Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
I am not a car expert and have done no research on this, but I do remember when Chrysler’s PT Cruiser first hit the streets. It was quite a head turner and I believe sort of kicked off the trend to retro cars that would come along in years to come. It was not a re-born anything, unlike the Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, and even Volkswagen Beetle, etc., that were revived. It was its own invention. But it relied on just enough of the features from cars of the ’30s and ’40s to get car buyers nostalgic. Big rounded fenders, the hint of a running board. And even, in the case of the one shown above, a look reminiscent of the “woodies” of earlier ages. After awhile, the PT Cruiser became just part of the landscape and then faded away. Although on my way home from the coffee shop, where I photographed the one here, I saw a dark blue convertible version in a parking lot that looked pretty cool.

By Jim Hagarty

So, the cops finally catch up with you, charge you and throw you in jail. You sit in the clink for three months waiting to appear in court and finally, that day arrives. Yesterday.

It is a good thing that you have been detained behind bars and not been able to re-offend. The community has been better off without you.

There you are. A 25-year-old woman standing before a judge in a Pennsylvania court. And, with all humbleness, you plead guilty.

To what charge, exactly?

To having sex too loudly.

In fact, you hooted and howled and jumped about so wildly while doing it that you shook your neighbour’s furniture.

Oh, and then you threatened your neighbours when they complained about your over-the-top and excessively loud love-making ways.

That wasn’t cool.

So you were sentenced to up to 90 days in jail. For disorderly conduct.

Now, you are regretful and you tell the court that you want to apologize to your neighbours, but honey, this is not the first time you have done this. You have been charged and pleaded guilty for the same offence in the two years that this has been a problem.

And let’s face it. People having sex too loudly is a real problem in society. I know on my street, I can hardly go for a walk at night any more without being bombarded with the sounds of …, well, let’s just say, the sounds. It’s awful.

“Close your damn windows,” I yell out, but they never do. Sometimes I get mooned, which I think is uncalled for.

I have nailed all my furniture to the floor, so that is not an issue.

And I took a course at the YMCA: How to Make Love Silently and Joylessly.

I have recommended the course be offered in Pennsylvania.

By Jim Hagarty

The coffee shop behind my house is open 24/7.

This is a blessing because the one down on the corner recently changed the hours it is open for business from 24/7 to 18/7. I used to take up a chair there 2/7 but in protest of the new hours, I’m now there 0/7, while the shop behind my house enjoys my patronage 3/7 (The proximity to my home makes me an extremely frequent guest there).

Now, this gets a little complicated, but try to stay with me. The shop downtown, is part of a chain of coffee outlets, the other three of which are open 24/7/363. On leap years, they’re open 24/7/364. Unfortunately, they close on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

On those two days, undaunted, I get my coffee from the brew centre in a convenience store across town that’s open 24/7/365 (24/7/366 in leap years).

I’ve become spoiled, I’ll admit. There are two variety stores in our neighbourhood, one open 16/7/363 and the other open 24/7/365. We also have two local grocery stores. Though I complain, I really do like all these places, even though sometimes their beverages interfere with my sleep.

I am normally unconcious about 8/7 but after a large double-double in the evening, I have been known to have konked out only 3/7 or 2/7. Occasionally, I’ve slept 0/7.

These days, I try to work 9/5, though if a big project is underway I will stretch that to 10/5, 10/6 or even 10/7.

I was born 21/1/51 and I’ve been tearing about the planet 24/7 ever since. Well, I’ve slept a bit, up to 11/7 in the early years, 2/7 in my all-nighter university and party years, 7/7 more recently.

And now I am a blogger, publishing 24/7/365.

Got it? Test on Monday. No cheating.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

If I ate an apple a day
And kept my poor doctor away.
He’d fire his nurse
And close up, or worse.
He needs me to drop in and pay.

By Jim Hagarty

Today is National Kissing Day. I am afraid it might go completely by without anyone enjoying the experience of my having kissed them.

Fifty years ago, every day was National Kissing Day. Our one and only goal was to find girls who would actually allow us to kiss them. Many were passive participants in the activity but once in a while, a girl would show a little enthusiasm and that was a good day. A fella could ride around on his tractor for a week, smiling ear to ear, just remembering that kiss.

Later, of course, there were other joys to discover but nothing matched that first kiss or, for that matter, any one of the first 500.

A kiss could be delivered and received, no muss, no fuss, almost anywhere and almost in an instant.

And a boy was most impressed by the idea that a girl would actually appear to want to go along with this. Or at the very least, was willing to allow it.

That was the most amazing part.

By Jim Hagarty

An old friend called me up just tonight.
We talked for a very long time.
Nothing we spoke about mattered that much
But thank God for the telephone line.

Cause I’d been moping around all day
And felt worse with each passing hour.
But then the phone rang and we chatted away
And I was touched by a higher power.

There is no force in this world quite as strong
As the bond between two old best friends.
And it doesn’t take but a phone call or two
To make sure that that bond never ends.

By Jim Hagarty

Stan and Ollie’s Variety and Gas Bar in Bryanston, near London, Ontario, Canada, was not named for comic actors Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as I had presumed when I drove by it one day years ago.

Instead, it was named for Stan and Ollie Girodat, the couple who owned it. I dropped in one night and asked the woman behind the counter the origin of the name and she told me. However, she had trouble remembering how to spell Girodat so she yelled out to a room at the back, “Hey Stan! How do you spell your last name?”

“With great difficulty,” he hollered back and came out to see who wanted to know. Apparently, I wasn’t the first to point out how the couple’s names match the given names of Laurel and Hardy. But he still got a chuckle whenever someone enquired about it.

And, also unlike Laurel and Hardy, the Girodats’ business was not a comedy of errors but a thriving rural store.

By Jim Hagarty

It started out innocently enough. Someone from Vernon Directories Ltd., when he or she was preparing the 1985 City of Stratford Directory, felt sorry that I didn’t have a wife at the time. So, he or she or it – it might have been a computer – decided to give me one.

Therefore, when the hardcover, comprehensive directories appeared around town last year, Jas. J. Hagarty (that’s me) was listed as living happily ever after on Cobourg Street with his dear wife, Evelyn.

It took a few days for the remarks to die down in the newsroom where I worked. Comments such as, “What are you and Evelyn doing this weekend?” and “Will Evelyn be coming to the company party this year?”

And in time, I almost forgot I was married.

But strange things started happening. Evelyn began getting phone calls late at night from a husky-voiced man who hung up as soon as he heard my voice. An old boyfriend, I presumed.

And my dear devoted spouse got calls from other women, inviting her to dinnerware parties, gold parties and bridal showers. Then there were girls’ nights out, the status of women committee meetings and cooking classes. Before long, I began to feel left out. If she’d wanted to be free as an eagle, she never should have got married.

Christmas cards came addressed to Jim and Evelyn and other couples started asking us out. Neighbours invited her over for afternoon tea and soon, it began to occur to me that I might as well be living alone.

I knew things had gone too far when I started leaving the front porch light on for her at night before I went up to bed.

But the whole thing really got out of hand when plainclothes detectives visited me one day for a chat. Neighbours were concerned, they said, about Evelyn. They hadn’t seen her around in a while. Not in weeks, they said, months in some cases. Where was she, they wondered.

I tried to explain, in a good-natured way, how a misprint in a directory had led to the confusion. They weren’t buying it. What had I done with her, they wanted to know. Nothing, I said. I hadn’t touched her. “Aha,” they exclaimed. “So, you admit she exists?”

It all got extremely ugly after that and before it was over, the three of us took a trip to the basement and to the back yard to see if anyone might have been recently laid to rest against her will.

My name was cleared in the end and the phone calls from Evelyn’s friends and neighbours eventually stopped. I adjusted to single life again.

But when a note was left in my mailbox two weeks later asking me to call the directory company with information for the city’s 1987 directory (they publish every two years), I was ready.

“Evelyn’s packed up and left,” I told the woman on the phone. “We had a terrible squabble and she’s gone. Gone forever, she is, and between you and me, I’m darned glad to be rid of her. So, when you’re writing me up in next year’s directory, please leave her name out.”

“That’s fine,” the woman said. “But should I still go ahead and list the names of your four children?

“Or does Evelyn have them?”