Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jum Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

A man on our street name of Barnes
Had short legs but very long arms.
He swung from the trees
With the greatest of ease.
He was homely, but he had other charms.

By Jim Hagarty

There are people in this world who like to borrow money and not pay it back. I have encountered these strange beings three times in my life and I have detected a pattern.

Even grifters have some semblance of conscience, I guess, but their worldview differs a little from yours and from mine. Like you and I, those on the take believe you should repay a debt to a nice person. However, while you and I think a debt is a debt and should be repaid no matter the relative wonderfulness of our creditor, some grifters believe it is not only permissible but entirely understandable that you wouldn’t need to repay an asshole.

So here’s the plan: Take the nice guy to whom you owe money, antagonize the hell out of him somehow and turn him into a raving lunatic. Now only a fool would repay a crazy person, right?

I am not entirely so cynical as to believe this is purposely done. But it works, it’s final, and if it happens to you, your money is gone for good.

You can toss and turn in your bed at night all you like.

The grifter is sleeping like a baby.

By Jim Hagarty

In my neck of the woods, when, in fact, there were only woods, the Canada Company enticed a Swiss couple from Pennsylvania to come to southwestern Ontario and open a tavern in the middle of what was literally, nowhere. The huge parcel of land then known as the Huron Tract, was late in being carved of the wilderness. There was nothing but thousands of acres of very tall trees. There was no wind; the wind couldn’t reach the forest floor. Not much snow made it down to the ground either. The Indians didn’t hang around much. They travelled through here on hunting excursions but never put down roots.

Nevertheless, developers saw the potential and today, the area is thriving.

But in the late 1820s, when Sebastian and Mary Fryfogel were commissioned to open their log tavern, there was not a lot of traffic. But they pressed on.

Fryfogel’s Tavern opened up in a clearing. All ready for business.

It would be two years before they had a customer.

Now that’s patience.

They replaced the log building with a brick one in the 1850s. The building still stands, though closed for the last 50 years. Heritage groups care for it.

So if your new business is taking its time getting going, remember the Fryfogels.

At least going over the books those first two years probably didn’t take long.

By Jim Hagarty

Life is hard sometimes. I could list the many ways this is true and the circumstances that prevent unending glee in a person, but the following situation is one that makes me want to sit on a dissolving raft someday out in the middle of the Atlantic.

The only way I can open the trunk of my 1997 Pontiac Sunfire is to fold the back seat down, crawl on my belly in through the opening behind the seat, bang my head seven times on the steel structure that forms the trunk lid, shine a flashlight on the lock, insert a screwdriver in a little slot and twist.

I just came back from opening my trunk and feel like a bear that just escaped from a trap.

I know, I know. A three-week old fawn in the woods has bigger problems than a stubborn trunk lid. But somehow, knowing that, only makes me want to be a three-week old fawn in the woods.

I’d put up with being chased by a coyote any time if it meant popping open my trunk was not on the day’s agenda.

By Jim Hagarty

Thank the stars we live in a country like Canada with a public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Only on CBC Radio could an interview be heard with a scientist who has researched what makes a mouse happy.

Listening to this interview on Saturday afternoon, several thoughts occurred to me (once I got past the obvious one: Why am I listening to this interview?)

Would a life spent studying such subjects as the happiness of mice be a life misspent?

Once the answer to the questions surrounding a mouse’s contentment levels have been established, will the resulting knowledge have added anything meaningful to the world?

But this was my overriding feeling on hearing what I was hearing: Call me hardhearted, which I’m sure I am, but I don’t really give a fiddler’s fork whether mice are happy or suffer from chronic depression.

As I write that last line, I realize it seems sort of mean but if I was a scientist – and I could have been except for a tragic shortage of brains which has plagued me since birth – I believe I could have found a million or two more important things to study before I turned my attention to the serenity of the humble mouse. Things such as why grilled cheese sandwiches are not considered high cuisine or why Toronto doesn’t have an NHL team.

Scientist or no, however, I think I could have come up with a few suggestions as to what would make a mouse happy, even without a few years of intense study.

I’m guessing some sort of steady food supply might put a smile on its furry little face. A compost pile, say, with a twice weekly deposit of kitchen scraps delivered fresh and on time.

A cat epidemic such as distemper, for example, which can wipe out a well-populated barn in a couple of weeks might be guaranteed to cheery up the gloomiest rodent, I would expect.

And somewhere warm to spend the winters, such as above my basement ceiling, for example, would probably cause a mouse to sit back one day and remark, “Ah, this is the life.”

But, what would I know?

Our real researcher referred to above, did an experiment. He placed a female mouse in a cage with a male mouse. This seemed to make both of them quite happy as they got busy planning a family.

Now, this is what separates the research of an authentic scientist from a piker like myself. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that a couple of lonely mice thrown together on a blind date like that might cheer up almost immediately.

But here’s where the real science came in. The researcher recorded the sounds they made, too high for the human ear to perceive, then slowed them down four times and played them on the radio. He pointed out how the two mice were singing to each other prior to, well, you know, doing other things to each other.

Providing one of them wasn’t tone deaf, I could see how music, in this case, could have charms to soothe the savage breast.

And how they would live happily ever after

By Jim Hagarty

There is no animal alive
More dangerous than man.
I’ve tried to think of even one
But I don’t think I can.

No creature ever roamed the earth
With meaner inclinations.
No lion, tiger, shark or bear
Can match man’s degradations.

But man believes he is advanced
Because he dominates.
The truth is man’s the only kind
That destroys what he hates.

While other beings roar and growl
And seem to be a danger,
Man alone is happy to
Annihilate a stranger.

I wouldn’t go into a pen
With a mean rattlesnake,
But human cages I’ve been in
Were a bigger mistake.

I managed just now to escape
A human viper’s grasp.
I know how Cleopatra felt
When bitten by that asp.

We’re taught to love each other
But always it’s a test
Because some humans’ habitats
Are true Black Widows’ nests.

By Jim Hagarty

Hiding a bad intention behind a good intention. It is a story as old as man. But the apparent truth of the statement – that we hide a bad intention from others behind a good intention – doesn’t tell the whole story. Most of the time, with most people, the deception is born in the deceiver’s own heart, long before he takes it out for a drive. In other words, the person that it is most necessary to deceive, first and foremost, is ourselves. Most of us can’t enter into a relationship with another human being knowing our intention for them is bad. So we first must convince ourselves that what we propose to do, we are doing with only good intentions, when we know deep down that what we are about to do is for only bad intentions. That is why the successful deceiver is so convincing; he has practised and perfected the deception on himself already. In fact, it is almost necessary to the success of the proposed bad act that the bad actor be convinced it is a good act. Most people can sense a blatantly bad act and actor. There’s just something about them. With these people, we are less likely to be taken in.

Despite all the talk in Western societies that people suffer from low self esteem, the truth might be somewhat different. Someone once wrote that we like to ascribe bad motives to the people we deal with and only the best of motives for ourselves. We almost always give ourselves the benefit of the doubt while often suspecting others of being less trustworthy. Far from suffering from doubt regarding our own self worth, we have too much confidence in our own goodness. Except in those occasional times of honest self-reflection, when the mask comes down and are sometimes horrified to find what we find.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There was an old man who delayed
Beginning his duties each day.
He hummed and he hawwed
Then prayed hard to God
To take all his odd jobs away.