Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty

Today’s another Father’s Day.
So it’s my day, I guess.
I’m not too big on special days,
I simply must confess.

Special days make family members
Feel they must produce
Some evidence they love you.
But really, what’s the use?

I never doubt they love me.
They only make me glad
That I enjoy the privilege
Of being called their Dad.

Fatherhood is daunting,
Of that there is no doubt.
But knowing you are someone’s Dad
Is what heaven’s all about.

By Jim Hagarty
Too Long To Go Home by singer-songwriter Jim Ryan traces his journey to his roots in Ireland. The song is from Jim’s CD Snippets of Truth, available for purchase in the Corner Store. He mentions the village of Avoca. It was there where the popular mini-series Ballykissangel was filmed.

Too Long To Go Home by Jim Ryan

By Jim Hagarty

I’ve always had a pretty good memory (as far as I can recall) but I have come to recognize that I do have the odd blind spot. Sort of like that page that the cat ate out of the novel; you can try to piece things together, but you’ll never really have the whole story ever again.

The main memory block that I now know is a part of my mental capacity involves medical people – family doctors, pharmacists, optometrists, dermatologists, blood-specimen takers, etc. When I am in the presence of any of these good people, that little part of my brain that should be set to record while the information is coming at me, almost always just turns completely off, all by itself. Like the VCR of yesteryear shutting down prematurely because the video you were trying to record onto while you were away has run out of tape.

When our children were small, on occasion I would be assigned to take them to the doctor. Interrogated later as to what was the specific message given regarding the particular ailment and possible cure by the medical staff, I would almost always have to plead complete ignorance. It was as though I really hadn’t taken them to the doctor at all but instead, hiked off to the playground for some sliding and swinging. Inevitably, a call would have to be placed to various nurses to try to nail down the specifics of medicines, suggested routines, etc. If it was a drug store we’d been at, the pharmacist would receive a friendly call (not from me).

Was that one pill every eight hours, or eight pills every hour?

I don’t know why this is so, except that I am pretty sure I tense up when in the presence of anyone in medical-type frocks and fatigues. These people, it would appear, hold within their hands the power of my life and death and aren’t to be messed with.

In contrast, as a reporter, I could usually come away from an interview with a pretty complete set of written – and mental – notes. But in most of those cases, I was not talking to someone who next week might be massaging my heart to try to get it going again or sewing my head back together after I fall off my roof. In most newspaper circumstances, I was more in the driver’s seat.

In fact, knowing that some people didn’t want me to record a face-to-face interview, not with my digital recorder or even my notebook, I used to go commando sometimes – no recording of the conversation at all. Just two people talking. When I left, I would grab my notebook in the car and write down every word I could remember. And amazingly, I remembered a lot.

But one recent day, I went to the doctor and once again, drew a blank practically before I left the examination room. He detailed several instructions and I even asked him to repeat some of them. By the time I walked the 15 feet from there to the nurses’ station, most of it was gone.

“How’d your doctor’s appointment go,” came the question on my arrival home.

“Good,” I replied. “He told me what I had to do if I wanted to live a long life.”

“Well,” she said. “What do you have to do?”

“I’m not quite sure,” I said. Something about Vitamin D and Omega 3 and skim milk and vegetables.

It’s a bit worrying to not be able to remember the prescription for a long life. That seems like that would be fairly important information to have. Life’s too short as it is, in fact, not to be able to recall those steps.

I have taken to recording visits with doctors, dietitians and bank managers.

Then I forget to listen to the recordings.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I knew an impertinent lad
Who always said things that were bad.
I said, “Hey there, Pat.
“Quit being a rat!”
He had learned to be rude from his dad.

By Jim Hagarty

In spider hunting news, a man in the United States set his house on fire a while back and caused $60,000 damage to it when he tried to incinerate a spider with a homemade blowtorch. His big mistake? Using a homemade torch.

For Pete’s sake just put down the money for a real blowtorch and kill safely away!

I have four Spyder Sendoff blowtorches at my house in various locations and whenever I see one of those creepies crawling along, I just whip out one of these awesome little devices and barbecue it. I hope this guy has learned his lesson and gets the proper equipment in the future.

And I wish him all the best with his new fire insurance company.

And, I am guessing, the divorce lawyer he didn’t know he would need.

By Jim Hagarty

I wandered in the woods today
Where no human beings were.
But I did not feel alone at all
There were other beings there.

They were watching me, I am quite sure,
But I was not concerned.
I’ve wandered in the woods before
And each time have returned.

Some times I think, “Is this the day
“I happen on a bear
“Or a wolf or mountain lion,
“Just waiting for me there?”

But even if the worst occurs
And danger is around
I have a foolproof plan in mind
To stay above the ground.

I hope my wits don’t fail me
But you can never tell.
My secret strategy, you see,
Is to simply run like hell.

By Jim Hagarty

While U.S. presidential hopefuls discuss weighty issues such as the economy and how utterly stupid their opponents are (not to mention dishonest, geeky, clumsy, hard-hearted, etc.) now that America is into another big election, I believe it is time to examine an issue that, by comparison, seems to me to be equally important.

Is it wrong to wear shoes in the house? I’m not talking slippers, or “indoor” shoes. But just shoes. The kind you wear outside, to work, to the store, to the coffee shop. Is it a sin to walk from your car to your kitchen without stooping to remove your footwear?

It appears to me as though the world could be divided into these two categories: Those who allow shoes in the house and those who forbid them. And I do mean forbid.

By now, you might already be getting the idea that I favour the first option – shoes in the house. In my defence, I plead my rural background. There was never any big pile of shoes, boots and sandals by the front door at our place because the nine of us who occupied our home were all wearing them. In fact, and this was not a not uncommon feature of farmhouses of the time, we had a steel boot scraper cemented into the sidewalk by the back door steps. We were expected to use this handy device to knock the rough stuff off our footwear before we entered the “back kitchen.” I am sure if the situation was unusually nasty – boots covered in cattle manure, for example – we’d enter the home in our socks. But otherwise, we had a green light. Ironically, sometimes our socks made more of a mess than our boots, covered in straw or hay as they often were, or soaking wet if our rubber boots had sprung a leak.

Arriving at a home where it is obviously a practice to remove shoes, I have no trouble falling into line. A guest, after all, should observe the rules laid down by his hosts. But where I do have a problem is when visitors insist on removing their shoes even when the owners of the dwelling are obviously wearing theirs inside and insist their guests leave theirs on too. I know removing them may be a habit, but in my mind, it might also be interpreted as a message to your host that she really should be taking off her shoes, even if this is her home and not theirs.

So, if I see my host boldly walk into his or her house from outside without de-shoeing, I march right in as well. And I have to say, I feel more comfortable for being able to do so. The opposing principle is this: You can’t guarantee where your shoes have been and so it is better to take them off. They might have trod through some doggie doo on the way to the front door, for example, or worse. But unless the family has infants crawling around on their floors, I don’t quite get the panic. I know our floors are important, but I wonder why brooms, mops and vacuum cleaners were invented if not to clean them.

I live in a divided home where the footwear policy at any particular time depends on who gets to the front door first to welcome a guest. One half of the family remains silently approving while the visitor de-shoes and the one lone voice of sanity – me – insists, “Ah, don’t worry about your shoes.”

I am going to enter foridden, dangerous territory here, and suggest, without a shred of evidence, that an Irishman is inclined to keep his shoes on, an Englishman, to take them off. Budding genealogists take note: If your immediate ancestor is shoeless inside, check her past for English influence. If your forebear is seen fully shoed indoors, that fellow might be of Irish stock.

This whole sociological study, bereft of knowledge and facts as it is, should also involve the Dutch (they have shoes made of the same material as the kitchen floor, so shoe or de-shoe?) and the Japanese (who apparently despise shoes.)

I would like to invite the leaders of all four national political parties (yes there are four) to my house so I can see what they do when they enter it. The ones who parade right in, shoes on feet, would get my consideration at the ballot box if I was eligible to vote. The others I would write off immediately.