Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once knew a bee named Bob
Who was an unrepentant slob.
He stole all the honey
And sold it for money.
Then sat on his bum like a blob.

By Jim Hagarty

You know what?

I’ll tell you what.

I’m sick of you know what.

That’s what.

I’m fed up with hearing radio commentators, sports heroes, average Joes and my own family members punctuate their sentences with you know what.

You know what I’m talking about?

The rich and famous, the poor and bedraggled apparently can no longer begin a statement without you know what.

Why and how and when did what make such an emergence to the front of the pack of most abused words in the English language?

I’ll tell you what is literally driving me crazy.

In the good old days, we kept things simple when we mumbled. To get from one part of a sentence to the profound thought that was going to be unfurled in the second part, we used a sturdy little bridge known as you know.

“So I stopped at the light, you know, and finally it turned green, you know, and this guy in a big truck, you know, well, he just, you know, pulled out in front of me. You know?”

You know, it took me many, many years to get used to you know. But at last I realized it was just the short form of do you know what I mean to say and I was grateful that at least I didn’t have to listen to people use the entire expression.

But then some wise person somewhere decided he or she had gotten too good for you know and so added one more little word into the mix. And presto, up from obscurity rose our first annoying expression of the New Millennium.

The first person who can go a whole day without either using this little bit of verbal dribble or hearing it spewed by some unthinking character, can send in two box tops and a loonie and I’ll send you …. No, you know what? Make that three box tops. And I’ll send you a framed portrait of Gordie Howe. Heck! You know what? I’ll send you two framed portraits of Gordie Howe.

This is how it goes down.

“I’ll take out the recycling in the morning. No. You know what? I’ll do it right now, and then it’s done.”

So, we use you know what to indicate that we have changed our minds. We are not really curious as to whether or not the person with whom we are conversing knows what.

But more often, we use it as a statement of defiance. So, you know what, I am going to do what I want to do in spite of your objections or the possible repercussions to myself.

So, as the linguistic Luddite that I have become, ever critical of new expressions that are foisted on us from who knows where, I have been fuming over you know what all winter.

Where did you know what come from?

Who first used you know what?

And as I sat depressing myself with such questions one morning, while my children watched a kids’ show on TV, I heard the words coming out of the little black box that sits on top of my Mom’s old sewing machine.

“You know what?” said a girlish voice in the TV. “I’ll tell you what.”

Pulling my head out from under the cushion where I was hiding it, I leapt from the couch and stared at the screen.

You know what?

There she was. The one responsible for all this mess.

Her name is Marigold and she’s a character on a Canadian show called Polka Dot Shorts. She’s a big, flat-faced ragdoll that looks like the flower from which her name came.

I sat and watched.

Twenty times in one show she said, “You know what? I’ll tell you what,” all the while skipping about like she had to go to the bathroom really badly.

Could it be, I wondered, that a ragdoll with a bothersome bladder could be responsible for causing such leading lights as Wayne Gretzky to sprinkle you know what over his dialogue like he would salt on his eggs?

But, you know what? I’ve decided it just doesn’t matter any more.

I’ll tell you what.

I’m just gonna go with the flow.

If it’s good enough for famous people then, you know what?

It’s good enough for me.

That’s what!

By Jim Hagarty
This is a song from an album called Remembering Rankin by my friend and fellow singer-songwriter Ted Schinbein. For years Ted has hosted weekly jam sessions in his studio and now and then, I sing this song. In the early ’70s, Ted worked for a few years in Rankin Inlet in northern Canada. In 2004, he released this CD as a tribute to those times and the people he met. The CD is available in the Corner Store.

Did You Ever Wish You Were a Cowboy by Ted Schinbein

By Jim Hagarty

Many years ago, at the end of our one and only date, the young woman I had escorted to the movies turned to me, before she jumped out of the car, and declared, “You are the most miserable man I have ever met.”

This was a big and bitter pill to swallow. Especially since I thought I had been on my best behaviour. And given there was an entire two-hour chunk of silence between us while we watched the movie, how had there been enough time left over for me to reveal such extreme miserablness?

Later, I thought about this rather startling reaction from this nice young woman.

Here is what I concluded.

1. She was possibly an excellent miserable detector. (I met her Dad. Yikes!)

2. She had possibly not dated enough miserable men to draw such a definitive conclusion.

3. Our date hadn’t gone that well.

By Jim Hagarty

Where is my friendly bumble bee spotter when I need him?

Last summer I was walking across my front lawn when a 30 something man pulled over in an old car, rolled down his old window and asked me if I had seen any bumble bees. I prepared to hand over my wallet and plead for my life. But he was serious. He was a bumble bee spotter. After a 10-minute conversation with him, I was ready to forfeit my wallet and my life.

Today in my travels I have seen two gigantic bumble bees. Where’s Mr. Bee Man now, I wondered.

Then I wondered how much bee spotting pays.

If it’s lucrative, I’d be happy to get buzzy.

By Jim Hagarty

Apparently “Wii” doesn’t include “Mii.”

I was looking forward all week to my son heading out for a few days houseboating with friends far away. It meant I could once again gain admission to the fabulous mancave my son has fashioned in our backyard.

The shed is off limits to me when occupied by its creator. Even though I built it years before he was born. Since its transformation from extreme clutter collection depot to nicely turned out hangout for people many decades younger than I, my presence within its four walls has not been required.

But when the usual occupants of said shed are hours away, floating along on some lake, my presence is not only permitted, it is essential.

Located in the shed is a nice big TV hooked up to various gaming machines, one of which, a Wii, is the perfect conduit for shows on Netflix.

Five minutes after the houseboaters left our driveway, I was situated in front of the TV, all the fixin’s I would need carefully lined up on the table beside the couch. Four days of nothing but Netflix stretched out before me. I turned on the TV, then the Wii and …

Nothing.

I tried a few desperate repairs.

Nothing.

I frantically texted my son who at that moment was en route. What is wrong with the Wii, I wanted to know. “Nothing,” came the reply. “I was just watching Netflix before my ride came.”

That was Friday at noon. My efforts at Wii revival continued all Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday and for a half day on Monday. There were wires everywhere, plugs unplugged and plugged, buttons pressed, machines reset. My final resort might have been to completely disassemble the shed and start over.

Monday afternoon, my son returned.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do about the Wii,” I told him when he finally came into the house.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “It’s working fine.”

Another father might be suspicious there is a Dad Disabling Key I don’t know anything about. But not me, of course.

I guess the answer is the Wii is for thee and not for me.

What else could it be?

By Jim Hagarty

I might have tried to help you
If I’d known what to say.
I wouldn’t want to misspeak
And watch you run away.

I might have tried to help you
If I’d known what to do.
I wouldn’t want to misstep
And end up losing you.

I might have tried to help you
I’m sorry that I let
My fear stop me from trying.
That’s something I regret.

I might have tried to help you
By being a good friend.
That’s all I have to offer.
I’ll be here till the end.

By Jim Hagarty

Are “dead-tree” newspapers in trouble?

I have no access to credible data with which to answer that question, yes or no.

But as someone who spent his career as an “ink-stained wretch” in a day and age when ink was actually bought by the barrel, I have an observation or two, from personal experience.

I haven’t bought a newspaper in a couple of years. Not many years ago, I might buy two national dailies a day, if there was a big political story in the news. And I read the darned things, wall to wall.

Being cheap, I mostly made do with the free papers in the coffee shops. I would spend an hour or two at my table, papers all spread out, soaking up every word.

Now I go to coffee shops and walk right by the papers. Their news will be old and their commentary mild, focused mainly on being careful not to piss off advertisers who are becoming as rare as top hats in Tennessee. When the readers leave, the advertisers eventually follow them and it’s only a matter of time.

And if the newspaper in industry has lost me, a lifelong lover of the papers, my guess is they are in trouble.

But a more worrisome development is this. I have a son, 20, and a daughter, 18. They are up on the news. They love the news and follow it almost as much as I do. And as far as I know, they have never bought a newspaper in their lives. I don’t know if they ever will. They follow the news electronically, as I do these days as well.

We have two papers coming into the house. A free weekly which nobody even looks at. And a daily, my old stomping grounds, which we pay $18 a month for and keep getting, partly out of loyalty and partly for the fact that it is still the only credible source of local news. But today, opening it up is like opening a big bag of potato chips only to find it is 80 per cent air. When I was an editor there, 16 of us toiled away for good paycheques and produced some pretty good journalism. Now there are five people in the newsroom.

We do subscribe to a weekly newsmagazine but it mostly gathers dust. It is as good as it ever was but there is just to much competition at our place with four active laptops in the house (and a couple of standbys), four smartphones, and four plugged-in TVs with a few others waiting their turn.

When I was five years old, my parents took a photo of me standing beside a gigantic workhorse in our laneway. The horse was on its way off the farm and was our last one. We used to have several and they pulled all the farm implements for generations.

I need to have another photo of me standing in our driveway with the delivery boy when he brings us our last newspaper.

Probably some day soon.

By Jim Hagarty
Makin’ Do is another cut written and recorded by singer-songwriter Michael “Earnie” Taylor on his album Folk ‘n’Western, available in the Corner Store. There are 15 songs in the wonderful recording.

Making Do by Earnie Taylor

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

We once had a goose named Zeke.
He hung out down by our creek.
He waddled and honked
But then he got bonked
By a rock and boy did he shriek.