Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty

Retirement is a strange phenomenon.

The best way to describe it, I guess, is the way I heard a guy put it one day:

“I have nothing to do and it takes me all day to do it.”

By Jim Hagarty

I have never met Justin Bieber.

My kids attended the same high school where he went. There is still a class photo on a wall there with the now-famous musical icon pictured with all his classmates.

Last fall, he trick or treated on our street. Didn’t make it all the way down to our house, as far as I know. But I drove down the street that night and saw trick or treaters at a house. I found out later he was among them.

I would like someday to have the privilege of meeting the young man who set the musical world on fire a few years ago and still does. Maybe we could jam. We could play each other’s guitars. We both play left handed. I don’t think it will happen. I am very busy, being retired and not famous.

The next best thing, I guess, was the day I met his dog.

A young woman at the end of our street used to dog sit for Justin when his grandparents were away and unavailable to do it. I met her a time or two out walking. She told me about it.

Then one day I saw her go by, a little dog in tow.

“This is Sammy,” she said. I introduced myself to the little pooch. He was a sweetie (or she, I am not sure.)

A while later, I was staying at a motel in Michigan and went for a swim in the pool. A bunch of young girls were having a good time there. Somehow, we struck up a conversation and I was asked where I was from.

I told them I was Canadian and that I lived in Stratford.

They immediately associated that name with their teen idol, Justin Bieber.

I was asked if I had ever met him. I told them the truth that no, we had never crossed paths.

“But I have met his dog,” I said.

Shrieks from the pool.

“You’ve met Sammy?”

I hadn’t mentioned the dog’s name. Apparently I didn’t have to.

No one asked for my autograph.

I told them I would try to get Sammy’s pawtograph.

But I have never seen the little doggie again.

The girls in the pool don’t remember my name. I don’t remember theirs.

But we all know Sammy.

By Jim Hagarty
Here is a song I am working on. I wrote it a few years ago about a friend from my earlier life. The last time I saw her was through my rear-view mirror. She was waving goodbye as I drove away from her place in Vancouver. This is a very raw version. Great guitar work and production by my friend Earl Filsinger. I don’t really have a name for this song but for now will call it Song for Nancy.

Song for Nancy by Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
Official Smartypants

I posted this a while ago on Facebook:

“I have tried many times to outsmart myself but I am so smart, I am unable to do it.”

As far as I know, this quote is original to me and I have used it many times over the years.

But I got thinking about that today. If I was unable to outsmart myself, then really, how smart could I be to not have enough smarts to outsmart myself?

And if I was able to outsmart myself, was it because I was not smart enough to not be outsmarted by a person as smart as I?

Perhaps someone smarter than me, assuming there is someone like that roaming the world, can figure this out. My brain is smarting from considering the question in all its ramifications.

I know you’re busy, but I would appreciate an answer right smartly.

By Jim Hagarty

I have begun to publish a story a day from my humour book about being a housebound dad called Poor Daddy: Adventures of a Stay-at-Home Father. The introduction and first two chapters are there. Check it out by clicking on Poor Daddy under the menu at the top of the page. It is not yet for sale in the Corner Store. I am having trouble working out terms of the financial arrangement with that crusty cheapskate, Jim Hagarty.

By Jim Hagarty

I had an uncle who lived well into his 90s.

He was healthy as a horse up to the end. He went out golfing three weeks before he died. He was the happiest, most optimistic man I’ve ever met.

But his life wasn’t trouble-free. At one point in his senior years, doctors opened up his skull and did some sort of brain operation, I can’t remember the details of. He survived it and carried on.

But on both sides of his forehead, there were two big indentations associated with the operation. The skin grew over them but it was noticeable that there appeared to be two holes in his forehead, one on the left and one on the right.

I first saw him, following the operation, at a funeral. Of course he noticed that everyone who greeted him was stealing a furtive glance at the new prominent features on his head.

So, rather than launch into a lengthy explanation, he put people at ease with this little quip: “That’s where they took the horns off,” he laughed. And so did everyone else.

If there was someone, somewhere who didn’t love him, I never met that person. His wife, my aunt, was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease, so he taught himself to cook. And in his early 90s, invested in a whole new set of pots and pans. Also bought a new car.

A better example of living life to the fullest I have never known.

By Jim Hagarty

Humour might seem to be my talent. I suppose it is.

But to me, it is my medication.

You might think I am funny because I am unserious. The truth is, I am funny because I am too serious.

Humour is my only hope.

We see someone laughing and we think, “Now there is a happy man.” He might be happy. But it is important to remember that they don’t let you out of the nuthouse till you stop laughing.

Have you ever seen a dictator laugh? They can’t laugh. They have no sense of humour. It is their most major character flaw. Unable to laugh, they are incapable of achieving perspectve. Without perspective, a man is living in a dream world.

The Irish have no special claim to suffering. But the Irish have suffered. And yet, they laugh. At others, sometimes, but usually at themselves and each other.

Two things keep me going in this world: humour and music.

It might not mean I am always happy when I am laughing, but at least at those times I am not crying.

I have done my share of that.

When I can find humour in a situation, I know that I have finally accepted it.

It is acceptance of the twists and turns in life that is my true medication.

Situations have lost their power to hurt me when I have accepted them.

Acceptance and perspective.

Humour and music.

And love.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

Trudeau has failed a big test.
He elbowed a lawmaker’s breast.
It is shown on YouTube.
He assaulted her boob.
So he finally manned up and confessed.

By Jim Hagarty

Three weeks ago today I started Lifetime Sentences.

I am having a ball with the thing. For many reasons.

I have had almost 7,000 views in three weeks. I have only 6,437 relatives so I know at least some strangers have wandered my way. Actually, I understand that 7,000 views doesn’t represent 7,000 people. But it appears that at least, I have two or three hundred individual readers checking me out every day. And some are coming back more than once a day. That is my goal. To make this a vibrant site that is updated regularly.

The big reason I like this so much is that it feels like I am back in the newspaper game. I loved working as a reporter on newspapers but even more, as the editor I eventually became. My days were so varied. And I was never stuck just doing one thing. From writing (and reporting – my career was spent on small newspapers), to taking photos and designing pages, the work was interesting. I never watched the clock when I was newspapering. My challenge was to finally go home at night and sometimes I brought work home. I didn’t have to. I wanted to.

The fun for me in newspapers was not only in the variety of tasks but in the challenge I gave myself to try to attract the best writers, photographers and cartoonists I could. At the end of the day, that was my biggest source of satisfaction. I developed what I think was an eye for talent and I loved giving newcomers a start.

So I am taking the same approach with the blog. Reaching out to talented people so that they get exposure and my viewers get a chance to see more than just me blabbing on continuously every day.

One thing I love the blog for is the chance it gives me to offer music. You might know Stratford, Ontario, Canada, as the birthplace of Justin Bieber. But Stratford was a hotbed for the arts long before Justin came along to put us on the map. We were home, for example, to Richard Manuel, a member of The Band. We have produced many others who have had a big impact. And our city of 35,000 has always been a Mecca for singer-songwriters and aspiring bands. Every major musical act since the fifties has played our town and that continues to this day.

In the 1950s, Stratford opened a Shakespearean theatre which is still going gangbusters today. We attract almost a million tourists each summer. And years ago, a summer musical festival was begun to give visitors even more reason to stay. Famous musicians from all over the world in every imaginable musical genre perform at the music festival which continues to grow every year. And the Festival Theatre has attracted many of the world’s greatest actors to its multiple stages now.

So, I want to use Lifetime Sentences to share some of this motherlode of talent we enjoy in Stratford with you. Some artists I feature are friends of mine, some not, or not yet.

But I live in a wonderful place.

I hope you come to think of it that way too.

Thanks for your interest in Lifetime Sentences. It is still in its infancy. I am looking forward to seeing where it goes and I am glad you are along for the ride.