The Factor of Weird

By Jim Hagarty

A friend asked me the other day
If I was always odd this way.
What happened to me, friend inquired,
To make my circuits strangely wired?

Did a great big tree fall on my head?
Did I spend years sick in my bed?
Did I have an operation on my brain
Which left an indelible stain?

Did I fall out of a moving car?
Did I drink a can of roofing tar?
Was I dangled by my feet
Or run over three times in the street?

I answered slowly, like I do,
“I’m not as near as strange as you.
“The difference is I do not hide
“All my thoughts deep down inside.”

But as he left, he shook his head.
He hadn’t heard a word I said.
So I went back to being weird.
Just the very thing he feared.

But in this life we have a choice.
Sit like a stump or make some noise.
And on my tomb I want it scratched
“Often copied, never matched.”

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.