Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2016

My cat and I have waged a 10-year battle over a very basic issue. We have wildly divergent ideas regarding what it means to have food in his dish. To sum up the disagreement, from his viewpoint, there is never any food in his dish. I am of the opinion, weak though it may be, that the presence of food in his dish means there is food in his dish. This notion, apparently, is open to debate.

He seeks me out, wherever I might be located on our property and drags me downstairs with much yeowling and discontent (that’s me) to demonstrate to me that there is no food in his dish. I politely point out to him that there is food in his dish. He looks for said food and asks, “Where is this food you speak of?”

Having come, once again, to this impasse, I promptly top up his dish with more food. Maybe he learned this from my frequent announcements that we are out of potato chips. Someone will then show me there are four part bags in the cupboard. Who are they trying to kid? We are out of chips!

By Jim Hagarty
2006

The admission that I am a confused man will come as no big surprise to most who know me. But this time, I think I have some justification for my extreme bewilderment. I was in a food store the other day – as in FOOD STORE – and I found myself checking out deals on VCRs, DVD players, clothing and flowers. None of these materials I can actually consume as I would, say, a potato, some ice cream or a sirloin steak (not necessarily in that order). Nevertheless, there they were. I also lingered over bins full of movies and there was also a sale on lawn furniture. In a food store.

The same day, I dropped into a big drug store. It has the word “drug” right in the name of the store. While there, I checked out some cool digital cameras and on my way out, walked by aisles of various processed foods and household cleaners. In a drug store.

In another drug store, I window shopped all sorts of fancy giftware. Some pretty nifty stuff tucked away between the eyedrops, the toenail clippers and the shampoo. Plus, oh yes, the drugs.

And one big store seems to have thrown the towel in completely and said, what the heck, let’s sell it all. About the only thing you can’t buy there is a gun or a tractor. Drugs, food, clothes, electronics – it has it all. We have tire stores that sell hockey equipment, TVs and evergreens and hardware stores that sell fancy glassware and even books. Then there are book stores that sell movies, music and magazines, and stationery stores that sell trips to New Zealand. Donut and coffee shops sell soups and sandwiches while variety stores sell hotdogs, coffee and fresh muffins.

Insurance companies sell investment “vehicles” and everybody sells insurance including universities. Farm stores sell everything city folk could need while arenas have fast-food restaurants and pubs housed within them.

Might this all be called diversification? Or might it just be harking back to the good old days of the country general store and even the city department store where the idea seemed to be to meet as many of the customers’ needs as possible to prevent them from moving on down the street.

The general store in the village near where I grew up stocked literally something of almost everything except cars and trucks (and still does). And the store, located in an old hotel, had trouble accommodating all the merchandise and so it was displayed from every square inch of wall and even ceiling space. There were logs and fence posts, and Christmas trees outside, peanuts and kids’ wagons inside. A visit there for a boy was better than a school field trip. It was impossible to get tired of scanning the place for unusual items.

And yes, there were guns. Shiny new rifles for farmers to protect their crops and livestock.

It would be interesting to know what this movement towards generalization by the big stores, especially, represents, from a sociological point of view. Of course, the profit motive plays a big part and so stores will sell “anything for a buck” like the hillbilly characters Larry, Darrell and Darrell from the old Bob Newhart Show.

But why did they move away from that early rural concept in the last century to the era of shops that specialized in one thing only? And why do they now seem to be moving back again? Are merchants in our city, as I’ve heard it speculated a few times, just doing their best to get ready for new big box stores that might be on their way?

Meanwhile, the big players in the newspaper industry I work in have started TV shows of their own and publish telephone directories. But if next week I am selected to host the News at Noon on Channel 52, I might be forced to retire. So I can have more free time to hang around the gas station … Washing my car.

By Jim Hagarty
2014

There is a place most of us have driven past from time to time and some of us have taken up residence there. It is a cute, tree-lined town where everything is seemingly in order but if you spend any time there at all, you will get a feeling that there is a disturbing rumbling underground, like the entire community was built on top of a simmering volcano. There are lots of smiles on the faces of the people there but they sometimes seem more painted on than real.

If you wonder whether or not you are heading to Curmudgeonville, here are a few signposts that might tell you it is probably just over the next hill or two.

1. You start a lot of sentences, “When I was young …”.

2. Today’s music is crap. You know this even though you have never listened to today’s music.

3. Everything was so much better in the good old days.

4. You start a lot of sentences, “Young people today …”.

5. You worry about immigrants. You don’t know any immigrants, but they worry you. A lot.

6. Today’s TV shows are crap. You know this even though you never watch today’s TV shows. Ditto movies.

7. Nobody respects anybody any more, especially their elders.

8. Teachers. (Fill in complaints here.)

9. Too much sex, sex, sex everywhere (except in your own bedroom.)

10. Human beings are toast and our planet is doomed.

11. You worry a lot about people swearing too much and ignoring God.

12. Too many people are living on free money, unlike you who works hard for every last red cent.

13. Cops, firefighters, postal workers (fill in complaints here).

14. Nobody knows their “place” any more and we’d all be much happier if we did. Your place, for example, is a nice little house in the heart of Curmudgeonville, where there are double locks on all your doors, you pay $1.50 a year in taxes and riff raff are never seen nor heard.

15. Drugs. OMG. Drugs.

P.S. You don’t have to be old to live in Curmudgeonville. P.P.S. I have lived there a few times myself.

By Jim Hagarty
1988

I felt like a bear climbing out of its den after a long winter’s sleep. The hibernation was welcome but so is the spring. As long as I live, I’m sure, those first warm rays of sun on my face after winter will be a lift to the spirits.

And another welcome lift appeared when I stepped outside my front door last Wednesday to find my neighbours’ children Bradley and Jennifer standing shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk across the street from my place, staring in my direction and looking for all the world like a couple of rosy-cheeked kids in a Norman Rockwell painting. Though the weather was balmy, they were still bundled up. I hadn’t seen them more than once or twice, and then only briefly, since last fall.

“Well, if it isn’t Frank and George,” I called across the street to them. “How’re you fellas doin’?”

After checking for traffic, they crossed the street hand in hand and were soon standing beside me.

“We’re not Frank and George,” protested Bradley, the older of the two, with a very serious look on his face.

“You’re not?” I said. “Well then, who are you?”

“You remember us, Jim,” said Bradley. “I’m Bradley and she’s Jennifer.”

“Oh, so that’s who you are.”

“Come on Jim,” said Bradley. “I know you’re just foolin’ us.”

“That’s right,” I admitted. “I remember you two. So, how’re you boys doing?”

“Oim not a boy,” said Jennifer, after popping her thumb out of her mouth. “Oim a dirl.”

“Oh, I see,” I said. “And you’re a dirl too, Bradley?”

“No way!” he said. “I’m a boy.”

“Of course you are,” I said. “I can never get that straight

“So, your mom’s a boy too?”

“Nooooh, she’s a girrrrrrl!” they corrected me, in unison.

“And your brother Steven? He’s a girl?”

“Nooooh! Smarten up, Jim. He’s a boy,” said Bradley.

“Oh, now I get it,” I said. “Sometimes, I’m such a dummy.

“And your dad? He’s a girl like your mom?

“Nooooh!” came, a loud chorus of denials. “He’s a boyyyyyy!”

“Well, that worked out pretty well then, didn’t it?” I said.

“You know what, Jim?” said Bradley. “I know you’re just foolin’ with us.”

“Ya!” cried Jennifer. “And oim a dirl.”

As I was sweeping off my driveway at the time, my little neighbours, whatever their gender, pitched in. Bradley grabbed another broom out of my garage and Jennifer a whisk and for the next 15 minutes, I swept dirt off patches of pavement and they swept dirt onto the patches I’d swept off. Spring cleaning takes a little longer this way.

I’m glad winter’s over.

By Jim Hagarty
2018

I said to someone I admire: “I like your friends. They are wonderful.”

“Do you really think so?” asked my friend.

“Of course I do,” I replied.

“How did I get so lucky,” she asked.

“You didn’t get lucky at all,” I told her.

My friend look puzzled.

“No luck involved,” I continued. “It is simple cause and effect at work.”

I could see my friend was tiring of my riddles.

“You have wonderful friends because you are wonderful. How could it be otherwise?”

And she is.

I don’t know a lot in this world but I do know that.

And it makes me feel better about myself to know she is my friend.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once owned a gnat named Pat.
It went for rides under my hat.
It scampered outside
And that’s where it died.
It got too close to the cat.

By Jim Hagarty
2018

This is where an addictive personality and desperation meet. I have been hooked for almost two weeks on a TV series. Five seasons have been filmed. The first three are available on Netflix. So I burned through those 30 plus episodes like newspapers in a fireplace. “MORE!!!!” came the scream from me into the ether in the middle of the night.

I went searching for seasons four and five. They are legally available through a number of sources, in Canada mostly on Super Channel. But my need for these remaining episodes of this program overwhelmed any sense of morality I have tried to encourage in myself over almost seven decades. If I could have found these shows burned onto an old videotape, I would have traded them for my car in a back alley from a mean-looking guy in a trenchcoat.

So I went searching the Internet and found them streamed there for free. But not on one website. It was like picking broken glass out of your rice krispies. This morning, I sit here with no more of my show to watch. But this is what I had to endure and was willing to put with.

On several of my bootleg shows, the sound was somehow slowed down, so that every character in the programs had very deep and drawly voices, even the women and kids. They all sounded like monsters in a horror flick. I got used to that.

Other shows appeared backwards. I knew this by realizing that any words printed such as store signs, etc., were backwards. Small price to pay.

And in a couple of others, the entire image was magnified so only about 80 per cent of the actual footage showed on my monitor. I had to imagine what I was missing on the outer edges of the picture.

In a couple of other shows, the audio and visual elements of the program were completely out of sync by about five or ten seconds. The characters would move their mouths in silence, and then later, when they might not even be still in the scene, their lines would be heard.

And in the final show I watched, a Christmas special, the image was blurry, for some reason. But I charged ahead, watching as though I had left my glasses on the highway for someone to run over.

The only thing I can compare this ordeal to is being so desperate for a chocolate bar and realizing all the ones in the off-the-beaten-path gas station have best-before dates long expired. You rifle through all the bad ones available to try to find the most recently out-of-date one. You hope, as you unwrap it carefully, that the chocolate hasn’t turned white, not that you would reject it if it had. This is an experience I have had.

So here I sit, filled and empty at the same time. There are still three shows left in the current season. They aren’t even available yet illegally. The next one airs tonight. Guess I will be forced once again into that back alley to look for my friend in the trenchcoat. Then I will spend the rest of my day wondering why bad guys love trenchcoats.