Category: Uncategorized

By Jim Hagarty
2018

Canadians are too polite. Thank God we are. Sorry if that offends you. (See? And I haven’t even said anything offensive. Yet.)

In Canada, we are raised to not consider the individual to be a god. We learn pretty quickly that we belong to communities and that if we want to live long and prosper, we had better make room for others. This means abiding by laws we might not like, rules that seem ridiculous. Yes, we have our heroes, but we know they are simply people above all else. I once talked to a guy who had peed in a urinal next to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who was relieving himself in the urinal beside him while being Prime Minister. They struck up a conversation while answering nature’s call.

A little thing, but I recently went to pay for my coffee at the drivethrough window. I was told the woman in the car ahead of me had already paid for it. I asked what the car behind me had ordered. Also a coffee. So I paid for that guy’s coffee. Didn’t hurt a bit and made me feel good all day.

I bought the house I still live in 32 years ago. A few months after I moved in, I got into a small fracas with a neighbour. I told an older co-worker about it the next day. He dropped what he was doing, made me look him straight in the face, and said, “If you want to be happy in your new home, don’t fight with your neighbours.” His earnestness stopped me in my tracks. I took his advice and dropped whatever little thing had been bugging me. I have lived happily in my home for 32 years.

I do not get along with everyone in this world but those I disagree with, I try to go around. I cross the street when someone unpleasant is coming my way. And I know people who don’t want to encounter me are doing the same thing. I am not everyone’s cup of tea. I know that. I sometimes think of the two road ragers in the United States a year or so ago who pulled their cars off onto the shoulder, jumped out of their vehicles, whipped out their guns and shot each other dead. Two middle-aged white men. They gave up their lives because somebody cut somebody off, or some such horror.

Canadians have all the same problems as other societies. But we do not worship our leaders, our history or even our rights. We enshrine new rights when they are inevitable and discard old ones when they are unproductive. We do not vote for our leaders directly. They are chosen by our political parties and discarded by those same parties, not by the voters.

We look out for each other. I’ve mentioned this nugget before. My neighbour rang my doorbell a while back and asked me sheepishly if he could borrow MY key to HIS house, having locked himself out. He has a key to my house. I always want to live in a town and country where I can enjoy that level of trust. And absence of fear.

You can have your Wild Wild West. I prefer my Mild Mild Best.

By Jim Hagarty
2014

The brain is a funny thing. Everybody has one (I think) but the mind that goes with it can sometimes be missing or defective.

Take David Scofield, 50, of Akron, Ohio, for example. He liked to spend time impersonating a police officer. No big deal. Who hasn’t done that? I often arrest people for fun on weekends and even issue speeding tickets (after I chase them for 10 miles to make sure they speed up.)

In any case, poor old David found a way to screw it up for the rest of us. He got caught this week when he tried to pull over a real officer. Akron police say a man driving a Ford Crown Victoria with a spotlight and made to look like a police car tried to block the path of a real Akron officer on his way to work Monday night. He had a rifle, shotgun, handguns, a bullet-proof vest, a silencer and ammunition in his car.

Police say Scofield is a firearms dealer from Lancaster. He was arrested on misdemeanor charges of impersonating a police officer, carrying concealed weapons and obstructing official business. He was in the Summit County Jail where records didn’t say if he had an attorney. However, if I could venture a guess, I think David’s next gig will be impersonating an attorney. After that, he’ll be a jailbird, no impersonation required.

His best impersonation so far is that of a total world-record-shattering idiot on steroids but something tells me he did not have to practise for that role in front of a mirror.

By Jim Hagarty
1992

Taped to my computer keyboard here at the office is a small, inspiring cartoon of TV’s lovable, stumbly-bum dad, Homer Simpson, holding a nice, big, round, chocolate-covered doughnut and declaring that, “Doughnuts are a man’s best friend.”

Some writers might opt for a little more lofty saying to tape to their computers – something from Shakespeare, perhaps. Or a few lines from a Robbie Burns poem.

But these days, for me, Homer Simpson and his love of doughnuts suit my mood perfectly. He’s an ordinary guy with ordinary tastes. Maybe he can’t afford a villa on the Riviera for the winter but he can afford a doughnut. The simple pleasures, after all, are still the best.

And yet, while Homer Simpson’s idea of man’s best friend and mine are similar, I am a little more expansive in my assessment of what constitutes the closest pal a human can have. To me, doughnut SHOPS are a man’s best friend.

Next to my own home which, thankfully, is the one place on earth I usually want to be most of all, doughnut shops have for years been my favourite places to hang out. It is not that I am addicted so much to coffee and doughnuts – at home, I rarely have either. It’s just that doughnut shops take care of so many needs, other than hunger and thirst, and they do it without emptying my bank account.

A favourite topic of conversation these days for people who live, work and do business in the city of Stratford is how on earth all the doughnut shops now located here will ever survive. At last count, there are nine operating and soon to be operating in the city, a veritable explosion in a place which, until just a few years ago, made do with only two. And it’s possible one or two more may locate here in the near future. As well, 24-hour coffee shops are springing up in the small towns in the area and even right out in the country.

I listen to and take part in these discussions – after all, this is one of my favourite subjects – and I’ve noticed that many people use the wrong approach to solving the question of whether or not these businesses can survive the competition. Many of them ask, “How much coffee can a city of 27,000 people drink?”, before they conclude we can’t drink all the coffee that nine coffee shops can brew. While they could well be right and only time will tell, I think the current sprouting of doughnut shops in this area doesn’t have as much to do with our need for coffee as our need for companionship and comfort.

To me, today’s doughnut shops are yesterday’s pubs. Where hotels once dotted the city and country landscapes – the town of Mitchell, for example, had as many as nine hotels at one time and now has only one – their fortunes have been in decline for years as people have turned away from drinking and driving and even from drinking itself.

But people still need places where they can gather – like they do in pubs – to shoot the breeze, wait for their car to be repaired, console a friend, take a first date after a movie, sort out their troubles, escape from their wife/husband/kids, stop for a stretch part way through a trip, wait out a recession or a snowstorm and read the Sunday paper when it’s raining outside.

Unless the people of Stratford suddenly don’t need to do these things any more, I think most of our doughnut shops will hang in there for a while. Besides, there’s more than a bit of Homer Simpson in most of us. We have to take our comfort where we can find it.

And as for the coffee shops being man’s best friend, I think sometimes they’re even better than a best friend. How many best friends would be glad to see you show up at 4 o’clock in the morning?

By Jim Hagarty
2013

I just made $100,000 so go ahead and congratulate me.

After reading that a 33-year-old singer/songwriter/idiot spent $100,000 on plastic surgery to make himself look like his idol Justin Bieber, I decided this was a goal I wanted to achieve too, especially since he was born and raised in my hometown and it’s possible lightning might strike twice. So I found a picture of Bieber, held it up to the mirror and took a look at his head and mine. He has two ears, so do I. Check. He has a nose, I have one as well. Two eyes, a mouth, check and check. Chin, cheeks, eyebrows, forehead. So far, the similarities are striking. He has more hair on his head than I do but he always wears a baseball cap and so do I.

So, as far as I am concerned, we’re pretty much a perfect match. Except maybe for that 44-year age difference thing, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re close enough.

So, my $100,000 facelift fund is staying in my interest bearing account where it is earning me a handsome .00025 per cent per annum. Turns out money can buy you happiness as I am happy I am not the singer/songwriter/copycat/idiot referred to above.

By Jim Hagarty
2007

It’s not easy to come by a little bit of dignity in this world and it’s hard, for us all, sometimes, to keep our heads up with all the little humiliations we have to put up with in the average week.

But if people sometimes wonder what it is we have to do for a little respect, imagine the plight of the lowly hamster, who, though well fed, has a curious role to play in the scheme of things. As far as can be determined, these little guys are born to amuse – people. Plain and simple. And so they tear around in their little cages, in full view of the members of whatever household they happen to land in, eating, sleeping and, well, you know, in full view of everyone. If they want privacy, they can crawl into a cardboard tube (most often an empty toilet paper roll) or cover themselves up with woodshavings but that’s about it as far as any personal space is concerned.

They run their little ferris wheels so long and hard that they finally collapse in a pile. And let loose outside their cage in their “space balls”, they explore every square inch of their surroundings, leaving nothing out and shaking off the concussions that surely must come from all that bashing and crashing into door frames and furniture.

One such creature, a “teddy bear” hamster called Hammy who has better sideburns than Elvis used to sport, recently took up residence in our home, bringing with him, at the same time, equal amounts of delight and despair.

He’s a better entertainer than half the talent on TV, as he rides along in his big plastic Barbie car, sits on our shoulders and heads and hurls himself off furniture in an effort to go sightseeing – alone.

But Hammy has a dark side to his nature which has us all worried. Though pretty chipper on the surface, it’s apparent he is a pretty conflicted little fellow down deep inside. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that our young hamster has a death wish.

The reason for this admittedly gloomy assessment is the fact that our furry rodent has escaped his quarters four times this week and for such a creature to run free in a house with two murderous cats is just plain asking for it.

The first brush with doom came when the lid popped off his space ball and he broke loose from his confinement. Having not heard the ball in a while, we looked up to see our diminutive dodo ripping around the front hallway with two very interested kitties in hot pursuit. I grabbed the water bottle we keep handy for emergencies and sprayed the cats, but in the excitement managed to give Hammy a good shower as well. He seemed grateful to be returned to his cage.

A couple of similar incidents followed and on Saturday, he somehow escaped from the downstairs bathroom while his cage was being cleaned and headed for behind the furnace which also happens to be the cats’ hideaway. I have sported a gash on my head all week as I slammed my noggin squeezing down to pick up the quickly disappearing prey.

But things really came undone when he ventured too far off a lap, causing our most homicidal feline to pounce, grab the little guy in his mouth and prepare for the final assault. Only extreme yelling and commotion caused the cat to drop his wriggling toy and run for it.

This is where the dignity part comes in. Imagine if every time we went for a walk, we were hunted down by creatures 20 times our size. But it also may have something to do with this. As I was going through some receipts the other night, I came across the one from the pet store for Hammy. Instead of “hamster”, it read “dog food – $8.99.” No wonder he is depressed.

It’s just too bad he’s so determined to fulfil his curious destiny.

By Jim Hagarty
2018
Mental health professionals have been saying for some time that it is a myth that the mentally ill are violent, a characterization that society likes to promote. The mentally ill CAN be violent, but that is not a natural posture for them. If they are violent, that violence is often directed towards themselves. Hence the efforts by caregivers to protect them from themselves. But to portray the mentally ill as “psycho” makes for great movies and literature. Some say it is not even correct to label Donald Trump as mentally ill as it lets him off the hook in this environment. “Not mad, just bad. He knows what he is doing.” Our approach to the mentally ill has not advanced much over the millennia. We fear them and consider that they must be “possessed” by evil spirits. There is mental illness and there is evil. It is possible to be evil without being ill. Evil is a choice, arrived at by calculation. Illness is not. Illness can be treated. Evil is almost always immune to efforts at correction. Mental illness is a temporary corrupted condition of the mind, evil a rotting of the soul.

By Jim Hagarty
1987

This weekend, weather permitting, I’ll be putting a new roof on the house.

I’ve never put a roof on a house owned by me before, so this is a big deal, requiring all of the usual amount of pre-big-deal fretting.

Therefore, the project actually got under way Tuesday night just after I went to bed. I slipped under the covers, turned off the light on the nighttable, stared at the ceiling and started looking at my roof.

Then and there, long after all the stores had closed and hours before they’d open again, I started ordering supplies.

By 12:30 a.m., I had rounded up most of the things I was going to need – shingles, vents, nails, tar, flashing, eaves starter, a roll of tarpaper and drinks for the men who were showing up to help.

That much accomplished, it was time for a break. I got up, went to the kitchen, ate an orange, returned to bed and went back to work.

By 1:30 a.m., after much tossing and turning, I had most of the old shingles torn off the roof and thrown on the ground below. Next came repairs to some of the boards under the shingles which had deteriorated in the 30 years since the house was built.

By 2:30 a.m., the new shingles were going on and vents were being installed. My helpers had shown up and things were really starting to move.

After another kitchen break for biscuits, cheese and orange juice, I climbed back into bed and started working on the garage roof. We encountered some problems there where the garage meets the main house but by 4 a.m., they were worked out.

About this time, I realized how ridiculous this was and decided I’d better get some sleep. But I was a man obsessed. So I tried a technique I’ve heard is effective in switching trains of thought by picturing some favourite, pleasant scene, which, if concentrated on long enough, will apparently displace obsessive thoughts and encourage sleep. Some happy moment from the past, perhaps, or a babbling brook trickling through a peaceful forest. Or, for lack of anything more original, sheep jumping over a rail fence.

To block out the roofing, I pictured a bright, sunny day 20 years ago on my family’s farm. It was hot, but nice. The kind of day when the country is the only place to live. Birds were chirping from the evergreens and cats were chasing mice in the long grass. Cattle were grazing in the orchard and the smell of newly mowed hay was intoxicating.

My father and brothers and some neighbour men were gathered there, down near the barnyard, ready for work of some sort. Hammers in hand, we started climbing ladders. It was soon apparent we were putting a new roof on the driving shed. And before long, we’d moved from the shed to the roof of my house and were happily shingling away.

I rolled over and tried again. This time, on another sunny day 30 years ago, I was at the one-room school I attended as a kid and it was recess. We were all running around, waving our arms screaming “My turn!” and “That’s not fair!” and generally having a good time. Soon, we were playing a favourite game – throwing a ball over the woodshed roof, which, I could see, was badly in need of repair. But first, we had to finish the roof on my house.

It was no use.

At 4:30 a.m., most of the lights in the house were on and I was sitting at my kitchen table with a building supply store’s catalogue and a calculator, going over figures. Figures are something a person can never go over too many times. About 5 o’clock, I went back to bed.

A short time later, in the middle of installing a vent on the north side of the house roof, I must have fallen asleep.

At 6:15, the alarm went off.

As I dragged myself out to the car on my way to work, I noticed that despite all of the hard labour of the night before, my roof wasn’t done.

But I was.