Author: Jim Hagarty

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.

Skipping Days Over

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There was a grasshopper called Skip
Whose specialty was the back flip.
But one day he fell
Down a watery well.
He had been warned he might slip.

The All-Important Word

By Jim Hagarty

One of the hardest things to say
Is a short little, two-letter word.
It’s a very unpopular word it seems
Which is why it is rarely heard.

It always takes raw courage to speak
The word no one wants to hear,
Cause people just will not accept it.
It’s the one word we all seem to fear.

Just two words will get you ahead in this life,
You know what they are, take a guess.
The one word begins with the letter “n”
And the other good word is yes.

Yes has its place and it gets all the buzz,
And takes you where you want to go.
But the word that I find more useful to me
Is the sweet little word known as “no.”

The Fencebuilder Blues

By Jim Hagarty

So there I was, surrounded by lumber. Five thousand linear board feet of it to be almost exact. The building supply store truck was zooming off again down the street, leaving me stranded in my back yard like Robinson Crusoe on his lonely island. Its driver turned out to be pretty much my only contact with the outside world for the next three months.

But, like good old Robinson, when I finally accepted my plight, there was nothing left to do but start building something, with all the materials available to me.

In my case, it wasn’t a boat I was interested in constructing as a way of returning to civilization. Far from it. My plan was to build a six-foot-high stockade around my little inner-city compound to keep out what had been passing for civilization in my neighborhood. What was it Dylan sang? How much trash does a man have to find, before he puts up a fence?

Chief among the many problems facing me on this project – I had never taken on such a grand scheme before – was the fact that the only tool in my meager chest with which I would be able to slice through the 760 boards which surrounded me, was a handsaw. A decent one, I must say, though last sharpened about three changes of my eyeglass prescription ago.

But, a good workman uses the implements available to him, and so I started the long, laborious job of cutting. Two little chip-chips to make the tiny gouge I would follow and away I went. Back and forth, down and up, back and forth, down and up … Whew! Time for a break.

It wasn’t long before I became reacquainted with a curious characteristic of much of humankind in our modern age. People are genuinely offended by the sight of a middle-aged man cutting up the lumber for a 230-foot-long board fence using nothing but an old handsaw. Offers of the latest and greatest power tools started to pour in as passersby witnessed the painful work in progress. It turns out, it was driving most of them nuts, watching a poor homeowner sweating profusely while heaving up and down with a wood-handled steel blade, the only remaining proper use for which is as a last resort for a job a power saw can’t do. Such as lopping the top of a 60-foot-high tree, for example.

Like Noah resisting the jeers of the ignorant masses, I put off every would-be power tool donor with a polite, but firm, rejection. Whereas I might have used a power saw had there been one in my shed when the project started, I now grew more and more committed to my handsaw as the clamour for me to change to something speedier and easier grew.

But finally, when my father-in-law showed up with his circular, steel-bladed beauty, in a moment of weakness, I gave in. After less than one scary hour of precariously slicing off boards with this powerful, wobbling, whirling demon, I could see I probably wouldn’t be needing any gloves that winter and maybe wouldn’t have to bother pulling on any boots either. After each board was cut, I’d conduct an inventory of my fingers and toes, certain I’d eventually find a few in the grass or up in the tree.

I also realized I would probably spend the rest of my life sitting two inches away from the TV so I could hear the news, as I was sure I’d popped both eardrums within five minutes of turning on the saw.

Back to the handsaw I went with new appreciation and determination. And, gradually remembering the lessons my father had taught me many years before, I began to let the saw do the work, rhythmically applying gentle pressure as the saw moved forward, and lightening up as it drew back. Soon, peace returned to the neighborhood and to my vibrating mind. One by one, the ends dropped off the boards as I slowly erected my fort, one lovingly cut stretch of lumber at a time.

By the end of my 90-day adventure (a journey any handy carpenter could have completed in three busy days), I was reminding myself of an old man I used to see working in a quaint, ancient lumberyard in my hometown. He moved methodically, and purposefully, and slowly. He made few mistakes. And never got riled up. He also lived well into his 90s. Somewhat ironically, perhaps, his last name was Robinson.

Twenty-five years later, my fence still stands, though it leans a little here and there. My handsaw, still unsharpened, hangs on my shed wall as it always has. No power machine has entered the building to challenge its authority.

And civilization now leaves its garbage on my neighbour’s lawn where it belongs.

The Great Bread Rebellion

By Jim Hagarty

Almost 30 years ago an earnest young dietitian told me I had to change my ways.

Changing my ways is not something I like to do.

They are my ways, after all, and being a sensible and serious man, I must have seen some value in my ways or I wouldn’t have adopted those ways as my own. But a doctor sent me to see this woman who knew about food so when two experts are lined up against a man, his ways don’t stand much of a chance. So I changed my ways.

I had not been in the habit of looking at food as poison so it took some adjusting. First to go was two per cent milk. The choice I was given was between skim milk and rabbit piss. I chose skim and often wondered if bunny urine might have been preferable.

No more butter, of course, so I sold my churn and started buying my spread by the plastic pailful.

I am not going to address the vegetable situation as this is a family show and violence is not acceptable.

But the lowest blow of all was being ordered to eat whole wheat bread. After 30 years of chewing on that crap, my advice to you if you are similarly sentenced to a life of abject misery is to skip the middle man, find yourself a wheat field and walk in and start munching.

This week I saw a loaf of Wonder bread, white, on sale. I bought it, ate it and now have bought another one.

To the people at Wonder bread, let me raise a glass of cold rabbit piss to you. I know your plan is to kill me, but I have instructed my family to not press charges.

The More Things Change …

By Jim Hagarty

I am not good at goodbyes and I’m terrible with change.

I’m still trying to get over being forced to leave Grade 8. But I finally gave in. I had no choice. So I hopped in my car and drove home.

But I have noticed that the only thing that never changes is that everything always changes (that is my own expression, thought up in my own tiny brain but you are free to use it providing you send me $5 every time you do.)

In any case (the previous bunch of words being the equivalent of putting filler in hamburger), I said all that to say this: I had to say farewell to my family doctor of almost 15 years recently and that was hard. I got a little choked up as I left the building and walked to my car.

And this is why I liked him so much. He knew every one of us old fogies all too well. His name is Dr. D. Thompson. Guess what the name of the new doctor is. Dr. D. Thompson.

Yes, as we shook hands goodbye, he said to me that he wanted to make sure he found someone with the same name to take over so it wouldn’t be too much of a shock to his patients who don’t like change. Well, not exactly the same. His name is Douglas and the new guy is David, but close enough.

I thanked him for all he had done for me and my wife and our son and daughter and he smiled and said, “You get what you give.”

I’m going to hang onto that as soon as I figure out exactly what he meant by it.

I never left his office without a compliment from him on my writing. “So how’s your wandering mind?” he’d ask, and smile.

When your doctor is sitting in your cheering section, it’s easier to dunk the ball.

Missing: One Frog

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once knew a frog named Glenn.
He disappeared but I don’t know when.
He was there by the pond
And then he was gone.
I sure hope nobody frognapped him.

Halfway Hillary

By Jim Hagarty

If I did half of what Hillary did
I know I’d be sittin’ in jail.
And I don’t think her hubby Bill
Would come by and put up my bail.

If I did half of what Hillary did
I’d be ninety before I walked free.
Cause I can’t get away with anything.
People line up to implicate me.

If I did half of what Hillary did
They’d throw my cell key away.
I’d have to hope for a pardon
Which would happen next Neverday.

If I did half of what Hillary did
And could choose what half I would do,
I’d do only the good stuff she’s done,
And leave the bad stuff for you.

Bats on Sale at Walmart

By Jim Hagarty

So I happened to be in Gates, New York, on Sunday and decided to drop into Walmart to buy a jar of peanut butter.

It was the darndest thing. Just as I reached around someone to get a jar from the shelf, someone clubbed me in the head with a baseball bat. That is only about the third of fourth time that has happened to me while shopping at Walmart. (I have trouble remembering details now.)

When I came to, I looked around to see I was right in the middle of what is called a melee when white people fight (a riot when blacks fight). Thirty people were punching the hell out of each other including some with baseball bats. (They are in Aisle 8, near the golf clubs. Sale on bats this week.)

I stood up and just then a teenager threw a can of food and it hit me in the head. Down I went again.

The melee was caught on camera and is posted on social media. I am the one lying out cold on the floor in the peanut butter aisle. Eventually I came home with some peanut butter and a new baseball bat (a bit bloodied) that was 90 per cent off.

Hockey helmets were also on sale. I should have bought one for my next Walmart excursion.

By the way, this started when two teen girls insulted a woman’s clothing.

No way can a sane person let that go.