The Projects

By Jim Hagarty

When a man retires from working life
He wonders what to do.
He soon takes up a whole new way
Of living, thinking too.

The days stretch out before him
Like endless oceans blue.
But standing there is no one
To tell him what to do.

He makes a list of all the things
That really should be done,
And sets the list down somewhere
And doesn’t do a one.

He could go here, he could go there
The car stays in the drive.
He doesn’t bathe, he doesn’t eat,
And soon feels half alive.

The only hope that this man has,
And no one will object,
He needs to look around his house.
And start a new project.

A project concentrates his mind
And gets him off his ass.
It makes him feel alive again
And helps the time to pass.

Knee deep in everything he needs
Like hammers, wood and tin,
The retiree will build back up
His confidence again.

So if you want your retiree
Around a few more years.
Don’t protest all his projects,
They chase away his fears.

Author: Jim Hagarty

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.