Author: Jim Hagarty

There is a popular song on the radio these days about a guy who is frustrated that his girlfriend doesn’t share the deep feelings of love he has for her. The singer of the song passionately describes what he would do for this woman. He would catch a grenade for her, put his hand on a blade for her, jump in front of a train for her and even take a bullet through his brain for her. However, he’s concerned that she would not do these same things for him. In fact, he believes that if his body was on fire, she would just stand there and watch him burn.

I am not a professional counsellor but I wish I could spend a little time with this poor lad. First of all, I would advise him that after catching a grenade, cutting his hand on a blade, jumping in front of a train, shooting himself in the head and setting his body on fire, he might be somewhat of a mess and, not to take sides, but after all that, I would think any sensible woman might want to think about whether she would want to do these same things for this guy who would not be much of a prize by then.

So, in that respect, I think she’s probably showing some pretty good judgment where he appears to have no sense of balance whatsoever. Hence, she is quite clearly too good for him and is smart to move on and that’s what he should do too right after he receives some intensive help for these extreme masochistic tendencies of his.

If it was me, I’d choose no girlfriend over a grenade, a blade, a train, a bullet and a body fire any day. Call me selfish if you want, but remember the principle that has guided my life: I’d rather be a live chicken than a dead duck!

©2012 Jim Hagarty

So, Hillary Clinton has pneumonia. Lucky for her – and the world – it is the treatable kind. I had pneumonia a few years ago. I could hardly lift a glass of water to my lips let alone engage in a presidential election campaign.

For six nights, I had to sleep upright in a leather recliner. If I lie flat on my bed, I coughed so violently everything in my body shook loose.

My doctor gave me an antibiotic. Maybe the same one Clinton is on. He said it would get rid of the sickness in seven days. He was bang on.

As for Donald J. Trump, it is a little known fact that he is suffering from a severe case of knowmonia. Victims of this affliction are left not knowing anything but sadly, they are totally unaware that they are as dull as the underside of smooth, round rock. Perversely, and this is the scourge of this disease, victims actually think they know a lot. More than anyone else, in fact.

Sarah Palin has exhibited symptoms of knowmonia for years but she also has frequent bouts of dieherheehaw. There is no cure for knowmonia and little hope for sufferers of dieherheehaw.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

When I was in the news business, I always bristled a bit when people talked about all the bad news in the media and lamented the fact that we didn’t print more good news. But from my point of view, there is no such thing as bad news or good news, there is just news.

An overabundance of apples on the market might mean cheap apple prices for consumers, hence some good news. But, bad news for apple growers and supermarkets whose profits suffer.

When I taught journalism, to make my point, I sometimes told the following true story, which I think makes a statement not only about journalism but also about life. A lifelong bachelor was the winner of $100,000 in one of Canada’s first lotteries back in the ’70s. Good news, right?

My students always agreed it was a good thing that he won the money. He went out and bought a boat with some of his winnings. Great. He went to church on Sunday, dressed in shirt and tie, and afterwards went to where his boat was moored to take it out for its first spin. He leaned over to start the engine and his tie got caught in the propeller which pulled his head under the water and he drowned.

Was his lottery win still a good thing? No, said the students, not a good thing at all. But a minute ago it was a good thing, good news. Everyone agreed it was. Now, they admitted they had been wrong and as things turned out, it wasn’t a good thing at all.

Then I would ask them, if you were wrong to make the judgment that his lottery win was a good thing, are you now correct in declaring that his death is a bad thing?

To me, we are not meant to judge the events of our lives as good or bad, although it might seem to us that death is an obvious bad thing. We just need to accept the twists and turns. I don’t think we have the ability, in fact, to know when something is good or bad. We think we do, but later we change our minds.

How many famous singers or actors or business leaders recall with glee how down they once were when fired from one of their first jobs driving cab or selling encyclopedias? The firing, of course, was just the course correction they needed to get launched in the new direction their lives would take.

Life is an adventure. If we knew where we were going, it would be something else altogether.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

This is one of my fondest memories of growing up on the farm.

One hot summer day, my Dad, my brother and I were standing in a field of young corn, which stood about waist high or lower. I was 10, my brother, 5. The air was still and humid.

Suddenly, Dad saw a whirlwind coming our way because he noticed the top leaves of the corn stalks were twisting. Whirlwinds were common in the summer on the farm. We most often saw them as they picked up dust in the barnyards; they looked like mini tornadoes.

On this day, when the twister got close to us, Dad grabbed the straw hat off my brother’s head and tossed it into the centre of the funnel. The hat shot up quickly as though fired from a cannon. And it stayed aloft, floating in ever widening circles at the top of the twister.

I kept thinking that the hat would soon fall back to earth, but it didn’t. It just kept flying and flying until it was hundreds of feet in the air and drifting southward away from us.

My brother started crying, thinking, as it turned out rightly, that he would never see his hat again. Eventually, to our amazement, a hawk joined the hat in the updraft and the two of them floated effortlessly around and around in a circle that continued to grow wider and wider. In time, hat and hawk became just specks in the sky and finally disappeared from our view altogether.

To a boy my age, this phenomenon cemented the conviction in my mind that my Dad was some sort of super genius as well as hero. But he was born on that farm and had spent all his days on it and was as familiar with its environment as the most wily cat or bird would be.

I didn’t think of this aspect of the story till many years later, but at some point and somewhere, that straw hat would have had to have floated to the ground again, who knows how many farms south of ours. What would have been the reaction of another farmer and his sons if they were out in a field somewhere and saw a straw hat suddenly appear hundreds of feet in the air and slowly drift towards them to the ground?

That poor Dad would have had to think quickly to provide the explanation to a couple of young boys wondering why a hat was suddenly descending from the heavens.

I would like to have heard the story he told them.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

I was sitting in the food court of a shopping mall many miles from home today, catching up on some people watching, when a married couple in their 60s wandered over to a nearby table, sat down and started chatting with some folks they knew. I have never met this couple but I know they are married and have been for a long time. I know this because this man and woman could have passed for twins. Not identical twins, but pretty close. Similar hair styles and colour. Interchangeable, almost unisex clothing. Many mannerisms in common and they talked and laughed in almost perfect symmetry.

A younger couple at another table also resembled each other closely. Both skinny with long black hair and lots of tattoos.

One night a while back I spent an hour waiting in a movie theatre lobby and was shocked at how closely the middle aged (and younger) couples resembled each other. One man and woman both came in with sweaters hanging over their backs, tied in front by the sleeves. Another walked by wearing the same bright colour of yellow except that she wore yellow pants and he wore a yellow shirt.

Numerous couples had almost identical eyeglasses. Some sported leather, others khaki.

I am not the first to notice this phenomenon. People have been pointing this out for generations. But it is amazing to see, nonetheless.

How can it possibly happen that over time, not only the clothing but the physical features of two distinct people can become so blended? Two souls becoming one, perhaps.

For me, somehow, it’s a comforting thing to see. No individuality has been sacrificed and yet, the sum of one and one is greater than two.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

I fancy myself a creative writer. But Donald Trump and everyone and everything associated with him is putting me out of business. I do not have enough imagination to come up with anything better than his reality.

For example, the wife of his ethics lawyer was caught having sex with an inmate in the back of a car outside the jail he was a guest in. Wife of the ethics lawyer.

That’s kind of like getting run over by the Welcome Wagon on your first day in your new town.

Besides, Trump employing an ethics lawyer would be similar to my hiring a chauffeur for the limousine I don’t own. Or a herdsman to look after my stable of unicorns.

I wonder if it’s too late for me to get my electrician’s papers or apprentice as a carpenter. With the U.S. president committed to keeping the world entertained every day, it’s just too hard for a simple guy to compete with his keyboard.

©2017 Jim Hagarty

I bought a big, new, black, plastic garbage can to put out at the street for collection by my city every week. Thirty dollars or so.

Today I noticed, as I was removing a sticker from it, that it has a lifetime warranty. Really?

I am 61 now. When I am 91 and the thing falls apart as I drag it out to the curb, will I really contact somebody about it to get my money back?

The store I bought it at will probably be gone by then. Maybe even the company that made it will no longer be in business. So how much time am I going to be able to spend by then tracking down the people who promised to replace my garbage can if it breaks before my life is over? And it will break because plastic eventually becomes brittle and cracks, especially in a cold climate such as we have in Canada.

And with our garbage pickup guys treating it like they are roping a wild bull at a rodeo, its lifespan will be limited for sure.

So why print “lifetime warranty” on this thing when everyone knows that except for the first few months or even years, if all goes well, those words hold absolutely no meaning? Unless our garbage pickup guys start treating my can as gently as they would if they were knitting a sweater.

It would have been just as true to have printed on the label: “The makers of this product guarantee a warranty on the lifetime of the buyer.”

To be guaranteed to outlive my garbage can and maybe exist forever is a promise I just might try to collect on.

I like it when sensible things like this occur to me.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

My maternal ancestors, the Morrisons, came to Canada from County Mayo in Ireland 160 years ago. As far as I know, we weren’t chased out of the country by a torch-bearing mob of our angry neighbours so it was a peaceful departure.

And while we weren’t reviled, it looks like we might have gotten out of Ireland just in time because the parties celebrating our departure have just gone on and on ever since.

Last week, for example, three Mayo sisters all gave birth at the same hospital in Castlebar ON THE SAME DAY and a fourth sister is due any day now.

Here’s me, a long-ago lost former Mayoan, making an uneducated guess: That was one hell of New Year’s Eve party!

Either that or the Irish in Mayo are a lot more organized and precise than I had given them credit for. So, three first cousins will all share the same birthdays henceforth. A sure savings on balloons and birthday cake at future birthday parties.

But, oh no! When they grow up, there’ll be family New Year’s Eve parties. Extra shifts for the staffs at the Castlebar hospital coming up in a couple of decades or so.

©2015 Jim Hagarty

This has been an exciting week for me. The other day, I bought a lovely wall calendar for 2022.

Just in time for September.

It’s sort of like getting your winter tires installed in April but these are the reasons the expression better late than never was invented.

I walked by the calendar store now and then this year and had my eye on a beautiful big calendar picturing a dog for every month. But the store wanted $24.99 plus tax for the privilege of looking at lovely photos of other people’s dogs. I thought, and my thoughts are usually bang on as I have a good brain, I can look at my own dog any time I want for free so why lay out all that money.

But last week, there it was. Marked down to $1.99 plus tax so into the store I ran before some other bargain hunter scooped it up. My find cost me $2.25. As I believe the world would be a better place if everything cost $2.25, I was very pleased with myself though I did feel a bit sorry for the store.

I should invite the owner over to have a look at my dog.

For free.

My calendar is open for the next four months.

And yes, I know I am in the company of those who eat their food after the best before dates but I grew up before best befores and somehow am still alive. We used to crack the lid on a jar, stick our noses in and take a sniff. If we didn’t faint, we ate whatever was inside. In the years since, I have dug out many a green section from my bricks of cheese.

Some readers might say the best before date on a wall calendar happens long before September 1 and even suggest the calendar should be hung on the wall on January 1. I am sure they have good reasons to think this as well as $24.99 plus tax in their pocket to spend, but I never want to get above my raisin’.

©2022 Jim Hagarty

We’re getting a new fried chicken restaurant in my town and to be honest, I should be happier about this than I am. In fact, I am a bit on edge about it. Apparently, the food at this popular diner is so good, people go crazy when they can’t get it.

On Monday night, in Houston, for example, an armed group of people rushed the door of one of the outlets demanding chicken sandwiches. Restaurant employees reported a mob of two women, three men and a baby were told at the drive-thru that the chicken sandwiches were sold out, a bit of bad news that apparently triggered the would-be customers, especially the baby who threw a total fit, over the top, in fact, even for a baby.

That is when the hungry gang took matters into their own hands and tried to get inside the restaurant. One man pulled a gun on the employees, but a restaurant worker was able to lock them out. When you work at one of these places, you need to be skilled at thwarting attacks by armed mobs.

Call me chicken, no, don’t call me that, when discussing this topic. Maybe coward would be better terminology. But I don’t want to be walking past this new restaurant some night and have to put up with armed would-be diners, especially baby diners. I can just see me getting involved somehow and I don’t think that would turn out well for anyone.

In fact, if I was hungry, who knows what side I might be on? I might take the baby hostage and demand four chicken sandwiches as ransom.

It could happen.

Oh the humanity.

©2019 Jim Hagarty