Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty

As I have mentioned, my city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada, has been both the hometown of amazing musicians such as Justin Bieber, Richard Manuel of The Band, Ken Kalmusky who played bass for Ian and Sylvia’s Great Speckled Bird and John Till, a lead guitarist for Janis Joplin. It has also been a mecca for great musicians from far and wide, both from Canada and other countries such as the United States. Since the 1950s, Stratford has been a theatre town, and now attracts a million tourists a year. We also have summer music festival that attracts the best talent in every genre of music from around the world.

Stratford has a vibrant downtown pub culture but also concert halls where wonderful talent can be seen many nights and most weekends.

A couple of years ago, I went to one of those halls on a Saturday night to see a variety of local musicians and the night was spectacular. A highlight was a performance by blues artist and songwriter Steve T.

Featured here is a song from an album of original music Stevie released this summer entitled Wood, Wire, Glass and Steel. The CD is addictive, the blues licks enthralling. Along with providing vocals for the CD, Stevie also plays rhythm, lead and slide guitars, bass and mandolin. He also co-produced the recording.

The CD is available in the Corner Store on this blog.

Here is a cut from the CD called How Kool Is That.

How Kool is That by Stevie T.

By Jim Hagarty
2016

I am a Beatlemaniac of long standing. Maybe not as crazy into them as some others, but entralled enough to follow something like this.

I just watched them in concert in a YouTube clip singing Baby in Black in 1965.

The thing that made the Beatles great is that they were constantly innovating. And in this song, they did something that no one had done before and few have done since.

Of course, from rock ‘n’ roll’s beginning, harmony was a big thing. Think Everly Brothers and practically every other band. But the harmony was sporadic, used mostly in choruses.

On Baby in Black, Paul McCartney and John Lennon sing every single word of the song in unison but also in harmony. They don’t trade lyrics back and forth and harmonize only in the chorus. They harmonize from start to finish.

This was something they purposely tried, I learned from listening to a radio documentary. I don’t know if they ever did it again on any other song. Not even the Everly Brothers, their heroes, did that.

I find that to be true in almost every field of human endeavour. There are those who are doing it and then those who are courageous enough to do it differently. It is those few who always move the bar up for the rest of us.

They are often called geniuses.

Update: Wouldn’t you know it. Last night I also watched Lennon and McCartney sing I Wanna Hold Your Hand. They sang the whole thing together, in harmony, just as in Baby’s In Black.

By Jim Hagarty
2016

We were in need of a new roofing on the three buildings on our property in my hometown. But a deteriorating roof sneaks up on you, like when you can’t get your socks on anymore because they keep catching on your toenails which have grown too long. Not a good comparison, I now fully realize too late, but it is true that fingernails and toenails do sort of creep up on you, don’t they?

Sometimes it takes a little jolt to wake a person up.

This summer I was driving down a gravel road in the country when I could see a roof above a grove of trees. It was a great looking roof and I immediately thought that this was what we needed at home. But it was only when I rounded a bend in the road that my shock revealed itself. The wonderful roof was sitting atop a broken down, abandoned old farmhouse that hadn’t been lived in in a while. No windows left. Doors flung open. Sky-high weeds grown up all around the place.

It was then I realized that our roof was not even in the same league as the roof on a ramshackle shack in the middle of nowhere.

Toenails meet sock.

The roofers left last week.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I never have had my own truck.
Not my plan, just a run of bad luck.
But I’ve driven a few
And that’s how I knew
That my little wee cars really suck.

By Jim Hagarty
1992

It was a nice afternoon last Friday and I was enjoying my 20-minute walk home from work, happy with the end of another week and satisfied that “things” seemed to be fairly well under control in my life.

But as I am beginning to understand, control is a very elusive concept nowadays. It might even be considered an illusion.

The dog I passed on the sidewalk shortly after I started my walk home, however, was no illusion. It stood there, unleashed, panting at me and looking friendly enough. And being in a “good mood”, I just had to acknowledge its approachability.

“Hello there, doggie,” I said to the mutt in my happiest voice.

To me, that little exchange was the beginning and the end of our relationship – just one of those bright little moments that seem to happen so frequently when you’re having a good day.

But the dog, I realize now, saw my comment in a totally different light. What it appeared to have heard when I greeted it that day was, “Hello there, doggie. How about comin’ home with me? I’ll feed and look after you for the rest of your life.”

Before I had walked very far, I realized I was being followed. I looked behind to see the dog, cheerfully padding along in my footsteps, eager to get to its new home. At first I thought that it would stop eventually, perhaps when it got to the edge of its “territory.” But soon, it became apparent that its territory and my territory were about to be one and the same.

From then on, the scene was like something out of The Twilight Zone. This big, off-white dog with the floppy ears and paws ran into everybody’s backyard on my way home but always returned to the sidewalk and me before I got too far away. Not needing a dog, I offered this one absolutely no encouragement, beyond my initial greeting, but I guess my dog greeting packs a heck of punch.

So, five minutes after I had been commenting to myself about what a nice day it was and what a wonderful life I have, I was a mess of nervous tension, fretting about what I was going to do with this Littlest Hobo that was following me home. Had I lured it away from some lonely senior citizen who would forever mourn the loss of his closest pal? Had I robbed some poor little boy of his most reliable source of unending, unconditional love? What would I do if it wouldn’t leave my place? Would I have the heart to take it to the animal shelter? Would it eat my cats?

But all these concerns were overshadowed by a more immediate one. I was coming up to Romeo Street during the afternoon rush hour when a lot of Stratford’s factories change shifts, making this road one of the busiest in the city. Would the dog try to follow me across? Would I be luring it to serious injury or its death if I crossed the street?

Those questions were soon answered. Anticipating where I was headed, the dog weaved its way through the busy four lanes of traffic like Wayne Gretzky skating around a bunch of defencemen. In fact, it waited on the other side for me and it was I who, in the confusion, almost got run down by a van.

Somehow, between Waterloo Street and Romeo Street – five short city blocks – my sunny skies had developed considerable overcast. As I continued on my way, neighbours close to my home noticed my new companion.

“Nice dog,” said one.

“Where’d you get the dog?” said another.

I didn’t “get” the dog anywhere. The dog “got” me.

When we made it home, I walked into my back yard. Pardon, me – “our” back yard. The dog ran through the gate in the fence like it had spent half its life there. I sat down at the picnic table in complete frustration. It parked itself on the patio in front of me with an expression that said: ‘Well, Pop, what’s it gonna be? Beef or chicken for supper?”

It was neither.

I went in the house, shut the door and spent a half hour reflecting on the fickleness of life. When I came out, the dog was gone.

And so was my carefree day.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once had an old lawnmower,
I don’t have the darned thing no more.
Best machine I have had,
It cut grass like mad.
It was stolen and that made me sore.

By Jim Hagarty
1988

I needed a stapler and so I asked a fellow worker if she would lend me hers.

“I don’t have it, right now,” she said. “I think it’s on You Know Who’s desk.”

“Oh no,” I replied. “Not there. Tell me it’s anywhere but there.”

“Sorry,” she answered. “He borrowed it from me yesterday. I gave it to him without thinking.”

This was not good news. Things aren’t easily retrieved from the desk where You Know Who sits. Especially items as small as a stapler. Many a good man and woman has regretted trying to find something there.

Apprehensively, I walked back to his desk and took a look. It was just as I thought. No, it was worse. The King of Klutter reigned supreme. Captain Chaos was at the helm. Hurricane Holy Mackerel had blown ashore.

I gasped.

“I’m going in alone, boys,” I said to two reporters who sit next to You Know Who. “I’ll tie a rope around my waist. If I tug on it three times, it means I’m in trouble. If I’m not out in an hour, call the fire department.”

“Not so loud,” said one of them. “He might be in there somewhere.”

Poor You Know Who. Among all his good qualities, the ability to maintain a tidy desk can’t be counted. His desk in the newsroom and the five-foot-square cubicle it occupies have been the target for many a sling and arrow since shorty after he started work as a reporter at the newspaper. I’ve never let one fly, of course, and never would. But others less kind than I have shown no mercy in their pursuit of new retorts to put down his work area.

Comparisons between You Know Who’s desk and a landfill site are the most frequent insults thrown his way by his fellow workers and frankly, I think the comments are wearing thin. Some say a grassy berm should be planted around it to reduce the environmental impact and others worry about contaminants infecting the water supply. It’s also been suggested the site be filled in when it’s full.

Those with even less imagination and even crueler tongues have tried to compare the desk to a disaster at a nuclear plant. Like the damaged reactor at the Chernobyl site in the Soviet Union, they think it should be encased in concrete for hundreds of years.

I can hardly believe the gall of the reporter who warned another reporter he shouldn’t go near You Know Who’s desk unless he’d had his shots. This is ridiculous. You don’t need to get inoculated every time you approach his work area.

On, above and below his desk are the following items: Ceramic cups, pop cans, bottles, bank books, towels, boxes, paperbacks, clothing, golf balls, file folders, manila envelopes, record albums, blank cheques, posters, scrapbooks, a thermos, calendars, and shoes. In his cubicle are more old newspapers than are on file at the local archives. Four of the five basic food groups are represented. A few brass figurines are strewn here and there in an attempt at decor and stuffed among all the debris is a sweater. Last time I looked there was no one wearing it.

From time to time, almost as in a ritual, You Know Who carefully brings himself a cup a coffee from downstairs, clears a small area on the desk and sets it down, pries the lid off the foam cup, sits back and then, with the back of his hand or an elbow, knocks the whole thing over. This serves to leave a distinguishing feature on his possessions, much like an artist signing his work.

Challenged about this, You Know Who denies that his desk is messy at all and honestly wonders just what all the fuss could be about. Even if he will concede there are tidier desks in the office, he’s convinced that it is us and not him who needs help.

“A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind,” reads a poster above his computer.

If that is true, my guess is You Know Who has the healthiest mind for 40 miles around.

If it isn’t true, I can only ask, is there a team of psychiatrists in the house?