Crying Big Tears

By Jim Hagarty

I don’t cry often enough.

I go to funerals and stand there like the statue of Liberty, if the Statue of Liberty was dressed in an ill-fitting suit, that is.

Generally, I cry twice a year.

I cry when I send in my annual tax return and realize, yet again, that I don’t owe the government any more money. Just once I would like to mail off a big cheque.

The other time I start bawling is when I read stories about how my favourite TV shows have been cancelled. I am not a revolutionary at heart, but at times such as these I feel like burning something to the ground.

I watch a show all year, get to love the characters, and then poof. Somebody in a suit in an office somewhere far away, who could do with a good strangling, pulls the plug.

I have a good life, but it is littered with the remnants of shows I once loved.

Pardon me, but I need to be alone for a while just now.

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.