Home in Her Heart

By Jim Hagarty
2015
Every Christmas I make individual calendars for each member of my family. On the back there is a space to include a few words. For our daughter Sarah, who will be leaving for university next fall, I used a line from an Emmylou Harris song, Love and Happiness: “Wear your ruby shoes, when you’re far away, so you’ll always stay, home in your heart.” The last present she opened today was a pair of ruby shoes. I didn’t know she was getting them. Neither did her mother know about the saying I used on Sarah’s calendar when she bought the shoes. As omens go, this is a pretty good one. Merry Christmas.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.