Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There is an old house in my town
Where ghosts have been hanging round.
They cackle and yell
And I run like hell.
They’ll catch me, no trace will be found.

By Jim Hagarty

Gordie Howe played professional hockey for a while on the same line as his sons Mark and Marty.

How amazing is that?

During one game, a player from the other team got in a fight with Mark Howe. He threw Howe to the ice, climbed on top of him and was pounding the daylights out of him. Gordie skated over to the scene and looked down patiently as his son was being thoroughly pummeled. Finally, Mark’s dad reached down, tapped his son’s assailant on the shoulder and said, “That’s enough. Let him up!” Mark’s abuser ignored Gordie’s command and kept on punching. That was not his best decision that day.

Gordie Howe took off his glove, reached down, stuck his fingers in the guy’s nostrils and lifted him up onto his skates by the nose.

Did I mention Gordie Howe was strong?

By Jim Hagarty

I have never done a survey, but I have a feeling that most writers, at one time in their lives, have tried writing poetry. Maybe, in fact, that is the way a lot of writers started out. Poetry, for me, was my beginning.

But decades passed for me between poems. Though I wrote for a living, poetry just kind of wandered away with my teenage years. I wrote songs all through the years and still do, so that is some kind of poetry, but different too.

When I started this blog, I didn’t know what to expect and still don’t. It hasn’t even been two months since the big launch.

But the biggest surprise for me has been how my inner poet has reared his head again. I have no explanation for this, but I am glad to be back at it.

Poetry, or at least the way I do poetry, is a different cat than storytelling or prose. It’s like doing a puzzle, but there is no picture on the box to guide you. It’s like paint by number, except there are no numbers, just a box of paints.

It’s a delightful challenge. I am not a free-spirited poet, so I try to colour within the lines. To take a whole bunch of words and assemble them in a format that is pleasing but also says something. That something might be serious or silly, but there is an economy to it all that can’t be ignored.

The trick seems to be to get things into a singy songy cadence and to rhyme things without making it look like you chose certain words just because they rhyme.

Knee deep in the manufacturing of a poem, I feel like a kitten with a ball of yarn. We both are having a good time.

But the cat is trying to unravel the yarn while I am hoping to roll it back up again.

Every professional hockey player relishes the opportunity for a game of pond hockey. No 50 pounds of plastic gear weighing him down, no coach yelling at him from the bench, no fans cheering and booing, lots of wind in his face.

Poetry is my pond hockey.

By Jim Hagarty

When a man retires from working life
He wonders what to do.
He soon takes up a whole new way
Of living, thinking too.

The days stretch out before him
Like endless oceans blue.
But standing there is no one
To tell him what to do.

He makes a list of all the things
That really should be done,
And sets the list down somewhere
And doesn’t do a one.

He could go here, he could go there
The car stays in the drive.
He doesn’t bathe, he doesn’t eat,
And soon feels half alive.

The only hope that this man has,
And no one will object,
He needs to look around his house.
And start a new project.

A project concentrates his mind
And gets him off his ass.
It makes him feel alive again
And helps the time to pass.

Knee deep in everything he needs
Like hammers, wood and tin,
The retiree will build back up
His confidence again.

So if you want your retiree
Around a few more years.
Don’t protest all his projects,
They chase away his fears.

By Jim Hagarty

My mother often said we’ve all got to eat a pound of dirt in our lives. I always assumed she was referring, well, to dirt – actual earth or anything else not normally considered to be edible – and that the reasoning was two-fold: first, we can’t avoid eating certain things we would rather not, and secondly, somehow eating the uneatable is good for us.

It toughens us up to chow down something we’d never find on any restaurant’s menu or a supperplate carefully decked out by a loving mother.

Like bugs, for example. Having a bad habit of not closing my mouth when I’m working or walking, I can’t begin to count the number of insects that have ended their days (or hours) wriggling down my throat. I bet I’ve swallowed 10 this summer alone.

But lately, I’ve been wondering whether Mom’s dirt prescription could also have been a metaphor for some other unpleasant things we have to swallow as we trod along on our earthly journey. Things such as indignities. Those daily tests of our maturity that are so freely handed out by the rude and insensitive.

We always have a choice. Do we grab the brute by the throat and administer a little attitude adjustment or do we keep our cool and walk away seething?

If a pound of this kind of dirt is what I need to eat in my lifetime, then I’d say I’m approaching 14, 15 ounces, maybe. An ounce more, or so, and I’ll be over the top. What then?

Just recently, I was standing in line at a coffee shop to get my morning muffin-to-go when a till opened up, a customer having just left. However, the server also left her place, so I was a bit hesitant as to which of the two cash registers to approach – the one that was staffed, or the one that wasn’t. He who hesitates gets stabbed in the back by the bony finger of an older guy with an attitude, I guess, because sure enough, there was the end of somebody else’s digit digging into my shoulder. When I turned, he motioned me, with a disgusted look and wave of his dismissive hand, to head to the till where no server was standing.

Not having woken up in the greatest of moods, my feeble hold on a tenuous serenity almost gave way, but I knew it would not be in my best interest to get kicked out of this great muffin-dispensing shop, so I suffered the shove and let it go.

Then last week, a bit more mud arrived, delivered free of charge by a young man who rang my doorbell at 7 p.m.

“How are you tonight?” chirped the tall, smiling youth in a long black overcoat, clipboard in hand, and some sort of badge bearing his photo pinned to his lapel.

“Fine,” I said. “Whaddya got?”

What followed was a brief blah blah blah about an offer to cap rising energy costs by signing up for a fixed rate, and then the fellow asked me to go get my latest hydro bill so he could see what I was paying.

“No, I’m not going to do that,” I said.

“What, you’re happy with your rates?”

“Yes,” I said. (I don’t know whether or not I’m happy but it sure wasn’t any of his business).

“So, you don’t mind paying higher rates for hydro if it goes way up?” said the sneering one.

“No I don’t,” I said. While this was a lie, I figured I might as well fight sarcasm with sarcasm.

It didn’t work.

“Another stupid person,” said the lad, as he turned in disgust, and headed down my steps, back out into the rain.

I chewed on this new snack of soil for a while and then kind of sorted it out. There were two guys on stage in this little play. Who was really the stupid one? The guy in the warm house enjoying an evening with his family (or trying to) or the guy tromping door to door through the rain, harassing strangers to see their private bills and calling them names when they refuse?

Not long ago, I got a phone call from a stranger with an offer I couldn’t refuse. I told the guy I would check with my wife and that he should call back. I didn’t check with my wife and surprise, surprise, the guy called back. I told him I hadn’t checked with my wife yet.

“What the hell?” said the salesman. “You can’t make a decision without your wife?”

If real dirt, ingested over a lifetime, builds up your immune system and helps you keep your health, then the other kind helps build character, I guess.

But sometimes I wish Mom were here to tell me what to do once the entire pound has been swallowed.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There was a mechanic named Bob
Who couldn’t hang onto a job.
His cars wouldn’t start.
They all fell apart.
So he went to work for the Mob.

By Jim Hagarty

Here are some clues that an idiot is about to share his very interesting viewpoints on life with you, though you didn’t ask for them. He knows down deep that every word he is saying is crap, so he has to use these qualifiers. (You might notice, said idiot is always speaking out of his “but …”)

1. Don’t get me wrong, but …
2. I probably shouldn’t say this, but …
3. I am not a racist (misogynist, elitist, ageist), but …
4. I have no problem with (kids today, teachers, unions, gays) but …
5. You’re probably not going to want to hear this, but …
6. I have nothing against (anyone different than the idiot) but …

By Jum Hagarty

I remember once being very agitated after I had lost my job. Where was my next meal going to come from? A friend of mine calmed me down. He told me most people think the agent of their supply is the source of their supply. The agents of our supply change from time to time. The source never does. He called the source God; I like to think of it as the Universe. He asked me how many meals I had missed in my life. I had to admit I hadn’t missed many. If you could see me now, you would rightly guess I haven’t missed ANY. His words were a comfort to me. The agents of my supply have been in constant flux for over 65 years. I have had lean times but never gone without. Two weeks after I lost my job, I had a better one that paid much more. I am priveleged, you suggest. Maybe. But my cats and dog have never done a lick of work in their life and they are fatter than me. I am their agent, but the Universe has looked after them very well.

By Jim Hagarty

I sometimes wonder why
I ever watch the news.
A half hour seeing bombs go off
Contributes to the blues.

The only sane thing I can do
In these uncertain times,
Is turn to Spongebob Squarepants,
That yellow guy so fine.

For every bad news item
Can soon be chased away
By watching Spongebob Squarepants
For half an hour a day.

To see that little fry cook
Flip patties on the grill,
Makes me want to quit the news.
In fact, I think I will.

I wish, in fact, that I could leave
My world and move away
To old Bikini Bottom.
I’d go there right away

Oh yes, it isn’t perfect,
And yes, it’s a cartoon
But if I can’t be with Spongebob,
Then I’m moving to the moon.