The Hammer and the Nail

By Jim Hagarty
2007

This story ends sadly. If you’re not in the mood to get choked up, you might want to move on.

I attended a school play on bullying this week and for much of it, I had tears in my eyes. Maybe that’s because this has always been a subject close to my heart. It seems, in my poor memory, that I spent half my early school days on my back in the schoolyard with somebody sitting on my chest, beating on my head. I know (and you know) that this isn’t true, well, not completely, but bullying was part of my early years and belongs to my story. I don’t use it as an excuse to give to others but more as an explanation for myself in those areas of my life where the word why is hard to answer sometimes.

The truth is that we were hard on each other 50 years ago. However, we didn’t use guns or knives. I might not be here now if they’d been popular then. The irony is all the kids in our school lived on farms where there was a gun or two in the shed. Most kids now never see a real gun that actually shoots real bullets.

The last time I wrote about bullying, l had an older fellow call me up with this story.

As a young and scrawny kid, he was a favourite target of a bully at school. He got sick of it, and one summer got someone to teach him how to box. He went to camp that year – the same one as did his tormentor – and one day the camp leader pulled out some boxing gloves and called for someone who would like to box. Our hero stepped forward.

“Now, who do you want to box?” he was asked.

“I want to box that guy,” he said, pointing to the bully, who smiled a wide grin and stepped into the ring.

You know where this is going. You know how it ended. He didn’t get bullied any more after that.

Thankfully, today, kids are learning a completely different model. And yet, sadly, bullying is still going on. Maybe more than ever. A lion’s share of it through the Internet. Maybe human nature’s not as changeable as we like to think.

One thing we assume is that when we become adults, the bullying ends. We stop getting bullied – and we stop bullying others. Maybe I have a jaundiced outlook, but I have never found that to be true even one time.

Yes, there is goodness and love all around us and thank God there is. But the brutality is astonishing. And it is made even worse by this insane idea we have that it isn’t even there.

Forty years in the workforce will convince you – or at least it has me – that bullying is alive and well in adults as well as kids. The term “dog-eat-dog world” was not coined for no reason. People climb over each other to get to the top. And they can be nasty in a hundred clever and cruel ways.

But where we really delude ourselves is when we think that we, ourselves, don’t do it and maybe never have. We don’t think that we are sometimes the hammer and sometimes the nail.

And here’s where the story turns sad. At least for me.

In that same school I talked about, when I was a kid, there was a girl who was not so pretty (at least by our standards). She was chubby. She didn’t have great clothes. She spoke with what seemed like a very unpleasant, funny voice, especially when she got mad. And she got mad pretty often because she was teased. And I hate to say, though I like to think I wasn’t the worst, that I was in there too with my share of taunts.

One day, she didn’t show up to school. That one day turned into one week. Then two. And three. There was no explanation.

The teacher asked for our attention one day and told us that our classmate would not be back to school again. That she had died overnight. She was the first person I knew in the flesh who had died.

I sometimes think of her now and how miserable we made her few short years on this earth. The memory helps to keep my self-righteousness in check when bullying is under discussion.

May she rest in peace.

And may we be forgiven.

Slip Slidin’ Away

By Jim Hagarty
2015

A man’s life progresses through only a few predictable stages: sex, suds, success and sitting. But try as he might to avoid it, he will eventually end up in the final and most important phase: slippers. Whatever priorities he might have chased down the decades, there will eventually be only one main question to be answered in his life: Has anybody seen my slippers?

Slippers have been important to me since my 20s but now they form one of my key essentials for life along with water, air and potato chips. A few years ago, a glorious pair of bedroom footwear sat under the Christmas tree for me. The two main events in a man’s life are the birth of his children and new slippers for Christmas. Some free advice: To win a man’s love, get him slippers for Christmas. And don’t cheap out.

My new slippers and I enjoyed our days and nights together, even on out of town trips as they went everywhere with me. Then suddenly one day, things changed. The slippers stretched into almost a size too big for me and they began to feel like flip flops. They became, inexplicably, way too big. I began tripping when I wore them. I tripped up the stairs and down the stairs and sometimes even on simple strolls from the living room to the potato chip cupboard. If it was possible for them to trip me when I was standing still, I am sure they did that too. I stopped wearing them in the bathtub. Too dangerous.

“These slippers are going to be the end of me,” I yelled to anyone several times a day. The pets started fleeing when they saw me slip on my indoor footwear as they knew an emotional eruption would soon follow. I began to call them my Killer Slippers and recently they sent me flying headfirst into a wooden chair which carved me up like a jack o’ lantern.

Only one solution and it would be drastic: Ditch the slippers. I asked for a new pair for Christmas and arrangements were made. New slippers wrapped and ready for service Sir! Yes Sir, Sir!

Yesterday I was cleaning up the garage and found some other slippers. They fit perfectly. Like long lost friends. I looked more closely at the Killer Slippers. They belong to my son who has bigger feet than me. He abandoned them years ago: They were too big for him.

Here are the six stages of a man’s life: sex, suds, success, slippers, sitting. And senility. I had put the big ones on by accident one day years ago and never took them off.

Christmas is cancelled.

Bertha We Hardly Knew Ye

By Jim Hagarty
1994

It is generally known that journalists have a high burnout rate. Granted, the average Canadian reporter’s job isn’t usually as tough as that of a firefighter, police officer or doctor. Nevertheless, keeping track of the daily ups and downs of the world, especially the downs, can, with time, produce an underlying sense of gloom in even the most optimistic newspaperperson. Editors, especially, are known to be crusty, even cantankerous sorts, at times peevishly barking out answers to even the most benign of questions.

The foregoing preamble is just my way of explaining to you why I’ve been in a bit of a funk these past few days. Here’s the rest of the story.

Editors usually find out the news before the rest of the world and it’s our job to figure out the best way to break it to you. As rural editor of my newspaper, I had that unpleasant task earlier this week when the story flashed across the news service here in the office that the world’s oldest cow had died. That’s right. Big Bertha, born March 17, 1944, fell sick a few weeks ago at her owner’s farm near Kenmare in southwest Ireland and died a short time later.

I sat here in the sorry glow from my computer screen, blinked back a tear and wondered how to convey this disturbing report to our readers.

When Bertha was born (she wasn’t Big at the time), the world was still at war. And as the last half of the 20th century unfolded, there she was in her fields and her barn, munching hay, getting pregnant (she delivered 39 calves over the years) and producing milk by the truckload. When Joseph McCarthy was interrogating “communists” in the U.S. in the late ’50s, she was in her early teens, out scratching her itchy hide against trees in the orchard. While John Kennedy made his triumphant return to his roots in Ireland, she was in another part of the country, head buried in a water trough. As war raged in Vietnam in the ’70s, she was chewing her cud and making eyes at the thick-necked male of her species, out pawing his hooves on the ground in the pasture field across the fence.

For almost 50 years, Big Bertha was there for it all. The Berlin wall coming down. Licking a salt block. The war in Iraq. Asleep under a shade tree. All that time, minding her own business, supplying the Irish with milk, butter and ice cream and turning out baby Berthas and Berts with the regularity of the earth’s yearly rotation around the sun.

And now she’s gone. What hurt as much as her passing were the cryptic comments of callous reporters and photographers around the newsroom who are known not to possess the heart of an editor. Questions like, “What kind of cow was she? An Oldstein?” And, “Wha’d she do? Kick the bucket?” Plus, at the news that Big Bertha had become an Irish celebrity and helped raise $99,000 for cancer research, the comment: “Boy, she sure milked her age for all it was worth.”

But at least now, at last, we have a clue to the origins of Mad Cow Disease among the bovines of Great Britain. It’s simple. They were all jealous of Bertha’s star status. So, maybe one good thing will emerge from the death of this gentle giant. Perhaps now, British cows will change from being Mad to being Slightly P.O.’d and in time, Just Plain Cranky.

Like your average burdened-down editor.

Paying It Forward

By Jim Hagarty
2013

I was a bit late and frazzled. I had a meeting downtown that I expected might last two or three hours so I needed a parking meter that allowed lots of time. Meter reading is done privately in our town now so the meter hawks are swarming everywhere, waiting to pounce on any prey, and I am determined to never again get another silly $15 ticket.

I drove around and there it was – a meter that allowed three hours and not far from my meeting spot. Perfect. Before I left the house, I reached into the change jar and filled one of my pockets with nickels, dimes and quarters. When I finished parking, I rejoiced when I saw 40 minutes left on my meter. Fantastic. So, I started stuffing in the coins and the time started adding up – one hour, two, then three. Yay.

One last check before I left revealed a problem, however. I had filled the wrong meter, for the car parked behind mine. Crap. I quickly searched my suddenly lighter pocket for my remaining coins and started dropping them in the right side of the stupid machine. Success. Three hours.

To the coin collectors: You’re welcome (you thieving bandits).

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

By Jim Hagarty
2006

I’m not one to hand out advice and, to my everlasting grief certainly not one to take any. But I just have to pass this little suggestion along, for what it’s worth. If any of you can benefit from it, then all my suffering will not have been in vain.

Here goes:

If you haven’t played hockey in 25 years or more, you might not want to make a habit of practising with a team of rambunctious 10-year-olds. Just a thought. My proper place in the arena is watching from the warmth of the heated spectators’ area, sitting on the wooden bleachers and gobbling down chocolate bars. But with his season only two games away from being over, the boy whose goalie equipment I lug back and forth from home to rink twice a week suggested I come back out on the ice like I did when he was younger. My excuse all season had been that there were already enough dads out there.

But this week, the team was short. So, after the boys had left the dressing room, I dragged out my 30-year-old skates and strapped them on as best I could. I pulled my Toronto Maple Leafs jersey over my head, squeezed my poor head into a helmet three sizes too small, picked up the new hockey stick I got for Christmas, and wobbled out onto the ice.

At first, all seemed well, as I skated aimlessly up and down the ice, trying to avoid any actual responsibilities for training. I was there just for show, nothing more. To fulfill a request from a son for whom the words “public humiliation” do not yet carry any meaning. In fact, all was going quite nicely, as I studiously avoided any involvement in the actual practice while appearing, nevertheless, more than ready for anything.

One time I was asked by the head coach to play defence for a drill but I begged off and stayed on the sidelines, looking good. Asked a second time, I could no longer escape.

The job laid out for the two coaches and I was to try to score on the whole team without letting them shoot the puck out over the blue line. The three of us against the 10 of them. Besides not knowing where to go or what to do, I was surrounded by crafty young players who looked a lot more skilled up close than they sometimes do from the stands. In fact, they seemed downright good.

I stood in front of the net, and missed the passes. Managed to be in the wrong places at the wrong times. And making a heroic attempt to keep the puck from exiting the zone, my skates caught as I skated backwards and I landed flat on my back. When I landed on my back as a kid on the ponds, it was not such a big deal. But a few too many of those chocolate bars in the bleachers has strengthened the pull of gravity and made landing on the ice a much more painful event.

After checking to see if I was alive, everyone resumed playing. A few moments later, I was looking up at the lights again as I lay flat out for a second time. Again I had been backing up when it happened. I think I fell a third time, but my brains have been a bit jangled since Monday, so it’s hard to remember.

Back in the dressing room, I explained to the young players that my old skates had only three forward gears and no reverse, which is why I always fell when I was trying to skate backwards. At least I had the satisfaction of knowing that a few of them fell for that.

As I type, my left hand is throbbing, my arm is aching. My back is coming around. With any luck, my pride will follow.

The Nature of Natures

By Jim Hagarty
2011
It is only natural for us to sometimes wonder why we are the way we are. Nature or nurture? Were we born this way as Lady Gaga likes to say or did our Moms and Pops shape our personalities? The Hagarty cats have me convinced that nature plays the biggest part. Mario and Luigi, though brothers, couldn’t be more different if one was a cat and the other a kangaroo. As previously reported, Mario is an unrepentant stalker and slayer of various wildlife while as far as we know, Luigi has never killed anything in his life if you don’t count upholstery and carpet. Mario is skittish and insecure. Luigi is as relaxed and calm as a Tony Bennett song. However, there is no doubt Luigi is the boss of the house as even the dog defers to him. I have boxing matches with Mario and he never brings out the claws. To try the same with Luigi would result in pain and stitches. But cats of all stripes have one big advantage over us – they never get down on themselves! Unless they have been abused, they are the very image of self-acceptance. Humans would do well to reflect on our natures and give in to them.

The Problem of Presenteeism

By Jim Hagarty
2006

The long Victoria Day weekend (in May in Canada, honouring Queen Victoria) is over and it’s back to work to get some rest. From working. Raking, sweeping, shovelling, bagging, trimming, cutting lawn, cleaning eavestroughs. Beating back nature in all its forms to maintain our carved-out little space in what used to be dense forest (which it will probably be again some day).

Fun, fun, fun.

Back to work just to read a Toronto Star story entitled, Do we work too much? Asking almost any Canadian that question is like asking whether or not a 12-pound robin is fat. Of course we work too much. A Readers Digest story this month says many of today’s employers, far from having to deal with absenteeism, are having to cope with the rising levels of “presenteeism” in their workforces. They can’t keep us away from our jobs.

The same story reported shocking statistics about how many of us don’t even take all the holidays that are allowed us by law and by our employers. Why is that?

The Star story compared us to European countries where people have a much different, maybe a healthier, attitude to work and vacations. Apparently the average Canadian worked 1,751 hours in 2004, about 300 hours – or 43 seven-hour days – more than the Dutch, Germans, French or Danes. We worked almost nine weeks more that year than they did. Sweden apparently has the highest ratio of industrial robots in the world and a very high productivity rate as well, which allows for more leisure time. Leisure time spent leisurely.

Europeans have a much more relaxed attitude towards nudity in spas and at beaches and about alcohol and food. In Heidelberg, Germany, men and women relax in a bathhouse (where clothing is not allowed) built a hundred years ago on the ruins of a Roman bath. In Rome itself, at outdoor restaurants, people spend several hours in the evening enjoying seven-course meals and watching the world go by, especially tourists who can’t even slow down on holidays and who eat mainly to survive.

In rural parts of Ireland, whole families including the dog, wander down to the pub almost every night to enjoy the company of their friends, neighbours and relatives. Over here, someone who goes to the pub every night has a drinking problem, we believe. Those who sit in their basement drinking beer and watching hockey, even alone, don’t. The exact opposite is true over there. The ones who drink alone at home are the ones with the problem.

A large German industrial firm in Munich offers new employees six weeks of vacation in their first year. Over here, we can legally expect to get two and would have to stay with a firm almost a lifetime to work our way up to six and if we do deserve six weeks off a year, the company begins to look at us as a liability.

The irony is, all this hard labour, according to economists, doesn’t seem to be making our country any more productive than European states. And certainly doesn’t make us any happier, assuming it ever could, though I recently read a piece by a guy who stuck up for his workaholism and said he’s most alive when he’s working. True, maybe, till he falls over dead from working too hard.

The sad part is, we don’t switch from labour mode to relaxation gear as we pull into our driveways. In fact, that’s often when our hardest work begins. We spend summers yanking out every weed and fixing up the cottage.

The Toronto Star article asks: “Will Canadians or Americans ever start working less? The past 25 years suggest not. Between 1980 and 2000, European countries added, on average, six vacation days or statutory holidays, totalling 36 per year. Meanwhile … Canada actually dropped a day, to 24, while the United States lost two days, to 20 days off.”

Why are we moving in the opposite direction to the Europeans? Is all this tension helping to create the aggressiveness that is leading us into wars around the world? And before the letters start pouring in, yes, Europe is not perfect. That’s why there are so many former Europeans living in North America.

This column, by the way, was written after everyone had left the newspaper office and gone home. (To cut their lawns.)