Month: July 2016

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I live in a little blue home
With a clock and a fridge and a phone.
I don’t envy kings
In those big castle things
Cause I have got one of my own.

By Jim Hagarty
For a few years, in my younger days, I went scootin’ around in one of these things, a 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle. I saw this beauty, a 1969 model, in my hometown travels today. Hard to believe it is almost 50 years old.

This looks like an SS (Super Sport). Mine was a four-door Chevelle Malibu. Robin egg blue. My Dad bought it for me from a neighbour who rarely drove it. He paid $400. In spite of being a sedan, my ’66 Malibu went like stink. Today, the name Chevelle is long retired but the Malibu lives on. However, I keep forgetting that the “Big Three” automakers often had different names for the same cars, depending on whether they were made for Canada or the U.S.

By Jim Hagarty

I have been on a few job interviews in my life. Some went very well, some badly. My most memorable bad one occurred when I was offered the job but then told the interviewer I would need some time to think about it.

“What kind of guy interviews for a job he’s not sure he wants?” asked the ticked off interviewer, who subsequently hired me. Then fired me later.

But at least one job seeker in Kentucky seems to have gone about things in perhaps exactly the wrong way, though this is just an opinion.

A young man came into a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in a Lexington mall this week and asked for a job application. An interview was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. He showed up 10 minutes early which I would say shows initiative and interest. If I had been interviewing him, I would have been impressed.

But in the interview, the job seeker, in my view, made a critical error. If you are looking for work, you might want to avoid making this mistake.

Our young hero told the manager he had a gun and he was there to rob the place. When the manager informed him that he did not have access to the safe, the young man apologized and then got very upset and left.

Two mistakes: Don’t try to rob your prospective employer. That approach does not usually result in a good first impression. And don’t show too much emotion during the interview. You want to project stability.

The man left and apparently had better luck when he robbed a dollar store down the street and got some cash. He hid in the store and waited till it closed before demanding money from the clerk.

But still no job.

I have always found it is a mistake to hide in a place of business until after it is closed.

Above all, job interviewers do not seem to deal well with surprises.

By Jim Hagarty
This is the first song from the CD Folk ‘n’ Western by my friend and fellow singer-songwriter Michael Earnie Taylor. Entitled I Just Fiddle All Day, this is Earnie’s recounting of playing for passersby on the streets of Stratford. The CD is available for purchase in the Corner Store.

I Just Fiddle All Day (The Busking Song) by Michael Earnie Taylor

By Jim Hagarty

In 1985 I bought a little red two-seater sportscar. At least I thought it was a sportscar.

It had hideaway lights and six speakers in its small cabin, two in each headrest. And a five-speed transmission. The engine was in the back and there was barely enough storage room for a sandwich and a pop.

It was only years later when the car was long gone that I found out the Pontiac Fiero was built on a Pontiac Acadian chassis and was not really a Ferrari in disguise. And it wasn’t very expensive. But it went like hell and I felt like I was flying an airplane when I was behind the wheel.

It was a poor man’s Ferrari and being a poor man, it was perfect for me.

It was a real head-turner when it first came out in 1984. Its body was made of plastic and at the auto shows that introduced it, young women in bikinis would remove the outer sections completely from the car and reassemble them in about 15 minutes. So, I thought, if I get one of these cars, I’ll get a young woman in a bikini. My plan worked and ironically, I had to get rid of the Fiero when that young woman and I started having children.

My fantasy is to one day own that car again and while I know I won’t get another young woman in a bikini, it might make me feel spry again to cruise around in it.

Shortly after I got the car, I went on a trip to Ireland and left the car at a Park and Fly near the airport in Toronto. A friend told me to mark down the mileage and check it when I picked it up because sometimes the guys would take nice cars for a ride when their owners were away. So I did. When I returned, I found that there were 26 more kilometres on the car than when I left.

And walking around the car to check it out, I saw something truly horrible. It had been parked close to a woven-wire fence which bordered on another parking lot. In that lot were a bunch of yellow parking blocks near the fence and they had been spray painted when I was away. The overspray covered the back of my sportscar. My red little number was now red with dozens of little yellow spots all over the back end. Not a nice way to come back from a great trip.

So I went into the building to straighten up with the Park and Fly people and I found an unfortunate young man who bore the brunt of my very legitimate complaints. I was not a happy camper. Paul listened and listened and finally he said, “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” He then went through a door right behind him and closed it. I waited and waited and waited. Finally another employee walked by and I hailed him over. When I told him I was waiting for Paul, he said, “Oh Paul’s gone home for the day. He was off at 3.”

Now I resembled Yosemite Sam going off on a rant against Bugs Bunny. Finally, a middle-aged man came over and listened to me sympathetically, took the details of my address, insurance, etc., and said they would look after the paint damage. You know the rest of the story. I never heard from him – or Paul – again.

Instead I spent hours removing the little dots of yellow from the rear of my sportscar, one painful splatter at a time.

It was a sad day when I drove away from the car dealer in a used, four-door Chevy Cavalier which we bought to replace the two-seater, as I looked back longingly at it sitting forlornly on the lot. I have good memories of that little buggy despite the odd hiccup.

Mechanically, it was a bit of a nightmare but it was also a whole lot of dream come true.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I would tell you a tale about Mary,
But no words I can find rhyme with Mary.
Not even one.
Hey, this is no fun.
So my next poem will be about Harry.

By Jim Hagarty

Up here in Canada, we are celebrating our 149th birthday today. We were actually around a century or more before that but in 1867, we finally got our act together and became an official country. The United States had just finished a Civil War and we were afraid our southern neighbours might just keep on marching north one day.

And now, the president of that gigantic southern neighbour, while visiting our country this week, said the world needs more Canada. How does a Canadian respond to a compliment like that without resorting to bragging? But bragging is not in our nature, so we just let it pass.

We have accepted into our country the downtrodden of the world and we still do. And those millions of people have made a great nation. My ancestors left Ireland during the Famine and have found a wonderful home here and in the U.S.

If there is one thing we can be a little bit cocky about is our tendency to marginalize the crazies in our society, and we have lots of goofballs. We steal their good ideas, if they have any, but we manage to keep the goons on the bench and give them little ice time.

Our Constitution contains, within its opening lines, the phrase, “peace, order and good government” as a guiding principle. Not to criticize our southern neighbour, but their constitution stresses the importance of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

That might seem like a subtle difference but I think it explains a lot. In Canada, the individual is part of something bigger. In the U.S., the individual is supreme. The European migration that ended up in each country, came to those places with different motivations.

But nothing is perfect.

To paraphrase Barack Obama: “Canada needs more Canada.”

By Jim Hagarty

I once roamed our farm with a gun
And shot cans off fence posts just for fun.
It beat trying to hit them with stones
Like I used to do, next to our home.

But one day I looked up to see
A hawk flying high above me.
Temptation to shoot was too strong
And I fired, though I knew it was wrong.

I missed and I’m thankful I did.
But my father yelled at me, “Hey kid!
“If I ever see you do that again
“Your gun days will end there and then.”

I was shocked as I thought at the time
Everything was a target of mine.
And one day, I was bored, I suppose,
I threw stones at the cans on the posts.

By Jim Hagarty

This was the day I knew I worked for a good newspaper.

All the editors were called into a meeting with the owner of the small-town daily. This might have been our first and only such meeting.

The subject at hand was whether or not to use the eff word in a story on the front page of that day’s edition.

The day before, a judge had dismissed an assault charge brought by a police officer against a young man who had told the officer, during an encounter, “Fuck off, cop!” In my view, to his credit, the judge decided that the young man was not telling the policeman to do anything carnal, but instead, his words meant, “Go away, cop!” Spoken crudely, of course, in today’s vernacular, but not really meant as an assault on the officer.

You can’t walk 20 feet in my town without passing a church. We are a conservative community, plopped in the middle of a large and prosperous farming territory. To put the actual word “fuck” on our front page, might be the end of something.

But the family who owned the paper were not shrinking violets. They had voluntary banned all cigarette advertising long before our governments got involved and made it the law. In doing so, they gave up many thousands of dollars in revenue. One day, the owner banned smoking in the newsroom.

So it was that “fuck” appeared on the front page of our newspaper. We got a letter or two of protest. But there was barely a ripple. Although the owner was in no rush to see the word on the front page again.

Of the things that offend me in this life, and the list is too long, I guess, swearing is right at the bottom. I think there was a study released not long ago that said it is even good for a person to swear.

What offends me more than swearing are people who take to the ramparts and prepare for battle when they hear a bad word or two. They are welcome to their opinion, but if I was ordered by a judge to have a coffee with a swearer or a person mortally offended by swearing, I’d pick the swearer.

He may be crude and rude but probably not a judgmental prude.

Spare me five more minutes in this life in the company of one of those.