Month: June 2016

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

One thing to know about me:
I always say, “I’m sorry.”
But often I’m not.
I fake it a lot.
Also I always worry.

By Jim Hagarty

If I owned a variety store
I’d stock it with guns and much more.
Bazookas and bullets and bombs
And tee shirts that read, “I love Mom.”

I’d have fireworks for kids to let off
And lawn signs that tell you, “Get Off!”
I’d sell bear traps and camouflage shirts
Car stickers that say, “Eat My Dirt!”

I’d sell booze by the pints and the quarts,
And cushions that make great big farts.
Pellet guns, BB guns too,
And stickers that read, “I Hate You!”

And magazines full of nude pics
And pot nicely packaged in bricks.
Along the top shelves in my store
Would be ball caps and jackknives and more.

Yes, I would go hog wild with goods
Like any good, good ole boy would.
Knick knacks and things for the wife.
I’d sell all the good things in life.

And when they showed up to foreclose
I’d yell, “Shove it all up your nose!
“I am free to do what I want.”
Next stop: My own restaurant.

By Jim Hagarty

It is strange the alliances a man makes as he goes through his life and the cruel way he is sometimes forced to bring some of them to an end.

One night five years ago I was in my basement office, working at my desk, when I heard a busy scratching noise in the ceiling above my head. In the fixed, stapled-on, tile ceiling above my head. In the ceiling that took many sweaty hours to affix and which simply could not be taken down to remove the source of a busy, scratching noise, no matter how annoying.

Rising from my chair, I followed the sound across the room as the source of it, which I quickly surmised was probably a member of the rodent family, seemed to be heading for the electrical box cupboard, the one place in the ceiling where it could probably crawl down. Flinging open the cupboard door, I saw a red plastic bag, moving on its own initiative. Grabbing the bag, and whatever was propelling it, I ran up the stairs, through the kitchen and into the garage where I hurled the whole affair onto the cold concrete floor there. From under the bag, scampered a small grey mouse which wasted no time scurrying for a small hole I could see in a corner of the garage next to the house wall. And I knew that, before I was sitting back down at my office table, the mouse was already back lounging in its comfortable ceiling apartment.

Every winter since that time, the mouse and I have shared our below-ground quarters and of the two of us, it has been by far the noisiest. I have no idea what that little guy was up to all that time but it had to be the most industrious rodent on the planet. It would tear from one end of the basement to the other in seconds. When I watched TV, I could hear it above my head. When I was on the computer, there it was again, above my noggin. And even when I slept in my bed, I could hear it dashing back and forth above me. In fact, it sometimes woke me from a deep sleep, so loud were the noises it could produce with its dashing about. I finally realized that it seemed to be following me about the place as it was too much of a coincidence that it could almost always be above whatever spot in the basement I was occupying.

The months went by, reasonably trouble-free for mouse and man, though it never sat very well with me that I had to share my space with a little furry creature who simply decided one day to take up permanent residence in my home.
But then came this past winter and the fortunes of the mouse started into an irreversible decline. To begin with, a telephone line downstairs went mysteriously dead and it didn’t take me long to realize the ceiling dweller had no doubt chewed through the wire. Relating this to a friend, I was told that next on its menu might be an electrical wire and that it could start a fire in the process.

Then my wife produced a newspaper article about a strange illness young children can sometimes get from breathing in the air around mouse poop. Having two young children and, after five years, a few shopping bags full of mouse poop in our ceiling, we realized an eviction was in the works.

The final straw came Christmas Day as we ate our bountiful meal to the sounds of our unwelcome ceiling inhabitant clawing out all the insulation from under our front-door sill, creating an ever-widening crack as it worked. In fact, I left the table to inspect at one point and could see its little leg and claws coming up through the crevice. I didn’t pass on this news to the other diners at the table or I might have spent the rest of the day alone.

However, if I have shared my home for five years with a determined little pest, I have dwelled there even longer with a human being who is even more strong-willed. On New Year’s Eve, she came back from the farm-supply store with a forty-dollar “ultrasonic” noise-maker that promised to drive all the mice in our home to distraction by upsetting their nervous systems, causing them to leave the premises immediately and to seek counselling. With high hopes, I plugged it in at one end of the basement. The sound it made drove all four humans in the house crazy but after a few days, it was apparent it was having no effect on the mouse. Surmising that the little guy probably couldn’t hear it through the ceiling tile, I found a way of fishing it through an opening and setting it up right in its living room. The ensuing, frantic mouse activity that went on almost non-stop for days, led me to realize that far from being the scary noise source the little gizmo promised to be, it was obviously being received by the mouse as a great new sound system and it was no doubt dancing up a storm to its emissions much as a teenager might go berserk at a rock concert. I am sure the mouse wondered at our great generosity in providing it with such a creature comfort.

Another trip to the farm-supply store saw me standing mouth-agog in front of racks and racks of mouse-killing and mouse-trapping machines ranging in price from ninety-nine cents to seventy dollars. After listening for twenty minutes to the sales clerk enumerating the various attributes of each device, I finally ran from the store in a panic, knowing that were I gifted with four university degrees in zoology, biology, sociology and anthropology, there was no absolutely no chance I would pick the right machine. Simple psychology told me that.

However, forced back to the store the next day by the “or else” look in the eyes of my exasperated wife who had visions of the mouse and his poop joining us in bed one night once he’d completely hacked through through the front-door insulation, I impulsively settled on two yellow, easy-to-set traps that promised that our mouse’s final meal would consist of the peanut butter slathered on the “bait cup.” I rushed home with my purchases. Carefully installing them by the hole in the garage wall, I spent the evening running out there to check on their progress.
Saturday night, the mouse had a farewell party, I guess, dancing up a storm to the music from its new sound system and generally having a ball.

Sunday morning, bright and early, I found it, head-first in one of the yellow traps, its mouth covered in peanut butter, its body cold and stiff. I released it into a garbage can, announced the news to my wife, and celebrated victory with a nice cup of coffee.

That night, I went down to the basement, dismantled junior’s sound system, and sat down to watch some TV. But my earlier jubilation at my tormentor’s capture and execution was slowly replaced by a strange and forlorn feeling.

Something, it seemed, akin to loneliness.

For a brief few minutes, I missed the little fella. And I felt just a little too smug in my big, blue easy chair in my big, blue, warm house while my old rec room associate lay stiff in a garbage can in my back yard.

However, sense soon overtook sentiment and I settled down to a relaxing evening, content in the knowledge we all wouldn’t have to die in a house fire or contract some mysterious disease from mouse poop.

Still, when I went to bed, I had trouble drifting off. It was just a little too quiet in the vacated apartment above. An apartment that will no longer be available for tenancy, as soon as I can get back out to the garage to pour some concrete down that darned mouse hole.

Look for that to happen sometime in the next five years.

Jan. 14/02

By Jim Hagarty

Right-wing hate radio hosts in the U.S. go nuts when they are referred to as just entertainers.

They like their listeners to think of them as serious journalists, speaking truth to power and bringing conservative perspectives on major issues to light. This sounds reasonable on their part except for this fact. Some of these shows make use of a company which provides talk radio with “callers” who are essentially paid actors who phone in to praise the host and to ask the host set-up questions that allow him to then take off on his favourite left-wing punching bag of the day.

The radio stations actually pay this company for this service.

So the next time you hear an angry caller to a talk show ranting on about how terrible President Obama and all Democrats are, keep in mind there is a good chance that caller doesn’t hold those beliefs at all but is collecting a paycheque for pretending to be an enraged “ordinary” citizen.

How sinister is that, given that most listeners have no idea this is happening?

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once knew a farmer named Ray
Who only knew how to grow hay.
No corn, beans or wheat
For his livestock to eat.
They got mad and all ran away.

By Jim Hagarty

Funny the things that bring your dad to your mind.

My father was born in the farmhouse his father built and he spent his whole life on the farm. He left school at the age of 12 and spent all his days farming.

My dad farmed in the day when every farm was a “mixed” farm. There was every kind of livestock, every kind of crop. Cows, pigs, chickens, geese and horses. I don’t know about sheep and goats. I don’t think they made the cut.

But Dad was also a beekeeper. They kept the bees for the honey, of course, honey being the sweetener preferred by rural folk who used white sugar sparingly. Over the years, he developed an immunity to bee stings. I remember once, when we were outside working, how a bee landed on his arm and was obviously stinging him. Had this happened to me (which it did a few times) I would have gone into cardiac arrest. Dad didn’t even notice it. When I raised the alarm, he just swatted it away.

By the time I was old enough to be aware of anything, the beekeeping years were over. But for many years after, the strange-looking hives were still stacked beside the garage.

Dad kept up with the times and specialized in beef cattle. I wonder if he ever missed his barnyard menagerie.

For some reason, I was terrified of bees. They seemed to know this and sought me out for target practice. Mostly, I was terrified of pain and bees were masters at delivering that.

This spring, our iris plants have flowered like never before. I take my breaks during the day in a lawnchair next to them. The flowers are full of bees. Not honey bees, but bees nonetheless. They don’t bother me a bit. Sometimes they buzz my head to see if I am an iris and while there are probably lots of purple spots upon my noggin, they can’t be fooled. They soon retreat to the real thing.

I thought of Dad today while sitting beside the iris. Ironic to me now that I have lost my fear of bees. Even bumblebees which used to make me run in terror. I like sitting by the iris on warm spring days. I feel close to my father when I am there. His fearlessness around bees was just more evidence for me that he was the bravest man I knew.

Maybe I’m a little braver now too.

By Jim Hagarty
Here is the title song from a CD recorded by my friend and fellow singer-songwriter Caroline Danowski Burchill. The song was co-written by Caroline and her mother Betty Danowski. It is one of 14 songs on When the Day is Over, all but one of them written by Carolyn. Carolyn has a beautiful voice and graces her audiences with it frequently as she performs often in the southwestern Ontario community we live in and beyond. The CD is available in the Corner Store.

When the Day is Over by Caroline Danowski Burchill

By Jim Hagarty

A man acquires habits.
Some good, some by mistake.
Some habits simply go away.
Some are hard to break.

Some habits pose no threat
While others may be vile.
Some last only a month or so
And others stay a while.

The man with nasty habits
Vows to take control
But habits sometimes settle down
Within his very soul.

The best a habit man can do
With those that bring him grief
Is just relax and not attempt
To turn to a new leaf.

Deny a man a momentary
Pleasure may be fine.
But habits can be patient
And show back up in time.

Make peace with a bad habit
But battle it this way:
Develop better habits
To chase the bad away.

By Jim Hagarty

There are 40 houses on my block in my small city, bounded by Romeo Street on the west end and Burritt Street on the east.

When I moved here in 1986, I was number 40 on the list of homeowners on my street. Mr. Newbie. As fresh as they came. All 39 other homeowners had been in their houses before me, were here when I came. I couldn’t have looked any newer if I had just rolled off the assembly line in the maternity ward of the local hospital just up the street where, indeed, the world became a brighter place one snowy January day in 1951.

That was 30 years ago last month since the movers dumped all my stuff at my house while I was at work and now, through the twin miracles of Time and Life, I am number 6 on the list. Thirty-four of the 39 homeowners that used to be ahead of me have moved on, one way or the other, either to other towns, other homes or that glowing condo in the sky.

I am gunning for number 1 so I can legitimately be called King of Albert Street, although I suspect that’s what everyone calls me now anyway (because of my vast wealth – and the moat I dug around our castle.)

I see George down the street has his house up for sale. I will soon be Number 5.

Before I got here, I had moved 11 times in my life. When I first walked in the front door of the house I’ve called home for the past 30 years, I said to myself, “They can carry me out of here someday.” That prospect is looking more and more likely.

I like it here.

As King of Albert Street, I plan to rule as an benevolent monarch. My first move will be to knight my neighbour Jim across the street. He keeps me filled in daily on all latest neighbourhood news. The thing you have to do as a benign ruler is always keep your ear to the ground.

And be good to your subjects.

On the day of my coronation, there will be free cherry pie for everyone!