Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

A significant number of fleas
Leave my dog when he lets out a sneeze.
They run for the hills.
I should give him his pills.
Stuffing meds in a dog is no breeze.

By Jim Hagarty

I was tired when I woke up Tuesday. I had spent all day Monday digging my own grave. A friend has the key to the cemetery, so he let me in. Even lent me a shovel.

All this activity was in preparation for a medical appointment yesterday at 10 a.m. I have known about this visit for some time now, a couple of months at least. And each day, as I thought about it, the prognosis from the medical professional sitting before me seemed to get worse and worse.

“Routine checkup”, I came to believe, is a medical term for “pull the plug.”

Each day I sat in my backyard, awaiting the end. At first, the likely outcome of the appointment seemed to be a bunch of unpleasant changes in my lifestyle. Then, day by day, sitting in my lawnchair under the maple tree the kids gave me a long time ago, things somehow went from unpleasant to downright horrifying. I looked around the yard with a mixture of fondness and sadness, tearing up at times, thinking about how much I would miss this place. So many memories. The swing set, the plastic swimming pool, dragging the kids around on a plastic tarp, the skating rinks.

Yesterday I was up early. I showered and stuffed myself into what in my world can be considered my “good clothes.” I drove myself casually to the medical office, wondering if I would be driving myself home. But I was relatively calm. Sort of resigned to my fate.

I sat in the waiting room. Didn’t even crack open a magazine. What would be the point of reading about the first manned mission to Mars if I will not be around to see it. Dieting tips? Too late. Relationship advice. Hah!

“Mr. Hagarty?” came the call from the man in the white coat. “Come this way.”

I would have liked to have hugged the receptionist goodbye but there was no time.

“Have a seat,” said the medic sternly. He started shuffling through my records, looking concerned. Let’s just get this over with, I thought.

“Well, your tests are fine,” said the medical professional seated before me. “Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.

“I’d like to see you again in six months.”

I floated my way out of the medical centre, as though on a cushion of air. Hardly said goodbye to the receptionist. Didn’t need her any more.

I went home and sat in my lawnchair under the tree the kids gave me and looked around.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

So I did a little of both.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

A word about my new pet gnat.
He’s friendly but way too fat.
I gave him less food,
Which soured his mood.
He’s a charmer but also a brat.

By Jim Hagarty

I just returned from my nightly walk around the block.

Tonight was a little unusual in that I stopped to talk to a neighbour, out giving her doggie his bedtime pee. Feeling the need to explain why I was out walking so late at night, I told her my doctor says I need to walk.

Well, she grabbed onto that, one thing led to another and the conversation took a horrible turn when she began rattling off the evils of processed peanut butter. I was commanded to quit that shit as it is full of sugar and salt. In her fridge, is a nice big jar of natural, organic peanut butter, no additives. We have a jar of that stuff in our fridge too and now and then, if I am desperate, I will scoop out a spoonful. To call it peanut “butter” would be to call a round hunk of asphalt a cherry pie. The worst thing about natural peanut butter is it tastes, well, like peanuts.

I like the peanut butter that has eliminated any association with the peanut, while keeping the brown colour.

I made my neighbour no promises to quit that shit but maybe some day I will.

I will do it, in fact, on the day I cut myself up a nice big slice of asphalt pie.

By Jim Hagarty
I saw this beautiful 1979 Chevy Corvette in a parking lot yesterday so had to jump out of my car and photograph it. The car is in excellent shape and the paint job is stunning. As I was admiring it, the owner came along and told me the man who repainted the car used the original colour and removed the entire body piece by piece to paint it. The roof panels are removable for storage in the trunk. I was reading yesterday that the Corvette has been one of the biggest success stories for General Motors over the years, with almost two million sold.

By Jim Hagarty
2007

The other day, I heard Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a radio interview from a national curling bonspiel somewhere say that it was so good to see such a great turnout. It’s a wonderful opportunity for ordinary Canadians to come together for a great occasion, he said.

Now, here’s my problem. (How the hell could he get a problem out of that, you wonder.)

What is an ordinary Canadian? Is he or she a person with ordinary physical traits? Brown hair? Under six feet, over five? Blue jeans? Eyeglasses? Toques in winter?

Or does such a person respond in typically ordinary emotional ways to circumstances around him or her? Cries, laughs, gets mad, etc.

Does an ordinary Canadian have ordinary habits? Couch potato, remote-control kind of routines? Lunch pails to work? Shopping trips to the dollar stores? Does he or she read cheap novels, listen to country music, drive trucks?

I have always been puzzled by this expression and the people who use it.

“This will appeal to the ordinary man on the street.”

“The ordinary joe won’t care about this.”

“To get elected, it will take a huge turnout from ordinary voters …”

Yes, I know. I’m stretching this out. We all probably have a pretty accurate picture of what is meant by the word ordinary in these references. But in order for anybody to be ordinary, there must be classes of people who are not ordinary for them to be compared to. Otherwise, it would be impossible to know just who was ordinary and who was not.

Are those who are not ordinary, extraordinary? Are they rich? Do they have the number of a Mercedes Benz dealer on speed dial? Can they go to Toronto Maple Leafs hockey games any time they want?

What is it that makes these people not ordinary? Are they extra attractive looking? Super smart? Have they won awards? Been on TV? Is their love life in the news? I am thinking that a person who refers to other people as being ordinary does not consider himself or herself in that classification of humans.

Is Stephen Harper, therefore, such a person?

I hardly think so.

If the prime minister of our country was an ordinary Canadian, then all 33 million of the rest of us couldn’t possibly be anything but. I know Harper didn’t really mean any of this and it actually seems like he might be about the most ordinary guy we’ve had at 24 Sussex Drive since Lester B. Pearson was the PM in the sixties.

Harper, after all, is writing a book about the history of hockey. Now what could be more Canadian and more ordinary than that?

And though he remains as stiff as a cat stepped on by a cow in winter, he does seem to be loosening up a bit.

And among the ordinary, the ability to not take themselves too seriously, it seems to me, is a chief trait.

Still, I kind of wish the leader of our country – and anyone else, for that – matter didn’t feel the need to talk about ordinary people when referring to fellow citizens. I can’t help but think there’s a subtle putdown in there somewhere.

I am open to being corrected, but I think l’m an ordinary person. Then I look around for fellow humans who are probably not: Conrad Black comes to mind along with wealthy hockey players who break other hockey players’ necks.

The best I can do is this, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy: You might be an ordinary Canadian if you recognize a picture of Gordie Howe, know the lyrics to a Stompin’ Tom Connors song and would walk a mile for a jar of true maple syrup.

As for curling bonspiels, I honestly don’t know if an ordinary Canadian would hang out at those.