I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.
What I know about Buddhism could be written on a Post-it-Note with room left over for a Christmas gifts shopping list.
But one feature of the belief system that I think is true is the reverence adherents have for all life, not just human and not just animal. There is a certain sect of monks, for example, who carry a brush with them and sweep the sidewalk in front of them as they walk so they don’t step on and kill any bugs.
I thought of that the other day when I was sweeping the floor. I noticed that one of the pieces of dirt in the pile was moving so I watched it. It was a mid-sized spider and it soon extricated itself from the mess and took off.
I kept sweeping and thought, “I really don’t need to kill that spider,” so I made a pact with it. If it could disappear by the time I finished sweeping, I wouldn’t bother it. (The truth is I haven’t purposely killed a spider in years).
Turning back to my job, I soon noticed something else. Three tiny spiders were scrambling across the floor in all directions. My sweeping had disturbed a nest, I guess. Momma was the big one and these were her babies.
I carefully kept working and avoided the little kids and soon, like their Ma, they had safely crawled out of sight under a baseboard.
The next time I see them they will probably be huge and will crawl into my bed and bite me on the nose, but for now, all is well.
As I round third base and head for home, I find myself feeling more connected to all living things and less superior to any. Like that Francis of Assisi guy. When the gigantic outer space aliens invade and are vacuuming us up for breakfast, maybe I’ll catch a break from one of them!
I was happy for the opportunity one hot summer day recently to speak to a class of journalism students all about the ins and outs of headline writing and so I prepared a little talk on the subject in advance.
And when the day of the big lesson arrived, although I was a bit nervous about the encounter, I charged into my responsibility with no small amount of passion, hoping to ignite a flame or two in the 13 eager, young future newspaper reporters who sat in the classroom before me, attentive to my every utterance.
So, I began uttering.
“The biggest task of the headline writer is to capture the essence of the story and to do it with life and colour and without leading the reader to believe he’s about to read something in the article below, which, in fact, he fails to encounter,” I said. “An accurate headline, even if it’s dull, is still better than a lively one which distorts the meaning of the story it’s announcing.”
Hearing my thoughts on the topic expressed in such an intelligent way, I felt a surge of confidence and so I looked around at the group before me to see how it was being received. They were staring at me like people positively hungry for knowledge who were hearing the truth for the very first time and recognizing their need, I started laying out a veritable journalistic banquet for them.
“An important fact about headlines you always want to remember is that they represent probably your best chance to draw the busy reader into a story she might not otherwise stop and read,” I pronounced. “A reporter’s hard work and best effort can be all for naught if her article has been poorly sold off by a lazy or inattentive headline writer.”
More wise words and another glance around at the troops. But this time, not all of them were glancing back. One young man over in the corner was resting his head, face down on his desk, in obvious meditation on the statement I’d just made.
I continued, stressing how the size of the headline should bear some relevance to the significance of the story and warning against the urge to be too flippant, especially with serious stories.
Another look up, at this point, revealed a second meditator, two rows back, this one taking up a different position with his head resting on his arms which were resting on his desk and his face turned to the side. His eyes were closed, as he obviously sought to shut out other data and think only about headlines.
The lesson resumed. Getting headlines to fit. Writing headlines in the present tense. Taking care to avoid headlines clashing with other headlines on the page.
A third contemplator lowered his head to his desk and within seconds was breathing heavily, in an obviously deep, meditative state.
Apparently, I was getting somewhere.
Three down and 10 to go.
My lecture now nearing the 20-minute mark, I took another visual survey around the warm classroom to see how well the rest of the class was responding to what they were fortunate enough to be hearing. None of them had joined their three contemplative classmates, one of whom by this time had managed to curl himself into something resembling a fetal position, all the time sitting in his chair, but they all had adopted various poses which suggested apparent deep thought on their part.
One woman, who’d obviously freed her mind to follow the soaring flights of enlightenment I’d been releasing into the air before her, sat staring at me with a smile Madame Tussaud might have been proud to have achieved on one of the models in her museum. Her eyes, though appearing to be trained on me, were, in fact, wandering independently of each other, looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This is true concentration, I thought.
In the middle of the room, directly before me, sat a young man with his arms crossed over his chest, his head having fallen backwards over the back of his chair. His mouth was open as were his eyes which seemed glued to the ceiling tiles above him.
As the talk headed into its second 30 minutes, the surviving students went into other various learning positions and while most of them sat up straight, at least one young man’s eyes wandered upwards and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen eyes turned that far back in anyone’s head before. Several others, resting their heads on their hands, peered my way through eyes half-covered with drooping lids and at least two appeared to have developed a sort of glaze over theirs.
Needless to say, I was pretty happy with the way things were going and when I finished after about 45 minutes, they all seemed very happy too.
Except the guy in the corner who had been first to go into the meditative state and who took a while to come around. He seemed groggy, even disoriented.
But there was no mistaking that other quality on his face. It was the look of a man who now knew more than he expected he ever would about a subject.
I was driving into the city of Sudbury in Northern Ontario from our friend’s nearby cottage when I turned on the radio and tried to find a station I liked. Too hard, too soft, too noisy, too quiet, too much talk; every time I pressed the scan button I landed on another place I didn’t want to be.
And then, finally, there it was: The best radio station I’ve ever heard. Fantastic music. Rolling Stones. Beatles. The Animals. Creedance Clearwater Revival. Bob Dylan. Janis Joplin. One hit after another.
In an instant, I was singing at the top of my lungs as I bombed along down the highway.
What a great Saturday morning this was turning out to be. A couple of hours off by myself with the van and the finest songs in the world. I soon began to lament that I live so far away from this place that I wouldn’t be able to hear this station again. I sure wish we had a station like this back home, I thought. Hardly any commercials.
Wow. Life is good. Do Wa Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo. I Wanna Hold Your Hand. The Times They are a Changin’. Perfect.
Then a female announcer came on the air. “It’s 11 a.m.,” she said. “And you’ve been listening to Songs for Seniors.”
It’s funny how you can’t find a good radio station anywhere any more.
This is a story of hope and wonder and persistence. Some might add idiocy but that is not a word that applies, in my opinion.
In April 2013, a good lookin’ young fella (me), bought a nice used car (on the Internet, so you know I couldn’t go wrong). It was fantastic in every way with only a few flaws. One of those little wrinkles was a foggy headlight lens. So foggy it’s a wonder any light ever escaped it.
This was a problem I wanted to address so I took one year to think about it. This is the required waiting time for an issue such as this. To take action any sooner than 12 months would be impetuous and potentially dangerous.
When Phase 2 (obsession takes hold) arrived following the year-long consideration period, I began to research solutions. I am not a car guy in much the same way that Stevie Wonder is not a house painter, and so I defer to our mechanic to solve 99 per cent of our car’s problems. If he says I need a two-phase, four-pronged, self-timing, fully computerized, oil deflector injecting thing, I tell him to go ahead and crack one on there, price be damned.
But I draw the line at a foggy piece of plastic. If I can’t fix that, then I have failed as a human being.
I was willing to do anything it took to clear up this lens cover, anything, that is, except spend any money. I drew the line at that. So, when you want to do something for next to nothing, you turn to the Internet, which I did.
First out of the gate was toothpaste. Several videos by several people showed them smearing on ordinary toothpaste and wiping it off almost immediately to show a perfectly clear lens. I chuckled and laughed, grabbed some toothpaste and took to the task. Those idiots on YouTube need to be rounded up and charged with giving out false headlight lens advice. The only fitting penalty would be to have each of them eat a tube of toothpaste.
Next up, vinegar. The miracle household chemical. More videos. More instant results. I ran outside, vinegar in hand, applied as directed, and voila! Nothing. Now I had a few more YouTube frauds to add to my hate list.
Baking soda and vinegar. It fizzed which is a sure sign of something that would clear up a headlight lens. If I ever bump into the young man who made the video with that solution, I will pour baking soda and vinegar down his pants.
Baking soda and Murphy’s Oil Soap. OMG, why didn’t I think of that? So obvious. And so ridiculously wrong. I will never forgive the chump that posted that video.
Blue Dawn dish soap and vinegar. When I die I want to be embalmed with Blue Dawn and vinegar. I hope that solution keeps me intact for a while because it absolutely fails as a headlight cleaner.
I took to Facebook and posted my problem. I got several replies but I had obviously misled some of my FB friends as they somehow had the impression that I was willing to pay for a kit to clean my headlight lens. I am not.
However, on Sunday, I had to admit defeat. I went to the store and stared blankly at the couple of dozen kits and ointments that promise to clean up my headlight cover. I got discouraged and walked out with nothing.
Home again, and foolishly cruising the Internet one more time, I noticed this little comment from someone, somewhere who I now have a crush on. “If you’re desperate,” wrote the commenter, “and nothing you have tried has cleared up the problem, apply some baby oil. Buff dry.”
I love baby oil and I would like to officially thank all the babies who got together to create this oil, whatever is in it, I don’t care. My headlight lens is clear as a bell now and I am running all over our property applying baby oil to everything that moves.
My problem was solved for less than a nickel. Less than a nickel is my favourite price to pay for anything. I am tempted to do a YouTube video, but am resisting. I don’t want anyone beating me on the head with a baby oil bottle although I could probably treat that bruising with Blue Dawn and vinegar.
I don’t order fries at any of the drive-thrus in my town much any more, but this night I had a hankering for some so I ordered a medium size with my burger. I asked the woman at the order kiosk if I could have some extra salt with that. If you’re going to eat healthy, never skip the extra salt.
There was a pause on the speaker and finally the young woman server asked me, “What kind of sauce do you want with the fries?”
“No, no,” I said, using two no’s in a row for emphasis. “I want extra salt with my fries.”
“Okay, drive up,” came the reply. I paid for my delicacies and picked them up at the second window. Then found a quiet place to park to enjoy my feast.
A search of the bag my food came in revealed no extra salt, not even one little paper packet. However, I was the lucky winner of seven plastic packets of ketchup. Seven. A couple more and I could have opened my own ketchup store.
I might yet do that anyway. I know a business opportunity when I see one staring at me from a junk food bag.
I suppose I could have gotten upset by this but for once, my empathy gene kicked in and I remembered being frazzled and making mistakes at some of my early jobs. (And at all of my later ones.)
I also had the benefit of knowing how quickly fast-food complaining can go badly wrong. In April of this year in Memphis, a 32-year-old woman was upset about the wait at a restaurant and after arguing with several employees at the joint, she grabbed a gun, leaned into the drive-thru window and opened fire. Fortunately, no one was injured.
This was not a scenario that could play out with me as I cannot fit through a drive-thru window any more, having picked up food at too many of them over the years. And secondly, I had left my gun at home on the kitchen table beside my hockey cards and am not sure I would have used it after being denied a small packet of salt. In fact, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have. I don’t think so.
As for the ketchup, I have put the seven packets on an Internet marketplace at a reasonable discount. With luck, I’ll earn enough for another helping of fries which I will generously salt with the shaker I now carry with me for such emergencies.
I always have thought this was one of the best business strategies I’ve ever heard of. Peter, a friend of mine, owned a business and sometimes had trouble getting his customers to pay their bills. He could send out reminders that an account was overdue and there would be no response. Threatening letters served no purpose either.
So, being a student of human nature, he hit on an idea. If a client owed my friend $300, he would send him an invoice for $900. The wrongly billed customer would be on the phone immediately, protesting strongly the incorrect billing.
“Well, how much do you think you owe me?” my friend would ask his outraged customer.
“I owe you $300,” would be the reply.
“Well,” Peter would say, “if that’s what you think you owe, then I guess I’ll have to accept that. Just send me a cheque.”
A cheque would be in his hand in a day or two from the customer who was grinning with satisfaction while writing it out, knowing that he had shown my friend who the boss in this relationship was. Darned if anybody was going to overbill him.
I also know of a trick another business owner used to employ. This man, a restaurant owner named Bill, whose establishment I often dined in, paid his waitresses in cash. When a new girl got her first pay, she would find $10 more in the envelope than there should have been. If the girl reported the overpayment to her boss, he would let her work the till. Any girl who kept the extra $10 never got near it. His reasoning was that the girl was either a bit dishonest or not very observant and didn’t notice the extra $10. Either way, not a good candidate to be handling the money.
I’ve always thought that was pretty clever.
Also using creative thinking was Tom, a friend of mine, who opened a small diner and who wanted to be able to sell great homemade pies. So he found out who entered the prize-winning pies at the local fall fair and he went to see the bakers, eventually hiring the second-place winner. His diner became known for its great pies, just as he hoped it would.
I can still taste those fantastic cherry pies today. And the lemon meringue would knock your socks off.
President Donald Trump woke up the day after the mid-term election in 2018 and started firing people. That first day, he fired three, just to get warmed up.
The first one he fired was a Hagarty (seriously). Because of this, I feel badly for all the terrible things I wrote about the Donald and the silly memes I shared. It appears that all that negativity that I put out there has affected the employment of one of my distant relatives.
So, to Donald Trump and the Hagarty who lost her job, I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for writing such drivel as this:
Not much new happens to me these days. I don’t really mind that. As I get older, no news is good news, I suppose. Especially from the doctor.
But that changed yesterday as I was surveying the delicacies at a burger joint with my friend Patrick, trying to decide on some special menu items, when the server behind the counter asked me if I would like a Senior Coke.
I was a little startled, to be honest, and asked him to repeat the question in case I hadn’t heard him right. Is that a Coke that’s been sitting around for 60 years? Or is it a Coke that is served by a senior named Orville who is kept in the back for just such a person as me?
What, I wondered, is the difference between a Senior and a Junior Coke? Do Junior Cokes have cartoons of dinosaurs on the glasses and Senior Cokes are those that are served to dinosaurs wearing Coke-bottle glasses?
I decided to take a chance and go for it. I looked at the items being rung in on the mini-tv screen on the back of the till facing me and I saw that the Senior Coke was entered at no charge. I am not sure why I didn’t also qualify for a Senior Burger and Senior Fries, but this is a good start.
This senior business is starting to pay off. Already the cashiers at the grocery stores are bagging my groceries for me sometimes. I guess I look frail or something. Not skinny, just frail.
Sort of like a Senior Man. He is someone that isn’t free like a Senior Coke, but a person who has zero in his wallet.
I drove down to the end of the block and knew something was wrong. Another flat tire. I turned around and drove slowly home.
I had blown a tire a month ago but my friendly local tire dealer fixed it. For ten dollars.
So the day after this latest incident I took my sorry-looking band of rubber off the car, dropped it in the trunk of our other car and headed for my friendly local tire dealer.
However, as I pulled into the shop, something seemed different. Sure enough, I had taken a wrong turn and ended up at a different shop. No problem, I thought. I’m sure they can fix it.
A young man came out to have a look at the tire and it seemed when he saw it he might fall over from shock.
“I can’t do anything with this tire,” he said. “My God, it’s like paper. There’s nothing for me to work with.”
Then he checked it over more carefully and said, “It’s eleven years old.” I never knew tires had dates on them. He showed me where it indicated the tire was made in 2007.
I am not an expert at guessing ages but I estimated this young man might have been eight or nine when the tire was fabricated and he was still in elementary school.
“Sorry,” he said. “Oh, that’s alright,” I comforted him. He genuinely seemed like he felt badly for me. “I’ll be getting my snows on in a week or two.”
So, I left, kind of downhearted, and drove by my friendly local tire dealer, the one I would have gone to if I had any idea where in the world I am at any given time.
“What the heck,” I thought. I pulled in. An older fella, maybe in his 50s, came out and looked at the tire. “Think you can save it?” I asked. “We’ll see what we can do,” was the reply.
I phoned the next day. “Your tire’s all ready,” I was told. “You can pick it up any time.” A few minutes later, I did.
The man from the day before showed me where they had patched a hole. I shelled out another ten dollars, picked up a great 2019 calendar for free and came away with what I think is some sort of life lesson. Not sure what it is. Maybe something about age, experience, etc.
But I will readily admit: An eleven-year-old tire deserves a rest.
A friend of mine had the misfortune of having his pet cat Mr. Digger killed by a car this weekend. He is very upset and missing it. But so is his dog.
The day after the accident, the dog went around the house whining and looking for the cat. It went outside and saw Tony preparing to bury the cat and when he saw it lying on a bench, the dog went over and started nudging it, as if to wake it up. Then it sat down and started crying again.
We tend to think, of course, that animals don’t feel as deeply as we do or form relationships that matter much, especially with members of other species. But that has really been called into question over the past few years and researchers are even studying the phenomenon of non-human creatures caring for each other, regardless of species, in times of need.
A startling video recently showed a dog rushing onto a freeway and pulling, with his paws, another dog which had been hit by a car, off to the shoulder of the road. The dog survived because his buddy had put his life on the line for him.
Our little dog Toby has decided that he is the defender of the nine gerbils that live in two glass tanks in our home. If our two cats go to the tanks to have a look at what’s going on with their potential snacks as they run around, Toby goes on the attack and chases them away.
An article I read years ago pointed to an even odder relationship. A farmer had a horse that spent a lot of time under a particular shade tree up by the barn, a tree that attracted a lot of birds. Eventually, he became aware than one specific bird was doing a lot of squawking when the horse was near and the horse seemed to whinny back.
Every winter, the bird would fly south and when it returned in spring, horse and bird would reunite under the tree for a day before moving on with their lives.
One year, while the bird was down south, the horse died. The farmer buried it in a field and just to remember where it was, counted the fence posts from the barn back to the spot where the horse was interred. It was 22 posts away.
In the spring, when the bird returned, the farmer thought he heard a lot of chirping going on. He went out to see that a bird was sitting on a fence post back behind the barn. He counted them. It was sitting on the 22nd post.
After a day, the bird flew back to his favourite tree and spent its time there. And from then on till it didn’t come back anymore, every spring when the bird returned to the farm it would first go sit on the 22nd post and visit with its friend the horse for a while before going back to the tree.
A touching video can probably still be found on YouTube of a female dog going over and thanking the exhausted firefighter that just saved her puppies from a burning house. And another shows the back seat of a car filled with animals rescued from Hurricane Katrina and though the animals were strangers and of different species, they start caring for each other.
One summer I drove a pop truck and killed a beautiful german shepherd farm dog that ran out in front of me. I got out and went to the farmer who dragged the animal off the road. His kids were all crying and he commanded them to stop. When I apologized, he spoke sternly to me: “It was just a dog,” he said.
Is there such a thing as “just a dog?” I don’t know.
