Author: Jim Hagarty

I have been thinking lately that I would like to live a long life. At 73, I can’t really complain about the length of my life so far but I would like to live longer because I still have things I want to do. I am still hoping for a multi-million-dollar recording contract, also a long sought after date with either Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts, or both, given that I have to wait for the restraining orders to expire, and my ultimate goal, is to win a hot-dog eating contest.

So, funny the timing of things. Just as I was doing all this wishing, along comes an article on the Internet today entitled The Best Foods To Eat For A Long Life, According To Longevity Experts. If anybody would know about this, it would be longevity experts and, in fact, I would like to live long enough to someday become a longevity expert. Or, failing that, an expert in anything. Anything at all.

So, of course, I dove right into the article on my laptop. But my excitement and my smile both vanished in record time when I read the details of what I will have to eat to live longer. I can only say, it’s not looking good for me, as, with the exception of one or two of the listed items, I don’t want to eat anything the longevity experts recommend.

Get a load of this. The experts want me to eat foods in their natural state, like whole grains, vegetables, fruits, fish, eggs and nuts.

“All vegetables are packed with nutrition, but cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and cabbage are powerhouses at helping you live longer.” I don’t know what cruciferous even means but the word starts off with the same three letters as “cruel” and that puts me off, I have to say.

“There’s really no upper limit on how many cruciferous vegetables you can eat, but a good rule is to cover about three-quarters of your plate with them,” one of the experts suggested. Especially good in this category are dark, leafy greens. Strike two for me as the only green stuff I like are green jelly beans. At least I think they are beans, so that should count for something.

I am also expected to snarf down a lot of fatty fish like wild salmon, sardines, anchovies, herring and mackerel. I prefer skinny fish, myself, and will only choke down a salmon sandwich if the salmon is spread on the bread so thin it is almost invisible.

Another expert is all hot and bothered about eating whole grains and I realize now that this War on White Bread and Buns will never end.

Instead of dousing the food I do eat with sugar, the many extra years I desire would have to be spent putting “extra virgin olive oil” on everything. Reading further, I see only a half a teaspoon of the stuff a day will do the trick but I am gagging at the thought of even that much.

The experts start to lighten up as the article progresses, and recommend berries. I will admit, I can handle a few berries now and then, especially doused in cream and sugar. But then they drop the ball entirely advising me to start eating “fermented foods,” leading me to wonder if these rascals are “demented fools.” They recommend I eat kimchi, kombucha, tempeh, miso, and sauerkraut that are laced with “beneficial bugs that help you maintain a healthy gut.” I ate a few bugs while singing on the tractor as a kid when the odd one would fly right into my wide open mouth in the middle of a Beatles song. No thanks.

Tree nuts and seeds. Maybe. Almonds, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cashews and walnuts.

Plain yogurt. I will get right on that.

It is recommended I eat lots of legumes such as lentils, peas, chickpeas and peanuts. Peanuts I can handle especially if they are whipped into a butter and sold in a plastic jar.

Tomatoes, yes, though no mention of potatoes, and even a larger oversight, in my opinion, potato chips.

But finally, and almost too late, the experts recommend I eat dark chocolate. As it happens, I eat chocolate, both dark and whatever the opposite is, several times a day, and have eaten large quantities of it since before I could talk. When I read that, I started to cheer up a bit. Especially at the news that dark chocolate is good for brain health. I could probably make use of a healthier brain.

Come to think of it, I think all this advice is paying off, as I have already lived longer than the time it took me to read this article. But I am cautious and I worry. I just hope I live long enough to finish writing this story. If it ends in mid-sentence, do me a favour, please, and call an ambulance.

As I was saying, the

©2024 Jim Hagarty

I keep track of unique ways Internet commenters respond to news stories about the Donald Trump presidency. What follows here are some of the words and expressions I have collected but rather than just list them, I have written a story using them.

News From Dumbfuckistan

I ran into a Donald Trump supporter the other day and was taken aback as the man was suffering an obvious ragegasm.

“What a sly fuckeroo, that man is,” I thought. “He must be one of Trump’s tinfoil hat nutterbutters.”

“What the crippling fuck is wrong with you?” I asked the man. I was surprised when he looked me straight in the eye and gave me an honest answer. He told me he was being affected by an STD – a Stupidity Transmitted Disease. He said he had just emerged from three days straight of watching FOX news and was thoroughly infoxitated. He also admitted to being a confirmed negaholic.

“What a catastrophuck,” I thought. “Those poor chucklefucks that follow Trump. Seems like all these teabillies must live in Upper Wingnuttia. And the only thing they ever eat is Campbell’s Moron Soup.”

I needed answers. I was dejected. So, I called up my old political science professor from my university days. He’d help me understand.

“Donald Trump is a douche,” he said. “He has the attention span of a mosquito on meth. His presidency has been one continuous dread-a-thon. He has created a bizzaroverse in which we all now live.”

Man, I thought to myself, my professor is smarter than a treeful of owls.

“Trump is a Kremlinphiliac,” my prof continued. “He’s a man who always has is undies in a bundle. Part of this can be explained as originating from the effects of MS – microgenitalia syndrome. But he has the support of gun worshippers across the country who have organized themselves into micro penis militias. It is scary. And everything his official spokesgoobers say is nothing but bullfuckingshit.

“But he also has support from lots of Evilgelicals who shout ‘Hallefuckinlullah’ in response to everything the president says. And they never examine the things that come out of the lieholes of the members of the Trump gooberment operating out of the White House, also known as Dumbfuckistan.”

“To be honest, Trump’s BFF (best fascist friend) Putin loves it whenever Trump truthmangles something.

“It bakes my noodle,” concluded my professor, who I have never known to get angry. “I am tired of hearing all these Amerigarchs talk and talk. I just wish they would shut the living fuck up.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

©2018 Jim Hagarty

If you read my little fables here, you might have noticed that I have written a lot of stories about the bunnies that live in our backyard. You might even think I have written about them a time or two too often. I am certainly aware of the risk of causing bunny fatigue every time I start to tap out another tale.

The truth is, I am sort of obsessive that way. But I find that writing about something so simple as the bunnies, especially the one that thinks I am her Dad, gets my creative clock ticking again and lets me write about non-bunny things too.

This is not the first time an obsession of mine has spilled out into print. For over ten years in the ’80s and ’90s, as an editor at our city’s daily newspaper, The Beacon Herald, I wrote a column called The County Line every Friday. One day I had nothing to write about and so I spun a little true tale about how my two cats got fighting over the same heat grate they both wanted to sit on one cold winter’s night. I thought it was funny they wanted the same grate when they had the choice of several others. How human, I thought.

I got a fair response to that story, more than I had to others I’d written on more sober subjects, so now and then, I dribbled out another cat tale.

This was all too much for a crusty neighbour of mine who wrote a brief but pointed letter to the editor at my paper.

“Tell Hagarty to quit writing about his cats,” the letter said.

Now here is how I knew I lived in a small town.

The newspaper printed my neighbour’s letter.

And here’s another sign I wasn’t living in a metropolis.

The letter didn’t bother me that much, although it didn’t slow down my cat stories. In fact, it might have speeded them up for a while.

I had reason to believe that one of my cats, Grumbles, had become a bit of a celebrity with column readers and I wasn’t about to give that up. The one story I didn’t write about her was about the day she died. I didn’t want my readers to know.

In any case, on my walks, I would encounter my letter-writing neighbour Bill sitting on his front steps and I’d go up and have a chat with him. We talked about a lot of things. Politics. Family. Life.

But he never asked about my cats.

He didn’t really have to, I suspect. Their latest antics were well laid out in the local newspaper. Even though I had to put up with the odd taunt such as, “My dog loves your column. I saw him pouring over it the other day.”

©2021 Jim Hagarty

My daughter has an app on her phone that lets you take a picture of someone and then ages that image somehow to make the person look old. She showed me the photo she took of herself and it’s amazing. Her 14-year-old face was all wrinkly and drawn, her long dark hair was gray. It’s kind of creepy because it’s a still image and yet the eyes blink and it looks like it’s moving.

So, we laughed and got all excited and I asked her if she wanted to try it on me. Of course she did, so she snapped a picture and excitedly, we looked at the result. Absolute truth here. I looked exactly the same in the “aged” photo as I do in real life. We could not find one difference. If anything, it made me look a little younger.

So, we laughed about that, I guess. Then she showed me another app that makes you look fat. She took a picture of herself and sure enough, her cheeks and neck were all puffed out. And, again creepily, her eyes blinked.

“Wanna try it Dad?”

My first reaction was that ya, that would be cool. Then I remembered the first picture and I declined. Once bitten, twice shy. Bring me an app that makes me look young and thin, and I’m in.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

I wrote a new song this week. I soon realized it is the best song I have ever written. A few minutes later, it dawned on me that this is, in fact, probably the best song that has ever been written – by anyone.

Wow! You can imagine my happiness at that discovery.

So, what you do with the best song ever written, of course, is sing it 24 hours a day till you hate it worse than oatmeal porridge (which is not recommended for human consumption). It is at that point that you are willing to entertain the idea that it might not actually be the best four minutes of song styling ever put together since the beginning of music. That distinction goes to My Boomerang Won’t Come Back.

However, having thudded back to Earth isn’t the least bit disconcerting because you still think the thing is pretty darned good for an amateur. You have to or you’d never write another one. Besides, there is always next week when you probably will come up with the best song ever and My Boomerang … will just be a distant, but wonderful, memory.

Ian Tyson was interviewed by a Canadian radio host a while back who asked the folk/country artist what the best song he ever wrote was and the only answer could be Four Strong Winds. Tyson wouldn’t cooperate and gave him the name of a song he’d just come up with.

“That’s the best one I’ve ever written,” he said excitedly to the dejected interviewer. “You always think your latest one is your best one.”

I guess I am in good company. But no matter how good I get at this, I will never surpass the writer of Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?

Nobody could.

©2014 Jim Hagarty

One of my favourite pastimes in recent years has been to walk past construction sites and examine the proceedings. Yes, it’s true, I have become a Certified Sidewalk Superintendent. I have my full papers from the Canadian Construction Industry and am completely licensed to stand at a distance and detect whatever flaws I might witness being perpretrated on a new building.

I earned this stature because of the many astute observations I have made over the years, criticisms that range from the subtle, “Who the hell designed this mess?” to “That thing’s gonna fall down in a year.” I am able to make these assessments based on my own past, working three summers on bridge construction when I was attending university almost 50 years ago and from growing up on a farm where we built a lot of sheds and things.

And so it was that a big hole was dug in the ground last year on a lot just a stone’s throw from my (well-constructed) house. Although I was not notified that construction was under way, I soon detected the activity and began my daily inspection tours.

For the first while, I had no idea what was being planned for the hole, but the builders, thankfully, erected a very nice sign showing an artist’s conception of a new medical centre. It was very appealing and I hoped the builders would adhere to the architect’s vision very closely.

I walked by almost every day, even during the winter months, and was mostly impressed with the gradually evolving three-storey brick structure. It would be a very welcome addition to the neighbourhood and to be honest, I could find little fault with the construction though it wasn’t for a lack of trying. The thing that appealed to me about it was the fact that it was all function and no frill. If it was a car, it would be a stripped down Chevy Malibu.

Some modern buildings look like works of modern art with metal protrusions and glass hanging out all over the place. I always wonder how they will replace those special panes of glass and fiberglass panels 30 years down the road. I worry about stuff like that which makes me an excellent Sidewalk Super.

Finally, the completed Stratford Medical Centre opened its doors on a Monday in early January. I just happened to have an appointment that morning.

Guess who was the Medical Centre’s first patient?

A very fitting development, I must say.

I asked my doctor if I would be honoured in some way, maybe with a special gift, a plaque on the wall, a large framed portrait in the lobby. In response, the good physician fought me off bravely and handed me a prescription for more drugs.

One thing I have noticed about our changing times is the lack of respect these days for the critical role Sidewalk Superintendents play in the scheme of things.

What a shame!

©2017 Jim Hagarty

I’ve never claimed to be the smartest guy in my town but I have met a lot of my fellow citizens over my lifetime and I am pretty sure I am not the dumbest one either. Just a little slow on the uptake, now and then.

The other night, I looked out my kitchen window to see two of the three rabbits that inhabit our backyard, gathered around their feeding station. One of them, a touch on the smaller side, is the one that has befriended me over the winter. I don’t know if it’s possible to be sexist while discussing rabbits, but because my buddy is the smallest of the three, I think of it as female.

I am a creative writer of longstanding so, after much creative thought, I gave my furry little pal a unique name – Bunny. I think it suits her.

Bunny comes when I call her now, and one night, I bent down and held out the dish of food I was carrying. She came within two inches of my hand. Had I put some seed in my hand, I think she might have eaten out of it. Instead I reached out to pet her and she was off like a rocket.

It is so gratifying to see this wild little creature hopping around impatiently a couple of feet from me while I put down her feed and then dash in to eat almost before I can get out of the way.

So, I have become sort of protective of her. That is why I was shocked and upset while looking out the window to see Bunny and another rabbit engaging in what seemed to be a pretty nasty fight. First, they stood straight up on their hind legs and I was shocked at how tall they were. Then, back on all fours, they took turns hopping straight into the air and landing back in the same spot, all the time facing each other. Also something I had never seen.

And then, to my horror, the bigger rabbit jumped on poor Bunny’s back and I couldn’t stand any more. I ran outside to break things up but they were gone.

I was watching a nature show tonight.

I’m pretty sure Bunny’s gonna be a mommy this spring. I know she’ll be busy, but I hope she can still spare a little time for me.

And if her kids are as friendly as she is, I will be busy thinking up unique names for them like Jumpy, Hoppy, Leapy, Frank and Bunny Jr.

The End.

©2021 Jim Hagarty

I wonder who the first person was who said the words, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Maybe some guy who went completely bald at 30. A hungry breakfast eater who found an empty box of his favourite Chewy Chunks cereal in the recycling bin. An owner of 50,000 shares in a company that just declared bankruptcy.

Years ago, we had a nice new car stolen from our driveway in the middle of the night and wrecked by the thieves. I also wonder who first used the words “write off” as we heard them used to describe a vehicle we really liked.

And while the loss of the car was a blow, what bothered me almost more was the idea that strangers had been walking around on our property in the middle of the night. It took a long time to shake that feeling.

But here’s a funny thing. I can get myself worked up to the point of around the bend over little things while major events such as the loss of a job I can handle with comparative calmness.

And so it was my mind was blown when I went outside this morning to see that the lid to one of the two big plastic garbage cans I had put out last night for pickup by the city was gone. I knew on some level how important those lids were to me, but not till that moment, did I realize just how much value I had attached to them. I didn’t know if it would be possible to buy a new lid. I suspected it would not be.

It was a very windy day in our city today. It was almost gale-like in intensity. So I spent too much time walking up and down our street looking for our lid. During my search, I discovered lids of every size, shape and colour dislodged and lying around but none that belonged at our place. Always in search of our town’s Citizen of the Year Award which, amazingly I have never won, I picked up several neighbours’ lids and reattached them to their cans.

But our lid was gone and there was only one conclusion that made any sense at that point.

There is a garbage can lid thief roaming the area and our lid was just too gorgeous not to steal, with its black handle, gentle contours and slightly rough black surface. Even someone who had never stolen a thing in his life could almost be forgiven for wanting to give himself the five-finger discount on our lid.

This bothered me one whole hell of a lot.

So an hour later, I wandered our section of town once again, this time crossing to the other side of the street for a new perspective. I even took to peering into people’s backyards to see if a thief had tucked it away behind his house.

The wind was fierce, blowing me west and almost preventing me entirely from walking east.

But to reward me, I guess, for replacing my neighbours’ lids, the Universe blessed me by showing me where our garbage can lid had wound up. There it was, lying in the middle of a four-lane main street. Almost as though it had been blown almost an entire city block to where it came to rest.

With only one truck on the road, I dashed out onto the street to rescue my treasure. You would have done the same.

What has me puzzled, however, was why the person who stole our lid dropped it onto the pavement as he ran across the street. Sadly, for him, he probably didn’t really know what he had till it was gone.

His effort was a total write off.

©2024 Jim Hagarty

This is a true story. It might seem like it wouldn’t be true. But it is.

In 1995, my wife Barb and I were driving along a road in Ireland when it was time to start looking for a B&B for the night. We liked to stay in villages and towns so we’d have somewhere to walk in the evenings after we were settled. I saw a sign and trying to be helpful, suggested a possible destination.

“What about Tipperary?” I asked. Barb got out the big road map, spread it across her lap and studied it carefully.

And then, in a response that will live on in Hagarty lore for many generations, she replied: “I don’t know. It’s a long way.”

I responded, “It’s a long way to Tipperary?” and a second or two passed before the realization of what she had said washed over her and her face turned redder than a freckled Irish lad’s hair.

Of course, I never remind her of the incident. Who could be so callous?

©2013 Jim Hagarty

Early in 1984, a friend I worked with asked me if I would take in a stray kitten she had seen living alone in a parking lot on Erie Street. She would have rescued it herself but she had too many and couldn’t afford one more. I demurred at first but finally gave in.

My friend captured the kitten and brought her to my house where I was living alone. For the next 11 years, Grumbles and I would share a bond that helped me through some lonely times, especially in the early years. In fact, it was a question who had rescued whom.

Not long after the kitty took up residence with me, I was asked by someone what on earth I was doing with a cat and I was advised to get rid of her.

That didn’t happen.

Years later, after I had gotten married, I was standing up on a ladder in the garage when my back gave out. I called for help from my wife to get down the ladder and I hobbled, bent over, across the kitchen floor in the direction of our bedroom. My progress was hampered by an excited and anxious Grumbles who leapt at me as I shuffled along and got tangled in my feet.

Once I finally was stretched out on the bed, she jumped up and sat on my chest, facing the open bedroom door. Thinking the weight of the cat would hurt my back even more, Barb picked her up and set her on the floor. The kitty jumped back up and took up her sentry position again. Barb put her back down; she jumped back up.

“Just leave her,” I said.

The cat knew I was hurt. This upset her and she had to do what she could to help. Strangely enough, her sitting on my chest did help. Seeing her there so dedicated to my well-being took my mind off my pain.

I was raised with many cats on the farm but they weren’t pets. Nevertheless, I liked them.

Until Grumbles, I didn’t know it was possible to love a cat.

But I’m pretty sure the cat knew.

©2023 Jim Hagarty