Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty

The wisest man I ever knew
Could neither read nor write.
He hung around downtown all day
And stayed there overnight.

And I with all my schooling
And three big framed degrees
Would seek out Herbert now and then
To see if he’d help me.

He wasn’t very polished
Nor did he try to be.
He was blunt as any baseball bat.
That was okay with me.

The best advice he ever gave
As he sipped on his flask,
“If you ever need a thing in life
“Open your mouth and ask.”

By Jim Hagarty
Here’s another song I am developing for a yet-unfinished CD. I wrote it one day a few years ago after a Facebook conversation with a woman who had been recently divorced. I had lost my job not long before that. We discussed not wanting to see people or to be seen. Much work left to do with this. Harmonies, more instrumentation.

The Lonely Day by Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty

Important news today.

Researchers have concluded that when a fly is hungry, its memory improves. Full tummy, bad memory.

They’re looking into whether or not this might also be the case with humans and if they find out that it is, then you can forget about (?) drinking to forget; a better plan would be to eat to forget.

The problem there is, of course, that if you eat too much, and your memory goes on you, you might forget to eat in which case you will get hungry again and the problem of not being able to forget will be coming right back atcha.

So it is quite possible that the best remedy for a broken heart, for example, might be to head to your nearest pizza shop and gorge yourself till the button on your pants pops and your fly (there’s that darned fly again) flies down on its own. I am not a doctor or scientist so don’t take my word for it but on the other hand, I’m pretty sure I’m right.

And for all of us who have been complaining about our bad memories lately, the answer to that may be to STEP AWAY FROM THE FRIDGE.

As for the flies, this story makes me wonder: What does a fly have to remember, anyway? The average one lives from two weeks to four weeks. Maybe it remembers the first time it made love which can happen as early as 36 hours after it hatches from the pupa (thanks Google). Imagine that, 36 hours after it’s born, the randy little thing is already going at it, maybe even with a fly twice its age, or 72 hours old.

That might be something the fly would think is worth remembering.

But what else? All the great manure piles it ever landed on? That dead mouse the Hagartys’ cat killed and left behind the blue spruce? That was a good day.

I think the lesson is this. If you want your houseflies to leave you alone, forget the swatter or the sprays. Leave lots of rotting food and other crap around so it has lots to dine on and when it has bloated itself up to bursting, it will hopefully forget it’s a fly at all and just lie there.

At that point, with luck, the cat will go over and eat it.

By Jim Hagarty

I went to the doctor yesterday.

He checked me over and pronounced me to be in pretty good shape. I left his office feeling 10 years younger.

But I have had a sore hip, which I didn’t mention to him. Funny, as I have mentioned it to the last 100 people I have met. That and a few other random pains make me a bit miserable on occasion.

One of those occasions was today as I hobbled to a food court in a mall to have a muffin and orange juice while my car was being serviced. I saw an old friend there, someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. So I went and sat down next to him.

After the usual catching up, I asked him how his health was, knowing he’d had some problems.

“Well,” he started, “I am diabetic. And I have had a triple bypass. As well as a stroke. And four heart attacks.”

“Oh my God,” I replied. “That’s terrible.”

“Ya,” he answered. “Tell me about it. I died twice.”

“WHAT??” I asked, my jaw dropping open.

“Oh, and I have no gall bladder.” I could hardly believe my ears. And then he added, half laughing, “I probably won’t be around much longer.”

But here’s the funny thing. He was sitting with his wife and another woman. The three of them were all joking and laughing. Then another man joined them and the party really got started. They laughed and teased each other like teenagers.

I got up to leave, and put out my hand, wondering if I’d see my old friend again. He shook my hand and smiled, “Say hi to your Higher Power for me.”

You know, I just might do that.

As I walked away, I could hear them all laughing over something silly. They were all remarking on how much one of the women resembled Queen Elizabeth. She was loving every minute of it.

As I was leaving, I noticed my hip wasn’t hurting any more.

My heart – maybe a bit.

By Jim Hagarty

A couple of years ago, researchers found the long-lost skeleton of King Richard III, who reigned for a brief period over England in the late 1400s. His grave was in a parking lot, covered by asphalt.

Richard’s remains were amazingly intact. From his bones, experts were able to do an incredibly accurate facial reconstruction and to confirm various health issues that had plagued him.

Given that and all the many cases where bodies are exhumed decades and even centuries later – they even dug up Lincoln’s body and examined it – what will future generations have to look at when so many people are being cremated these days?

What will that do to future breakthroughs in historical and even criminal research?

I, for one, hope they dig me up a hundred years from now so it can finally be confirmed that I am descended from Henry VIII, offering a reasonable explanation therefore as to why I could never drive by a restaurant without stopping in.

Or failing that, they might discover that, as I suspect, my neighbour is trying to poison me.

And he finally did me in.

Then they can dig him up and expose his shame for all the world to see.

But imagine this future item in the news. “Researchers believe they might have found the ashes of King Harlem Trotter. Or some cat litter. They have yet to run the tests.”

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I start every day with a rhyme.
“What will I scratch out this time?”
I wonder aloud
Then feel oh so proud
With my latest limerickan crime.

By Jim Hagarty

I just now tried to log on, using my phone, to my bank account, to see if there was enough there to let me buy a chocolate bar.

I plugged in my password. Off to the next screen.

I was asked a security question. No problem, I was sure.

But this was the question:

“What is the name of your oldest?”

My oldest what? Child? Friend? Dog? Pair of slippers?

What the hell?

I guessed oldest child. Plugged in the name.

I failed.

I won’t try again as I know I will be locked out.

Maybe they wanted my oldest swear word. That’s on the tip of my tongue.

It’s “Dang!”

By Jim Hagarty

“People are funny,” my friend said to me.
“In what way?” I replied, somewhat nervously.
“Well, they’ll always be nice to your face,” she said.
“When really, they wish you were buried and dead.”

“What brought this on?” I asked, so timidly.
I worried her remarks were all meant for me.
“Did someone you know say an unkind word?
“Something they didn’t know you had heard?”

Her face became grey as she turned towards me.
“I used to be blind but I’ve learned to see.
“My best friend is saying some terrible things.
“About me, and what she says really stings.”

“She says I’m dishonest, tells people I’m cheap.
“And then when I see her, she says not a peep.
“I just can’t believe she’d ever betray
“My trust, but she has, and I’m in dismay.”

Relieved that the guilty one couldn’t be me
I suggested I thought that it would never be
Unfair to go out and make a new friend
Cause this one’s two-facedness probably won’t end.

“That does make some sense,” said the poor, wounded girl,
“But she is my only friend in the world.”
“Then your world isn’t big enough yet,” I replied.
“There’s a better friend waiting to be by your side.”

“Sometimes we hang to a buddy too long
“There are others who know all the words to our song.
“They show up when we least expect them, sometimes,
“Until then we just need to bide our sweet time.”

She thought about that and then turned away.
She met her new best friend the very next day.
It’s not easy to let go of people we’ve known.
Sometimes for a while we will be all alone.

But being alone is not something to fear.
Out of nowhere, sometimes, a new best friend appears.
Out of gratitude, my friend went and bought me a book.
While I was just glad to be let off the hook.

By Jim Hagarty

We have a plaque on our wall with this inscription: Follow Your Heart. It Knows Where It Is Going.

Every happy person is doing just that, whether or not she knows it.

How does the heart have any idea where it is going?

It is a mystery.

“The heart has its reason which reason cannot know.”

I love that saying.

How did Wayne Gretzky know, at the age of three years, that he wanted to play hockey?

How did Warren Buffett know he wanted to make money?

How did Bob Dylan know he wanted to change the world by writing songs?

Their hearts told them.

And they followed.