open. Now, closing your fly is something you were always pretty good at attending to, but retired, zipping up the he-man hardware is just one of those things that can be attended to later.

After all, you rightfully reason, The Queen and Prince Philip don’t arrive at your home till Sunday and this is only Thursday. No panic.

You drive all other family members to their non-retirement destinations such as school and work, then hit the coffee shop. There is a breeze, somehow, under your table, and once again, the fly trouble calls for a solution. But you are wearing a long winter coat, no risk of sudden exposure.

However, two hours later, upon exiting a grocery store, a blast of Arctic air works its way up into the unadjusted apparel and suddenly, the wages of your sin seem much too high to pay.

So, four hours after first identifying the issue, the matter is dealt with. Tomorrow, you will brush your teeth. The day after that, there will be a meeting of clippers and fingernails but only those nails in dire need of trimming shall be attended to.

The Queen would not be amused but just watch her decadent decline once she, too, retires. Which, and there is a lesson in this somewhere, she just hasn’t gotten around to doing.

What a Procrastinating Princess!

©2015 Jim Hagarty

I never used to cry. I think I went a whole decade or two in my earlier life without shedding so much as a tear. Now, some days, I’m a blubbering idiot.

The other day, reflecting on my upbringing on a farm, I wrote a poem about cattle and I bawled louder than a calf lookin’ for its mama all the way through the writing of it and for an hour after. I’m tearing up right now just remembering it.

The slightest thing can set me off.

But it’s the strangest thing. There doesn’t seem to be much sadness associated with the tearbursts that come over me like a sudden rainfall in spring. Maybe a bit. But it seems like the waterworks are associated more with gratitude than with regret.

I have been an incredibly fortunate man and have lived what seems to me to be five lifetimes in one. I am not sure what my goals were at 20, but I surely never imagined a life as good as the one I have been given. I used the word “given” on purpose. The Universe has been kind to me.

I spent a lot of years, I think, not feeling much. Hunkered down in the chase after all the things that are supposed to matter to a man in mid-life. Success, recognition, financial stability, accumulation of possessions, accumulation of experiences like the kind that travelling the world can bestow. Too busy living life to be absorbed with much reflection.

But now I remember moments. I remember people. I remember favourite pets and favourite trees and favourite places on Earth that have brought me joy.

And sometimes when I do, a tear or twenty escape their normally locked-tight holding cell. These days, there seems no need to keep the door locked on my feelings.

That is the thing I am most grateful for. Because mixed in between the tears is laughter, laughter like I have never known before.

Tears and Laughter originate from the same sacred holy ground called Perspective. Whatever advantages young people have in life, and they have many, Perspective seems to be the prize waiting near the finish line.

Perspective is what causes old folks to declare …

I wouldn’t change a thing.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

I left the windows down in my car last night and it rained sometime before dawn. So, I had to get a blanket to put on the seat and the windshield was all fogged over so I wound up the windows, turned the heat onto blast and headed out at 6 a.m. for a coffee.

Already a little grumpy, my mood took a further nosedive when I realized I was sharing the cabin of my car with a flying creature of some description which began buzzing my bare legs and the back of my neck as I putted on down the main street.

I finally got a semi-look at the intruder. It appeared to be a moth if a moth can be almost the size of a small hawk. Yet it was too small to be a bat.

Oh my God! I have a car that is even too old for the classic car shows so I had to reach all the way over and manually wind down the passenger side window, then the driver’s side, all while piloting my bucket of bolts to Coffee Land.

The moth took the opportunity to escape the crazy man it had so recently met. I am not a moth psychologist – they are known in the business as mothologists – but something tells me my unwelcome visitor was happy to be free.

And nothing against moths, but I was pleased to see it go.

Meanwhile, my coffee was needed and well worth the trouble by the time I got to drink it.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

I had a birthday in January and since then, I’ve been bemoaning the fact that I am 69 years old.

Where the heck has the time gone? This just can’t be.

I was out with some friends Wednesday night, and repeated my complaint to them. “I can’t believe I am 69,” I said, or something to that effect. As my friends are all older than 69, they were not full of much sympathy and couldn’t see what the big deal could be.

But to me, if just seems crazy that I could be 69.

Last night, I took this problem to bed with me and was tossing and turning over the dilemma of somehow now being 69, when I got out my mental calculator, a device not in much use anymore since the advent of all the mechanical and digital ones at my fingertips. I took this year, 2019, and subtracted the year of my birth, 1951, and came up with 68.

I almost flew right out of bed at the realization that I am actually one year younger than I thought I was. What an amazing relief.

But it left me wondering what other delusions I might be operating under. I have a feeling there might be a few.

©2019 Jim Hagarty

Most people don’t know when they will draw their final breath and what will have happened to have caused them to do that.

Like most people, I too don’t know the when, but I suspect my date with the Grim Reaper will be soon.

I am pretty sure, however, that I know what it is that will bring about my end.

I used to always think that the last thing I would see on this earth would be a frying-pan size black bear’s paw covering my face. While that still is a possibility, especially considering the fact our family insists on holidaying every August in Bear Country up in northern Canada because none of us wants to die of natural causes, in light of recent events, I have recalculated.

I now believe that my executioners will be two different vile creatures.

I wrote about a four-foot-tall wild turkey that landed in my backyard recently and that spent a half hour inspecting every square inch of that part of our property. An Internet search revealed that these guys are aggressive and not afraid of humans. And they have sharp talons.

Then, a few days later, while walking our little doggie, I saw a massive airplane-like shadow on the ground around us and knew that imprint could have only been made by a wild turkey, though I couldn’t catch sight of him.

Since then, a family member has seen two of them on the wing around our place and counted eight of them in the trees in a park near our home. They are so heavy, they are breaking some of the branches they land on.

And two days ago, I found a feather on our front lawn, which, and I did the comparison, is the same length as a barbecue spatula. Naturally, I took this as an ominous sign that one of those guys is coming for me, much the same thoughts I might have if I found a horse’s head in my bed.

So someday soon, I am going be in my backyard sunning myself when a turkey will descend on me, knock me to the ground and peck the hell out of my face, neck and throat. It will then fly away cackling and as I lie there under my maple tree, counting down my breaths from ten to zero, I will gaze up into the tree to see a bee’s nest I hadn’t seen before and won’t be the least bit surprised when I am suddenly swarmed by a dozen murder hornets. These evil bastards don’t normally attack humans but will do so if they are disturbed and, of course, that awful killer wild turkey woke them up with all its maniacal gobbling.

So, think of me for a moment as my doom approaches and if you feel the need to shed a little tear, that’s okay.

I’m feeling kind of sorry for myself at the moment too.

©2020 Jim Hagarty

My almost total absence of sense of direction is a standing joke in my house. It is a wonder I can get from the bedroom to the bathroom in the middle of the night without getting lost.

If I don’t have an able navigator in the car beside me on a trip, the destination I have in mind is only a pipe dream.

However, I outdid myself a couple of weeks ago when I managed to get lost behind my own house. One street over from our home and almost directly behind us is an ice-cream palace. We go through the drivethrough there from time to time and have for years. We access it by way of a laneway off the street which runs behind the building and out the other side. Simple.

But this day I pulled into this laneway to get quite a shock. There, blocking my entrance, was a new garden shed, right in the middle of the path. There was absolutely no way to get around it with a car.

“Wow,” I exclaimed. “Looks like they’ve cut off the drivethrough.”

My son had a better explanation. “Dad, you’re in the wrong driveway.” Well, waduhuno? I was. I had entered the driveway into the laundromat, instead of the ice-cream hangout.

In my defence, I have lived in this neighbourhood for only 26 years and am still getting to know my way around. Nevertheless, I am crossing “tour guide” off my possible career moves list.

©2012 Jim Hagarty