Author: Jim Hagarty

Here is something you might not want to say shortly after you sit down to a wonderful roast pork Sunday supper.

After the cook receives several compliments on her festive presentation, whereupon she credits the new meat thermometer for her success, don’t say this:

“Where is this new meat thermometer?” please don’t ask. “It’s the one on the fridge,” is the reply.

“Oh,” you must never say. “I thought that was a rectal thermometer.” A stunned silence will follow this comment, if you are a big enough idiot to say it.

“But don’t worry,” you might stupidly follow up. “I used it on the dog.”

This comment is followed up by the agonizing sound of cutlery being dropped from mid-air onto plates.

“The good news is, the dog is fine,” you try to recover. “And it’s okay. I wiped it off on my pants.”

Years ago, my family hired a carpenter to come in and build a penalty box in the rec room downstairs for wayward members of the clan. So far, I have been the only one to have ever used it.

But here is where my loved ones made a critical mistake.

I like sitting in the box and contemplating the wonders of the Universe. Some of my best ideas have been formulated while sitting within its confines.

And I always emerge from my time out invigorated, ready for my next challenge.

It’s a living.

©2022 Jim Hagarty

My dietitian is a dreamer which is good because the world needs more dreamers. She wants me to give up frozen orange juice and eat real oranges instead. Something about fibre.

She hasn’t used the words but others in her profession have referred to orange juice as “yellow pop” which, to me, is offensive. But my dietitian seems so earnest about these things and believes everything she says. Who am I to argue?

This morning, I took out the orange juice, then put the container back into the fridge and picked up a real, live orange instead. It took quite an effort to peel the giant sucker, with its skin as tough as a rhino’s, but with the help of a spoon I finally got the job done. But even with the outside layer gone, there was another white subskin that clung to the fruit like a leach to a pond swimmer. I tried to remove it but gave up.

I broke the thing up into sections and started eating them. Man were they tough to gobble up and choke down. And sour. By the time I finished, I was a mess. Covered in orange juice from chin to shin. I rushed to the kitchen sink and got myself cleaned up.

I have bad news for my dietitian. This was the worst-tasting orange I have ever eaten. I doubt the experience will be repeated soon.

About then, a family member began asking around to find out what happened to the grapefruit that had been sitting on the counter near the toaster.

I feel sorry for my dietitian. She earns every penny she makes. I recommend she be given a raise, in fact. She has to deal with some very confused individuals, I thought, as I reached back into the fridge for the orange juice to wash down the taste of my orange.

©2014 Jim Hagarty

I live in a Canadian city that has a population of 35,0000 plus. It’s a pretty good place but I have always felt a little nervous living in the community where I was born.

That is why I am pulling up stakes next week and moving to Kennesaw, Georgia, a city the same size as mine but with one major attractive difference. Every home in Kennesaw is required by law to have a gun on the premises. Every home. REQUIRED. BY. LAW. It is not just legal to own a handgun, shotgun, rocket launcher, tank, etc., it is mandatory.

I would feel much safer living there knowing that whenever I knocked on someone’s door, the owner of that home would be armed. And everyone who knocked on mine would know that I am packing heat as well. That would be so great.

I had a big fat groundhog in my backyard last summer. Took me weeks to encourage him to move on. In Kennesaw: BAM!!! Critter gone. Noisy freakin’ crows in my maple trees. BAM!!! BAM!!! BAM!!! What is that I hear? No crows. Yay. Annoying door-to-door salesmen? I’m pretty sure there is no such creature roaming the streets of Kennesaw.

Yes, this morning six people were shot in Kennesaw and the shooter was shot and killed but, hey, we have traffic accidents in my town but we don’t ban the cars, do we? Exactly.

l will miss you all but if you’re ever down in Kennesaw, drop in any time. We can put on some bulletproof vests and helmets and take a stroll downtown. Kennesaw is lovely this time of year. It hardly ever rains during graveyard services.

©2014 Jim Hagarty

I think I began to see the point at which western society was beginning to reach peak decadence when the patio fan was invented and began selling.

In the first place, a patio itself – basically an outdoor living room – is a bit of a luxury our ancestors wouldn’t have dreamed of, but attempting to do the wind’s job for those seated on the patio by harnessing a breeze-producing machine is maybe a bit excessive. Some of these fans can be hooked to garden hoses and blow a “cooling mist” over the happy family.

But nothing spells “over the top” like patio heaters which can run a buyer a cool $3,000. So, you want to sit outside but it’s a little chilly out there so you buy a machine which can do the sun’s job for it. Previous generations, if it was cold outside, would have stayed inside but modern humans see no need for that.

So, a patio heater it is then.

But not a heater with just an on/off switch. Not on your life. Here is the product descriptions for a $3,000 jobbie.

This patio heater comes with: a variable input temperature control panel, a modulating gas burner, a low-noise combustion air blower, a visual burner inspection sightglass, a combustion and air-proving safety switch, a three-try spark ignition control, a 100 per cent safety shut-off, a low-voltage control connection, a four-inch heat-treated aluminized combustion tube, an aluminum standard reflector, tube couplers, a heat economizer baffle, stainless steel hangers, a decorative grille, an indicator light, and stainless steel burner head construction.

Or you could just go in the house and put on a sweater before coming back outside. Special features: Wool, sleeves, five big buttons. Also available at extra cost: a hoodie.

©2021 Jim Hagarty

My best friend and I were well familiar with the ditches along the almost two miles or so from our farms to the little crossroads of Bornholm northwest of Stratford, Ontario, Canada, when we were growing up. On a warm summer’s day, he would walk on one side of the road, I on the other, and we’d scour the ditches for bottles that we could cash in at the store or the nearby gas station for pop and potato chips. A regular-sized eight-ounce or 10-ounce pop bottle would net us two cents while a large 28-ounce bottle would put five cents in our pockets.

Yahoo!

Because motorists in those days would throw everything but the kitchen sink in the ditches as they drove along, we hardly ever ran out of a supply of refillable glass bottles to turn in. It didn’t take many to pay for our glorious booty from the store. I remember small bags of potato chips that cost a nickel, and pop that you could buy for seven or eight cents for a small bottle to 10 cents for a bigger one.

Our treasure trove took a little bit of a hit one summer, however, when a man in the village started walking the ditches too. We weren’t too happy with this trespasser but we couldn’t do much about him. Our hauls began to dwindle and eventually, so did our interest in fishing the ditches for funds to pay for our habits.

I believe it was a short time after our ditch-digging days ended that we discovered the miracle of girls. We soon found that they were the only worthwhile subject of discussion and would be that for many years to follow.

We hardly ever talked about pop and chips anymore.

But we did learn fairly quickly, as I recall, that it was much easier to find bottles in the roadside ditches than it was to acquire the friendship of girls, as intriguing as they were to us, in reality if not only in our dreams.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

There was a little thing going around on Facebook asking users what we would say if we had a chance to talk to our younger selves. What advice would we offer that young whippersnapper who grew into the old guy we are today?

I can think of many things I might say but the most important piece of wisdom I would offer young Jim would be career-related. I would tell my younger self to legally change his name to Gordon. Why my parents never had the good sense to do that in the first place, I don’t know, but for someone destined for a working life putting himself before the public through artistic and entertainment endeavours, Gordon is the only and best name for any Canadian boy.

All the greats in this big country are named Gordon. Gordon Howe, greatest hockey player ever, Gordon Lightfoot, greatest folk musician the country has ever produced, and Gordon Pinsent, one of the finest actors anywhere. Also Gordon Downie, lead singer of The Tragically Hip rock band.

And I grew up watching a crabby old TV journalist/broadcaster named Gordon Sinclair, a character if there ever was one, and a guy I almost ran over one day as I nervously chartered the insane Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. As I managed to screech to a halt just in time, he turned, inches from the hood of my car, and gave me a look I imagine only an upset Gordon could give. After all, I once saw Gordon Lightfoot quit playing one of his hits on stage because the audience wouldn’t stop clapping along to it.

“This is not a clap-along song,” he yelled at us, before refusing to return to it.

Seems to me, the given name Gordon is almost a ticket to success in Canada.

Instead, Jim. What am I supposed to do with that? Even the proper form for it, James, hasn’t got the same Gordian touch.

There has never been a Gordon in my family going back hundreds of years. I think this explains the mediocrity of our contributions to the world of sports and entertainment. There is no Stanley Cup, Grammy or Oscar on my mantle or the mantles of any of my relatives.

A Gordon Hagarty is long overdue.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

People get all bent out of shape over the smallest things. A woman going through a fast-food drivethrough in Michigan ordered bacon on her burger. It came with no bacon. So, she complained.

The servers at the window apologized and gave her a free meal. The second burger had no bacon.

Now some would say that for a place to screw up like this twice in a row is no big deal but to those people I say, “Bacon! They forgot the BACON!” It isn’t as though they failed to toss in some extra relish, mustard or ketchup. They forgot the bacon. TWICE.

Now, what would you do? So would I. And so would our heroine who was so grievously denied her bacon. She pulled out her gun and fired a bullet into the restaurant.

Please, if you are a bleeding heart, please stop reading. Because this is the proper use of a firearm. When a restaurant fails to come across with the bacon, it’s time to go all Yosemite Sam on it. I am woman, hear me roar! Guns are made to straighten out situations just such as these.

Unfortunately, for our modern-day Annie Oakley, a pinko, commie, woke, liberal judge in Michigan thought differently. Hopefully, all the burgers in the prison for the next few years will be served up with lots of bacon.

Or there will be a hostage taking, mark my words.

And a prison break!

©2015 Jim Hagarty

I am just about finished building a wooden wagon on wheels that can be used to haul speakers and monitors around for jam sessions my musician friends and I hold on Friday nights. I have never built anything like this and didn’t know that I could. But a fellow musician showed up at my house with four wheels that he had bought and he asked me to build it because I told him I had some space and a few tools.

I took on the job, pretty sure I’d make a total mess of it because I enjoy rough carpentry but I am far from a fine craftsman. But my buddy had such confidence in me, that somehow, I found the know-how to smack the thing together.

He also kept a bit of pressure on, calling to find out how it was coming along. So, the friendly timeline combined with his total confidence in me, has produced this little vehicle which I will paint today.

Being a perfectionist, I put more lumber into it than an old sailing ship the pirates travelled in and it’s so heavy, we will need another wagon to carry it to the place we want it to be.

I am pretty proud of my creation, however, and know that it only came about because of my friend’s belief that I could do it.

Sometimes, it seems, trying to live up to someone else’s expectations is not such a bad thing.

©2013 Jim Hagarty

I have no plans to hang around with Dylan McWilliams. Three years ago, the Colorado resident was out hiking in Utah when he was bit by a rattlesnake. A year later, he was attacked by a 300-pound black bear when he was camping in his home state. The bear grabbed his head and started pulling him away from his friends but they raised a fuss and Dylan was freed.

And last week, the poor man was bit in the leg by a shark while he was boogie-boarding (whatever that is) near Hawaii. He kicked the seven-foot-long tiger shark as hard as he could then swam to shore.

If all this happened to me, I would be downright negative. I would lock myself in my bedroom and never come out again. I would nail boards over the windows. And wear an impenetrable metal suit.

But that’s not how old Dylan rolls.

“I don’t blame the shark, I don’t blame the bear, and I don’t blame the rattlesnake,” he said. “I’m just mad that I can’t get back in the water for a couple days.”

Dylan is welcome to think what he wants. As for me, I blame the shark, the bear and the rattlesnake. They are a bunch of nasty critters and I have lost all respect for them.

©2018 Jim Hagarty

The technology apparently exists which will allow dead recording artists to go back into their studios. The long-gone Elvis Presleys, Janis Joplins, Roy Orbisons and Frank Sinatras of the entertainment world could, theoretically, release new recordings of songs they never sang while they were alive nor even ever heard. The Beatles, it seems, could be getting back together after all one of these days.

“Imagine” an album by John Lennon of new songs written by his sons. Or by Paul McCartney.

This follows on the prospects of dead actors appearing in new movies. James Dean, dead for 70 years, was to appear in a fresh movie a couple of years ago, though that seemed to be a sort of flash-in-the-pan news story that went away fairly quickly. But there have been at least a couple of movies made featuring older actors appearing alongside their younger selves, hardly confusing at all.

And then there are live performances by dead music stars via holographic imagery who appear on stage backed up by very alive, live orchestras. A few years ago, one of the biggest rock stars in Japan was a hologram of a totally made-up female singer who has never existed in real life.

This is not even to get into robots who will likely make all of the above seem like mere child’s play. As far as I am aware, which isn’t very far, China is already experimenting with robot TV news presenters.

If any of this seems strange to us in 2021, it is probably no more mysterious than our ancestors when they first saw “horseless” carriages driving down the street on their own power. Or when they turned the buttons on a little box and heard voices and music coming out of a speaker. Not to mention advances such as movies, airplanes, and TVs, let alone space exploration.

It’s a fast-moving world now and the timeline for the development of new technologies is shrinking every day. Now, instead of it taking years to move from one mode to another – wax records to compact discs, for example – it is taking mere months in some cases for one “new” device to replaced by a more advanced one. Or for something entirely new to be created.

But the concept of keeping dead artists’ careers going is not a totally new one. How many Agatha Christies have there been since the original mystery novelist died?

Having done a little recording myself a few decades ago, I wonder how good my news songs, written by talented robots, will sound when I lay them down a hundred years from now. And then sing them as a hologram down at the local pub.

©2021 Jim Hagarty