Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
2015
I just reached an agreement with the gigantic Rogers company today. I will pay them money and they will give me cellphone service. Tonight, they sent me details of the agreement we apparently made. It is 10 pages long and has 10 sections, all with subsections. The document uses 4,655 words to spell out: you give us money, we will give you cellphone service. I tried reading through the thing but all I could see were the dire penalties awaiting me if I so much as fart in their general direction, which I am very tempted to do. (Section 9, Subsection C states: No farting in our general direction.) As far as I can figure, if I stop paying Rogers, they will cut off my cellphone service. So here is my amended contract: “Pay Rogers, use phone. Stop paying Rogers, no phone.” And they can fart in my general direction all day long. I keep my windows closed.

By Jim Hagarty
2006

Today I saw a young man dressed in a black T-shirt with some sort of stylistic eagle on the front and the words MURDER DEATH KILL in large white letters on the back. And I commented to myself on how far T-shirts have come since the innocent days of purple tie-dyed cotton with peace symbols on the front and the word LOVE in big letters on the back.

When did T-shirts cross over the line from fun messages to fighting words, from complaining about parents who visited Florida and brought back only this lousy T-shirt to MURDER DEATH KILL? How much more friendly to see a shirt indicating I’m With Stupid accompanied by an arrow that pointed left or right to where Stupid was walking. Or the shirt I saw a well-endowed young woman wearing a few years ago which boasted, in big letters in the appropriate spots, I May Not Be Perfect But Parts Of Me Are Excellent.

What kind of guy walks into a store, sees a T-shirt emblazoned with MURDER DEATH KILL and says to himself, “Yesiree, I just gotta get me one of them.” And what kind of statement is he trying to make? Does he like murder, death and killing? Does he think there should be more of it? Is he lobbying on behalf of homicide, genocide, suicide?

And, I wonder, how do you talk to a guy in a shirt which is screaming MURDER DEATH KILL? Do you ask him whether he thinks the Leafs have a chance or winning the cup this year? Can you ask him if he liked Seinfeld on Thursday night? Or do you try to find some common ground and express admiration for PJack the Ripper, Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein?

One thing you have to be curious about is whether this guy, who’d be, I’d guess, about 21, has ever witnessed death as it’s occurring, or known anyone who was murdered or who committed suicide. Are MURDER DEATH KILL fine concepts as long as they happen to someone else’s circle of family and friends or would they be welcome in his own?

The truth is probably a lot tamer; maybe he won it at a rock concert or a crazy uncle put it in his stocking last Christmas. For all I know, it’s the name of the new Deadbeat Don and the Blazing Pumpkins’ album. Maybe it’s just his way to attract a bit of attention to himself and he has never once even thought about the concepts he’s carrying around on his back. I can only hope one or all of these possibilities are true.

The other troubling aspect of this young man’s apparel was the context in which it appeared. It was not worn at a rock concert or in a divey bar or at a reunion of Hell’s Angels. It was on the back of a young man at a college where students pay out thousands of dollars per year to carve out a future for themselves in this overcrowded work world. Does MURDER DEATH KILL reflect a commitment to his education, a willingness to get ahead?

Oh, and one other thing. Do police officers give a guy wearing a MURDER DEATH KILL shirt a second glance when they see him on the street? Ah, but that would be censorship, discrimination and persecution, you say.

Okay, okay. Here’s a better solution. I’ll put on my I’m With Stupid shirt and go stand beside the guy, next time I see him. With any luck, he won’t murder, death, kill me.

By Jim Hagarty
2018

The headlines over the past ten days have not been kind to believers:

Evangelical Christian school teacher arrested for having sex with one of her teen students

‘Highly respected’ Alabama evangelist arrested on charges of molesting a teenage boy

Chicago Megachurch Founder Steps Down After Sexual Misconduct Claims

Republican Consultant Orders His Fianceé To Serve As Sex Slave

Crusading Christian DA resigns after being accused of trading light sentences for sex with defendants

Alabama Republican lawmaker gets hauled to jail after corruption investigation

North Carolina Christian day care aide busted after being caught on tape tearing out 18-month-old’s hair

By Jim Hagarty
1987

I was driving down a back road in South Easthope Township the other day (actually, concessions and sideroads are only back roads to outsiders. Everyone in the country lives “just off the main road”) when I saw a pick-up truck bouncing my way. As our vehicles met, the driver of the truck raised one hand from the steering wheel and gave me a friendly wave. Instinctively, I waved back.

Now, a man reared in the city might have spent the next several hours trying to figure out “who the heck” that guy was who waved at him from his truck. Or, if he didn’t know the truck driver, how did the truck driver know him? Or maybe the truck driver just thought he knew him. Or maybe he was just trying to kill a bug and wasn’t waving at all.

In any case, no such thoughts were provoked in me by the man’s wave. Out in the country, waving to a stranger on the road is as natural as not locking the doors on your car. It’s not only a gesture that comes naturally to friendly, rural folk, it’s a long-lived tradition among farmers everywhere and like all customs that endure the changing times, waving to strangers has its assorted unwritten rules and regulations.

For example, there is an age at which it becomes permissible to start waving and before which it is not. Five year olds don’t wave to strangers, especially adults, but by the time they reach 10 or so, it’s allowed, even expected. Makes a boy feel good to have a man wave back. On my trips around the county, I often get a big wave from kids on bikes, who almost end up in the ditch after losing their balance when they raise a hand from their handlebars.

You don’t have to actually look, or smile at the person you’re waving at. The wave says it all. Any style will do, but it’s advisable to stay away from the dainty, little handkerchief wave the women of old used to give their men at dockside before they sailed away to sea. Something more direct and bold, moving your arm from side to side in windshield-wiper fashion, for example, is better.

Pity a family whose farmhouse is located close to the road. They pretty well have to wave to everybody who goes by (unless they live along a major highway, in which case they can forgivably ignore passersby), so being outside on a Sunday afternoon can be a tiring experience. Families in houses well back from the road don’t have to wave.

There seems to be some sort of magical distance a person can be from the road where waving becomes optional. It used to present an annoying dilemma for me when I was out on a tractor, cultivating or plowing a field at the front of the farm. If I was too far back from the road, a wave would look ridiculous. On the other hand, if the tractor got close to the road and I didn’t wave, I felt like a heel.

It’s okay to not have a wave returned. The world, after all, is populated with many unfriendly folk. But to not return a wave is, well, wrong. I often felt so bad when I neglected to wave, especially to a neighbour, I would consider driving past them again just so I could throw my arm out the window and dispel any thoughts they might be entertaining that I was being unfriendly. Because, in the country, to be unfriendly is social suicide, and stupid. In the city, on the other hand, it seems being too friendly is unwise. You just can’t stand around waving at everybody that drives by you or stop and talk to everyone you meet, or you’d get nothing done. But in the country, if you don’t have your neighbours, you haven’t got very much.

If there is more than one person in the car, one wave from one of the occupants will count for the whole crew. That honour’s usually reserved for the father and if he’s not along, the driver or the oldest adult aboard. Waving from a tractor is a must, especially from the kind with no cab. You might get past St. Peter some day if he knew you hadn’t waved from a car, a truck, or a big, modern, glassed-in tractor, but if you go bouncing on your open-air tractor seat past a farmer at his mailbox and don’t wave, forget the prayers, you’re doomed.

As simple as waving from a car window or tractor seat may sound, there are times when the proper thing to do just isn’t clear. For example, do you wave to your father if you meet him on the road? Doesn’t it seem a little ridiculous to wave to someone you ate breakfast with, did the chores with and fixed a fence with only a hour or two ago? The answer is, yes, it is a little silly. However, lest Dad think you’re harbouring a complaint he doesn’t believe you ought to be ruminating over, it might be best to raise a few fingers from the wheel, without actually lifting your hand, so you’ve at least acknowleged his presence. Chances are good he’ll do the same.

What about the police? If you wave at the occupant of a cruiser, will he think you’re being bold and turn around to see what you’re trying to hide by your over-friendliness? And if you don’t wave, will he take that as a sign you’re avoiding him?

A similar dilemma occurs whenever you meet an enemy on the road. To wave might be neighbourly, but it might also betray a weakening in your resolve to keep him reminded of what you think of him. This works: just at the moment when to wave is unavoidable, turn in the tractor seat and look at the cultivator behind you, to see if everything’s all right. Or, if you’re in a car, turn quickly to check on imaginary parcels in the back seat. In both cases, your enemy won’t know if you didn’t wave because you’re still mad or you didn’t wave because you were suddenly distracted. Except that he is unlikely to have seen you not wave because he was probably checking out his plow or glove compartment at the time.

So if you’re driving in the country, and you see someone waving at you, don’t be alarmed or confused. It is not an invitation to drop over for supper and, you’re right, you don’t have a clue who that person is. To a total stranger, the wave means: you’re in friendly territory and you won’t be bothered unless you bother us.

Soldiers salute. Salesmen shake hands. Actors hug.

But farmers wave. And that’s still my favourite form of greeting.

By Jim Hagarty
2014
How much does fear cost? I might have an answer. On Feb. 26, I bought 1,000 shares of Ballard Power Systems for $3.64 a share. The same day, I got a bit nervous as it was a company I had never owned and even though it had been doing great things this year, I “trusted my instincts” and sold it for $3.64, breaking even, except for the trading fees of $19.90. I congratulated myself on my caution. Today, the stock reached a high so far of $9.32. That is an increase of $5.68 in 10 trading days. Had I held on, I would have made $5,680.00 instead of $0.00 and that’s if I sold it today. It might even go higher. The swelling from the self-inflicted claw hammer blows to the side of my head is going down and the doctor thinks I have lost only five IQ points but having plenty left, I should be fine. Also he is still picking some shards of glass out of my shoulder where I hurled myself through a window. Good old FDR: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Most of the jobs college graduates look for when they come out of the schools nowadays didn’t even exist a quarter century ago. At least, they didn’t have names and nobody got paid for doing them.

A while back, I started a list of modern job titles I run across in my daily reading and suddenly realized that all these fancy functions used to be filled free of charge by Mom and Dad.

For example, they both shared the role of performance consultant – Mom reviewing in what shape kids left their bedrooms and Dad urging great effort on the barn chores. Both parents were also family therapists, now and then stepping in between feuding brothers and sisters and helping the seven of us get along without murdering each other.

Mom was a director of long-range planning, starting her Christmas baking way back in October and counting the days until we went back to school in September. Dad was a crop scientist and a weed ecologist, locked in a never-ending struggle to keep the latter from overtaking the former. Mom was a pork adviser, advising us to finish up our bacon and she was also our soil-conservation adviser, instructing us not to wear our muddy boots into her clean kitchen.

Dad was our media-relations coordinator, deciding which kid would be sent out to the road to bring in the newspaper from the mailbox. And Mom was our cereals agronomist, deciding whether we’d be eating corn flakes or puffed wheat for the next week. Dad was our plant pathologist, bringing back crop-condition reports from the fields every day.

Long before there was such a thing, Mom was our family-studies professor, talking us into doing our homework before we turned on the TV and studying her family to make sure we were doing it. And Dad was the poultry-behaviour scientist who kept the eggs coming.

Mom was our environmental manager, directing efforts to keep the house clean and tidy while Dad was the environmental engineer, fixing the furnace when it broke and keeping a roof on the place.

Mom was our food engineer and shared the duties of information engineer with Dad: “For your information, young man, you are NOT staying up till 10 o’clock.” Mom was the design-services engineer, deciding whether the wallpaper would be flowers or stripes. She was also our certified biofeeback therapist and counsellor, giving us awful-tasting pink medicine when we complained of stomach aches and telling us we were good as new.

Mom was our family’s health-care activator, applying mustard plasters and cough syrup as needed. Dad was our water-management supervisor, fixing pipes and drilling wells. He was also the program manager, switching TV channels when the shows got too racy and the artistic director, asking the kids to sing that song we learned at school for the neighbours when they dropped around. And he was also the wildlife rehabilitator, administering needles to the rumps of cattle when they came down with yet another sickness.

Mom and Dad also wore a whole host of other hats as career counsellors, spiritual advisers, transportation engineers, recreation directors, financial consultants and life-skills instructors to name but a few.

But what they were best at being was a mom and dad.

Or is that childcare worker or primary caregiver or youth-activities coordinator or biological parent or …?

©1989 Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2013

There was a full public inquiry into my death as there were some questions surrounding how it happened. The main lawyer conducting the public hearing had some pointed questions for the chief expert.

“Can you tell us what the autopsy of Mr. Hagarty showed?” asked Mr. Nitt Picker, of the chief coroner.

“Yes sir, I can,” replied Dr. Cuttem Openn. “We are 100 per cent certain that Monsters killed Mr. Hagarty.”

“Monsters?” asked the startled Mr. Picker, who was shaken by the findings and had to ask his assistant, Ms. Rabid Badger, to take over.

“How many Monsters do you believe killed the victim?” she asked Dr. Openn. “As many as five, maybe more,” replied the coroner. Ms. Badger turned paler than a glass of skim milk at the news.

“What colour were these Monsters?” she managed to ask. When the doctor replied that they were green, she staggered over to join Nitt Picker on a bench. A third lawyer, Mr. Outtoo Getcha, followed up.

“Where did these Monsters come from?” he asked.

“Apparently from under his bed,” responded Cuttem Openn.

“And why were they under his bed?” asked Mr. Getcha.

“Well, his wife had been after him to quit guzzling these energy drinks and warned him they might kill him someday. So he took to hiding them under his bed.”

Nitt Picker was back on his feet at that startling development.

“Sir, you have been quoted as saying there appears to be some irony in the way this unfortunate but incredibly good-looking man perished. Will you tell the hearing what your theory about this is?”

“Certainly,” agreed Dr. Openn. “When Hagarty was a kid, a number of monsters sneaked under his bed every night, many of them green in colour. And he was sure that some night, they would jump out and kill him in some horrible way.

“But nobody believed him,” said the witness. “Nobody, except the woman he married many years later.”

“Aha!” said Mr. Picker. “So, by telling him to stay away from the Monsters, she was actually encouraging him to drink them because she knew he was a contrarian.”

“That appears to be the case,” said Dr. Openn. Mr. Picker then turned dramatically to Police Chief Hunten Ewe Down and commanded, “Book the poor man’s widow!”

Chief Down handcuffed the defiant and very bossy woman in black and somewhere in Purgatory, Hagarty’s face broke out in a satisfied grin, as a bit of Monster dribbled from his lips and trickled down his chin.

Judge I. Toldya Sew banged her gavel and pronounced the inquiry concluded. She grabbed a Red Bull for the ride home but never made it to her house after running off the road and into a tree.

“That shit’ll kill you some day,” her husband Soh Sew warned her, but she told him that was just a bunch of bull and she was so angry she saw red when she said it.

The End.