Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
2013

My father-in-law was a very good minister, artist and woodworker. We inherited seven or eight of his big, heavy woodshop machines and have had them in the shed for the past year. A few months ago, it became clear to me that they would be better situated in our finished and heated garage where we can make a proper workshop. Since then I have fretted and worried about how this transfer of machines would be accomplished. I knew I needed help but foresaw a number of problems with the project. Broken windows, scratched doors, injured helpers, damaged machinery. Where would we get a dolly we would need to carry the heavier pieces? I wonder, if I could put all that anxiety together, whether or not it would take up two hours or three or four. Maybe.

Tonight, my son and a bunch of his 17-year-old friends happened to be over at our place for burgers and pop. Afterwards, I asked them if they could help me move the machines, thinking they might get three or four of the lighter ones moved. Sure, they said. And they did. All the machines were moved, settled, done in 10 minutes. Then they hopped in the van and drove off. Nothing broken or scratched, no pulled muscles, no dolly needed. They just got together and got it done, as though they were doing the dishes after supper.

A few minutes later, I took the dog for a walk and I noticed that old familiar tension behind my eyes and wistful tears sitting there. Oh, to be 17 again. To not look ahead and behind. To not think there are things you can’t do. To live every day as an adventure with your pals. To be forever in the moment.

What happens to us to take that away? Do we get too cynical, or too bored or too tired?

Last year I took a van load of those guys to Port Huron, Michigan, for the day. It was the most fun I have had in years, just listening to the banter, the joking, the expressions of joy and anticipation of good things to come. The talk of cars and girls and music. The finer things in life.

The Experts

The best way to raise kids
I’ve found through the years
Is to listen to folks without any.
For some reason they seem
To know more than most parents
And their words are so wise and so many.

I am not sure why
They are so insightful
But I’m grateful for sure that they are.
Cause parents don’t have
A clue what we’re doing.
Childless couples are smarter by far.

They’re like people who flew
In a plane to Vancouver
And now know all there is to know
About guiding an aircraft
From liftoff to landing
And how the whole thing ought to go.

See, they have a niece
Or a nephew and darn it,
They babysit now and again.
So how to raise children
To them is no mystery,
It’s a matter of strong discipline.

You gotta be tough on your
Offspring, they tell you
And show them each day who’s the boss.
And if you object at all, they will tell you,
“Do it your way, then.
“It’s your loss.”

So my strong advice to
Those who have children
Is seek out some people who don’t.
They’ll set you straight
And you will be grateful.
I feel sorry for you if you won’t.

• Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2017

I don’t know enough about the issue of raising the minimum wage to have an educated opinion and need to do some research but I remember when the minimum wage was $1 an hour in the sixties. Then by the mid seventies it was $4.20, I believe. I was at a job that paid $4.20 an hour, so that was probably minimum wage. I know it’s complicated because I believe there were different minimum wages for different sectors. In any case, I find it interesting that if the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, it should have been $20 an hour or more by now. I remember the $1 minimum because I had friends who were working as chicken catchers for that wage while I was exalted, working on bridge construction for $1.65 an hour. I worked 50 hours a week for $82.50. We were paid normal rate for overtime hours, no extra pay. In spite of the $4.20 an hour days, later on, I did manage to buy my first brand new car for $4,000.

(The Canadian province of Ontario, where I live, is raising the minimum wage in stages, starting at $14 an hour and increasing eventually to $15 an hour. In my bridge construction days, when I was 16, I earned $16.50 for a 10-hour day.)

By Jim Hagarty
2012

A heart-warming story. A six-year-old boy removed his hearing aid and refused to put it back in. The reason? Because superheros don’t wear hearing aids. His mother wrote to Marvel Comics to see if they could help. Before long, a package arrived with comics featuring the hero Hawkeye, an actual Marvel Comics character who had a hearing aid. But Marvel went further. They had an artist draw up some new artwork of a superhero who not only wore a hearing aid, but who got his superpowers through his hearing aid. And he had a sidekick – a young boy about the age of the little guy who had started all this by pulling out his hearing aid. After that, the boy was happy to wear it again. Angels all around us.

I saw this beautiful 1951 Chevrolet Syleline Deluxe in my hometown of Stratford, Ontario, Canada, on Sunday afternoon. I took photos and talked to the owners who have had the classic vehicle for almost 20 years. It still has the original paint job. The car has a bit of signifcance for me as it was made the same year I was born. I pointed that out to the owners and said, “All things made in 1951 were beautiful.” They looked me up and down and replied: “Yes, but the car has held up so well.” Ouch!

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Here are some great photos from a website called upliftmore.com

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My Words

I have spoken, in my life,
A hundred million words.
Most of them flew easily,
Like flocks of graceful birds.

Some of them were way too rough
And some were far too smooth.
Some of them weren’t honest
While others spoke my truth.

I have written, in my life,
Five hundred thousand more.
Some were funny, some were sad,
And some I’m sorry for.

But good or bad, the words I’ve used
Sprang from a fragile heart.
Some revealed a restless soul,
Just searching for his part.

But whether lovely, whether low,
I was never at a loss.
Words have kept my wings aloft
And have also been my cross.

But all this time, you need to know,
I’ve never felt above you.
My aim with all the words I’ve used
Was to say how much I love you.

• Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2017

To the British politician who is advocating the death penalty for suicide bombers, you have my support. I hope no one is making fun of you for what they consider to a lame proposal, killing dead suicide bombers. I really do think you are onto something. Because suicide bombers are wily people. They make it look as though, following their bombing, their body parts are spread far and wide over the scene. That is exactly what they want you to think. In reality, they are like some chickens and turkeys that, after you chop off their heads, keep walking around for awhile without the assistance of brains. This analogy makes a lot of sense because one thing that is known is that a suicide bomber does not have a brain to begin with. That is a fact. A well-established one. He or she is walking around with a backpack over their shoulders but otherwise, headless and brainless. So the fact that, post bombing, the bomber’s arm is over there and his leg is on the other side of that car, while his head is who knows where, is no proof that he, in chicken-like fashion, is not able to strike again. In fact, the very absence of a brain in the first place is what seems to make the bomber the most dangerous. Imagine how much more lethal he would be if he is also missing numerous other body parts. He would be, logically, more difficult to detect if he is scattered all over a wide area. So yes, let’s find the bombers, scrape ’em up and toss ’em in a barrel and while traditional forms of death penalty executions might be a little hard to perform, might I suggest tossing a bomb into the barrel? Like the old commercials for a popular bug spray used to promise to do: Raid Kills Bug Dead! The secret and powerful message there was that it is not enough to kill suicide bombers; society needs to kill them dead. Sorry you live in England and I can’t vote for you. Good luck. Also, might I suggest, we burn down the bombers’ homes and when the fire is out, we reconstruct them and blow them up too? The Kill ‘Em Dead principle could be applied to lots of things. Brilliant.

Hank Williams Sr., left, and his grandson Hank III.

By Jim Hagarty
2013

Among all the pretty much useless facts I have accumulated over the years and never bothered to confirm because I am too lazy to do so is this one: We take our characteristics more from our grandparents than we do from our parents.

I don’t know whether or not this is scientifically true, but I do know that it seems to apply in my case. I never met my grandfathers but I think I share a lot of their characteristics. One was a writer and the other a musician, even though they farmed for a living. I consider myself both a writer and musician.

My Dad was neither of those things. However, he was a good farmer and businessman, something that might not have been true of his father, whose children thought of him as a dreamer. Dad’s business skills might have come from his grandfather who came from Ireland at the age of 18, cleared and farmed 150 acres, made a good living and retired when he was 55.

All of this is a long preamble to this: I am fascinated with Hank Williams and the other night I got hooked on a bunch of YouTube videos of his grandson Hank III performing. He is shown doing a couple of songs at the Grand Ole Opry and the resemblance to his Grampa both in appearance and sound is scary. Some people who attended the concert thought they were seeing a ghost.

Despite that, he is his own man – covered in tattoos and long hair – and he performs both country music and punk rock. The dozens of images of him on the Internet seem to portray him as a pretty wild guy. He and I would probably not have a lot in common and I can’t imagine a conversation between the two of us. But he does revere his Grandpa’s music and so do I so there would be that.