Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There once was a worm named Ben
Who could count but only to ten.
He had no career path
Cause he couldn’t do math.
So he went back to digging again.

By Jim Hagarty

Some wise guy once said something to the effect that what we mock, we shall become.

I think I’ve proved the truth of his statement because after years of laughing hysterically, in print, at the writers of self-help books, I became such an animal myself a few years ago. Asked to “ghost” write a book for a man who has a lot of good ideas about successful living but who readily admits to not being a writer, I took up the challenge. By doing so, I became the first self-help-book writer I had ever actually met face to face. Somehow, I thought I’d be taller. And sexier.

The biggest impression I held about the kind of guy who sits down to tell the rest of the world how to live in 10 easy steps was that he would definitely have all his ducks in a row, so to speak. If he didn’t, what business would he have laying out a pattern for others to follow? And having read a few of these books over the years (for research purposes only, of course) it struck me that the authors of these words of wisdom really do seem to have it all together. Whether they’re offering suggestions on conquering clutter, losing weight, disciplining kids, thinking positively or finding romance, the self-help writers of the world seem to be in a together class all of their own.

The very fact that a person steps forward to provide solutions to the thorniest problems of day-to-day life is conclusive proof of his togetherness. How much confidence would you have to possess to think that what you have to throw into the mix will in any way improve anything for anyone, other than, perhaps, your own bank account? My guess is, you’d be a solid rock on a shore of shifting sand.

So, whatever my suitability for the task, I sat down to write this latest contribution to the health and welfare of humanity with all the bravado I could muster. And within a few months, I had a rough draft completed and neatly bound up in a green binder, awaiting approval of it from the man who had commissioned it.

One fine spring day, around this time, I found myself in my car, cruising a back road and doing far too much thinking about things. In short, I was in a muddle of tangled thoughts and emotions regarding a couple of decisions that needed to be made and I was having, I’ll admit it, a rather rough time of it. A mental tornado was ripping and tearing through my brain, leaving uprooted trees and overturned houses in his wake. Or, to put it more simply, I was having a really bad day.

What to do, what to do?

I pulled my car into a quiet, country cemetery driveway and turned it off. Glancing down at the seat beside me, I spied the green binder with the self-help book I’d written contained within its covers. I had no other reading matter in my vehicle.

Now, here was my dilemma. Would there not be something really perverse about looking for answers to your problems in a self-help book you had written to help others with their problems? Would it be like a psychologist counselling himself in the mirror? Or a doctor performing surgery on himself? Or even worse, would it be like dating your own sister?

Whatever it would be like, it wasn’t long before I was leafing through the very familiar pages for an answer. And soon I found it, in a chapter I had entitled Underlying Our Anxiety. Then I went to three others: The Puzzle of Passivity; The Opportunity In Risk; Getting Beyond Perfectionism.

And finally, there it was. It jumped off the page at me: “Anxiety is caused by avoidance.”

Aha!

Within a few moments, my distress began to dissipate and I saw what I needed to do. I simply had to make a decision, right or wrong, and live with the consequences knowing I could always make another decision later if the first one turned out wrong.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In fact, I did say it myself.

I returned to my office that day, now calm, now together again, and the irony of a self-help writer helping himself through his self-help writing struck me. And I wondered whether or not Wayne Dyer or Norman Vincent Peale ever delved through any of their own many volumes when they were having a bad day.

Or did those guys ever have a bad day? If they did, and they didn’t read their own stuff, whose stuff did they read for help?

These are questions I am going to need help to find answers for.

Maybe I’ll find them in the next book I write.

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.

By Jim Hagarty

It is no secret that Canadians have a slight inferiority complex. I don’t see that as a bad thing; it keeps us from thinking we own the world.

But we like to be recognized by the outside world, especially the United States. We get a kick out of any recognition we can get from the U.S. It is usually positive.

Canada is a bit of a hotbed for humour and we have produced a lot of funny people in our time. Especially funny writers who for decades have found steady employment writing for TV shows and movies made in the U.S.

I am a big lover of sitcoms and a lot of these shows coming from south of the border have at least one Canadian writer on staff. Lorne Michaels, for example, creator and head poobah on Saturday Night Live, is Canadian.

Because of the Canadian influence, perhaps, there are sporadic references to Canada in sitcoms, especially, and I love it when they sneak them in.

Last week, on the popular show, New Girl, Jessie was preparing a little grab bag of gifts for her girlfriend who is getting married. She started rifling through the crazy gifts she had bought her, goofy things she though Cece would like. One of the items she pulled out was a picture of our new prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

“Yay for us,” I thought.

Back home in Canada, poor Trudeau is being roasted these days for supposedly being too much of a glory hog. But the brief shout out didn’t hurt my feelings one bit.

There are worse things our leader could be noted for than being handsome, fun-loving, smart and caring.

Just like we all are up here in the Great White North, white, by the way, referring to our close relationship with snow.

I think, in fact, that it was a Canadian who invented snow.

It’s a shame we didn’t patent it because it seems to have really caught on.

By Jim Hagarty

This is a song I wrote a long time ago after I had left the farm and was in university. One night I was supposed to be studying for exams when I picked up the guitar instead. The only place I wanted to be was back home, riding a tractor, feeding the cattle. Almost 50 years later, although even if I could I wouldn’t want to live there again, I still miss the place. Christine Manor is my fictitious name for the farm. There was a farm around the corner from ours which had big stone gates at the entrance and a name with the word Manor in it. The painting above was done in her later life by my aunt Kathleen who grew up on the farm. It depicts our barn, erected in 1899, and which still stands.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once knew a man named Chuck
Who was friends with a fat little duck.
He was taken aback
When his pal wouldn’t quack
So he sold it to buy an old truck.

By Jim Hagarty

My perfect Sunday afternoon today.

Mom asleep in the living room recliner.
Daughter asleep on the living room loveseat.
Dad asleep on the living room couch.
Dog asleep on Dad.
Cat asleep on the living room carpet.
Secondary cat asleep on the computer chair.

Can’t remember which one, but I think we were observing one of the Ten Commandments. And being unconscious, were unable to break any of the other nine.

For an hour, at least.

It was nice.

By Stephanie Martin
www.stephalmostfifty.blogspot.ca

I like to think of middle age as a “mid-life awakening” rather than “mid-life crisis”, a time when we “wake up and snap out of it” and realize we are middle age.

For some people, age is something they fear, or think is negative, or always thought they’d never experience. But no one is exempt from aging unless we expire early and in which case, aging is definitely the better option.

So we arrive at mid life and realize time is not waiting for us. It is no longer something to squander. If we are vain, well, looks change. If we have depended on our body and our image, it is likely to be our perception that our body is going to betray us in the next decade. If we have been a caregiver we may look in the mirror, and see an older more tired version of our once perky self. We may find regret in our life and lost time we can never retrieve.

During my 30s, I was busy as a stay-at-home mom, losing both my parents between the age of 29 and 37. My life was jam packed with raising (and having) children and helping my mom through cancer after losing my dad to a stroke, and one day it seemed I woke up and I was 40. There was hardly any time to really stop and think prior to that. I have no regret as I lived my life doing what I wanted to do.

But most of us look up, intermittently during raising our children, out of the flurry of action and craziness and realize time has passed. How did that happen? Even now, many of us are still on the mountainous climb of parenthood. We just can’t get off, because we’re only half way up the mountain.

People who do not have children do not seem to realize they have aged. They do not have that child to watch as a gauge of the passing of time. There’s nothing like looking at a 23-year-old son to know you are not as young as you once were.

So now we look up, the big birthday approaches, the 40th, the 50th. It is “mid-life” and as my friend said at 60, “I now realize I am no longer middle age, since I haven’t met any 120-year-olds.” At 49, I too, am likely past middle age.

When the marker age hits and the feeling of upset comes over us, it’s simply because all of our “taken for granteds” have up and left. The gift of youth has left. Now time is not on our side. It has ditched us while life got busy and we possibly missed a whole decade in the midst of keeping homes afloat, bosses happy, kids fed and relationships together.

What to do next?

We need to chill out. This is a natural process and doesn’t need to be painful or earth-shattering. It can be a fantastic transitional time where we set ourselves up for new and great things, cutting out a whole lot of bullshit in the process.

Time to ask a few questions:

What is our life missing? Do we hate our job? Are we happy? Did we give it all away, and now we’re angry? Have we done anything for ourselves and not just for everyone else if we are the caregiver type?

Are we vain and have never needed to look any deeper within ourselves? If so things are about to change and it’s much easier and far more graceful to accept reality rather than to fight against it. Finding beauty, real beauty is far more attractive than trying to desperately cling to vanity. Time to dig deep.

What hobby do we want to try? Why would we not try it? Why would we not take one hour out of the week for ourselves and do something that might make us feel great?

How is our love life? Are we afraid of aging or dying? Do we believe that we are in the driver’s seat for our journey? (In my case, I drove myself here, and I dropped myself off!)

Do we feel like we have options? What do we want? What are our dreams and desires? Do we think we can have them? Do we think we should have them? Shouldn’t everyone?

There is a bit of a slumber or “oblivion” that goes along with youth. A blissful sort of “not knowing” out in La La Land that I really do miss, and yes, oh how I did love it!

But no more not knowing.

Now if anyone (or our inside voice) tells us it’s too late, let’s kick their ass and opinions to the curb! It is never too late to re-invent ourselves and to be happy on the journey.

We are greater than the trap we often fall into and have greater reach than we know. In fact, thank goodness for “mid-life upset” as it gets us off of our complacent asses.

And we really need to get over the issue of death. We are all on the same train. Some of us are on the 9 o’clock and some of us are on the 11 o’clock, but be sure of one thing, we are all getting on that train. So just like aging, let’s embrace the process and stop fighting it. It is a waste of time. We are guaranteed only this moment and why would we not live it?

The time is now! That is what our mid-life moment is telling us.

Retirement is a useless concept. Some people don’t make it that far, and how many people do we know that got sick shortly after retirement?

But I realize the older I get, the less adventurous I feel and the more having a bowl of cereal for supper and an early bedtime seems blissful! That too is OK.

But let’s do it now and take the kids!

And love? We need to be happy first and in love second. Not only be happy. Be mature, be thoughtful, be kind, be fulfilled, be enriched. Take all of the bad things that happen and use them to help us know good, or at the very least to help us to know what we don’t want!

This is not about living a perfect life. Yes there is compromise, and it can’t always happen this very second, but we can make the choice to start on a path.

Messy is a part of everyone’s life, conflict is too, loss is guaranteed, hurt is inevitable, but I heard once that misery is optional.

Let’s take chances, tell people we love them, treat them the way we want to be treated, and always move forward. Maybe the bookstore is as far as we can get this week, or the park, or the front porch. But let’s go!

One of my favourite authors wrote her first best sellers in her 60s and wrote many more for decades. I’m sure she went to the other side when she died much happier than if she’d believed the nonsense of slowing down when you are older.

One of my closest friends is 74 and plays several instruments. We are having a blast learning the mandolin together, even if it is, in her words, a “miserable little prick to tune.”

Who gives a hoot about what anyone will think of us? The comparison game is silly, as no matter who we are, there will always be someone younger, someone prettier, someone more athletic, someone more talented, someone wittier, someone smarter, someone happier. But there is only one of us.

Mid life should be embraced. We have so much to offer to others, things we didn’t know at 20: empathy, understanding and knowledge. We have many accomplishments, families and experiences because we have lived this long.

Yes we have wrinkles and some of us moms, stretch marks. So what?

For me, putting my thoughts out there for others to read is scary, but what the hell? This is my opportunity to move past my own fear at “almost fifty” and at least try something new.

I love to help and I have thought about aging and wish I could have read this approach instead of what I always heard about “mid-life crisis”: He bought a sports car and had an affair, and she is a cougar which is all a negative, nonsensical, North American, old-school pile of hooey. Maybe some insight would have allowed me to move a bit quicker and grow further and be more supported.

I’m not saying that everyone shouldn’t hit mid life and have a sports car and want to look 10 years younger but I think it may be better done with a clearer understanding and intention. I feel like at “almost fifty” I am still transitioning out of my mid life. Who knows, I could end up to be 98 and still blogging.

Let’s be brave, have fun and expand. Maybe we’ll all be blogging at 100. So some day we can say, “Woo hoo! What a ride!”

Or if we leave on an earlier train, we have no regrets and know in our hearts, we have left no stone unturned.

And we were darned good on the mandolin.

By Jim Hagarty

When you were raised on a farm, only some of your farmish ways leave you when you make your way into the concrete jungle.

One thing that sticks with you is the inventiveness you learn as you watch lifelong farmers at work, making do with whatever they happen to have lying around.

Every farmer is an inventor. Two characteristics of farming make this necessary. There is often not enough money on hand to buy the latest and greatest gadget. And there is rarely the time available to go make such a purchase, even if the bank account allowed it.

And I guess there is a third reason. The farmers I knew growing up took great delight in finding ways to solve problems that didn’t involve sitting across the desk, straw hat in hand, from a stern-faced, stingy banker.

My Dad could never afford a four-wheel-drive tractor. He had several good old tractors, but none of them were super powerful machines. For awhile, the closest thing he had to a heavy-duty tractor was a John Deere AR.

One wet fall, the ground was too soggy to harvest the corn. The John Deere bogged down in the muck as it tried to pull the harvester.

Needed was a four-wheel-drive.

As it happened, a neighbour owned an identical John Deere AR. So, with the help of that farmer and our friendly local welder, Dad borrowed the other tractor, removed its front wheels, and hooked the two tractors together, the one without the front wheels behind the one that still had them. Our welder made the alterations and he also connected up the clutches and throttles of both tractors.

Cars stopped along the road to see the strangest thing their drivers had witnessed in a while. A corn harvester being successfully drawn through a muddy field by two identical tractors joined end to end.

The experiment was never repeated. Maybe it wasn’t the raving success I remember it being.

But failures never entered into the picture. It was simply on to the next creative solution.

Last month, I was scheduled to play a concert, opening for a singer-songwriter who was a boyhood hero of mine. It was a big moment for me, kind of a dream come true.

But before the concert, the leather belt I had paid $40.00 for, broke and could not be repaired. I could have raced out to the store and bought another one.

But there’s that farmer’s son thing …

I went out to my garage to find a substitute. I wasn’t there long before I spied a black bungee cord.

And so, I walked out on the stage at the biggest musical event of my life, water bottle in one hand, guitar in the other …

And a bungee cord holding up my blue jeans.

The concert was a success. And so, apparently, was the bungee cord.

So I kept wearing it.

But the thing about bungee cords is, they stretch. After a few weeks, it had to be retired.

But I know that somewhere on my property, there exists an item, maybe made of twine, maybe made of chain link, that will make for a suitable replacement.

One thing I do know for sure.

No more $40.00 belts for me.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There once was a man named Claude
Who is six feet under the sod.
I’ve forgotten to say
He ended his days
Not with a yell but a nod.