Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2016
Warning! I know a man. You might know him too. His name is Yuno Wattcha Shudoo. If you see him, avoid all contact. He is obnoxious, ignorant and potentially dangerous. But if you encounter Yurohn Hart in your travels, take her for a coffee. She’s the one with the answers.

By Jim Hagarty
1992

When you work in the same office day after day, year after year, you get to know your environment pretty well. You become familiar with practically every square inch of the place. You also, through daily observation, learn all the habits, idiosyncrasies and clothing styles of your fellow workers. They, in turn, are equally studied in the details of their environment of which you are a part.

Therefore, sneezing patterns, laughing fits, temper tantrums and annoying mannerisms all become extremely familiar to the observant office worker. And so, a change, no matter how slight, is instantly noticed, often commented on and sometimes, made a big deal of.

Over the years, no one in our office has taken greater notice of his surroundings than I. Why that is so, I am not sure, but fellow workers have often been made happily aware of my keen eye for observation. Rare is the person who has been able to sneak by my desk with a new shirt on or a fresh haircut, without my seeing the change right away. And offering a very generous compliment about it, I must say.

But this seemingly harmless habit has a downside to it. On those infrequent occasions when I sport some new piece of apparel to work or come in with a new haircut, my fellow workers are lined up to have their say about the change. This often makes me nervous about making any changes at all because their comments are rarely as kind as the ones I make when I notice the changes they’ve made. I have no idea why they act that way.

They were at their usual sharp-tongued selves last week when I wore a new sweater to work. It is a hand-knit, wool, sweater-coat, with a big collar and large wooden buttons up the front. It is warm and comfortable, if a little casual for the workplace.

“Hi Ward! How’s the Beav?” came the first comment from a staff photographer who shall remain nameless, referring, of course, to the sweater-clad father, Ward Cleaver on the old TV show, Leave It To Beaver.

“Hey, nice sweater!” commented a certain composing room worker who shall also remain anonymous. “Where’s your slippers?”

But worst of all was the slander spewed by a newsroom employee whom I shall also decline to name. “Charlie Farquharson called,” said the jealous journalist. “He wants his sweater back.” (Charlie was a folksy farmer TV character played by an actor in Canada at the time.)

There were other unflattering things said, most of them too painful for me to talk about here. Suffice it to say, it was the worst case of sweater abuse I’ve ever seen.

And, of course, I didn’t deserve a word of it.

Enough of this clothesism, I say.

Enough of this textile harassment.

Enough!

By Jim Hagarty
2018

I dropped off my son at work today at 9:30 a.m. and wished him a good day. Thursday is his busy day and I won’t see him again for 12 hours. Two week ago, I took my daughter back to her apartment in a city a three-hour drive away and said goodbye. “See you in three weeks,” she called out from her balcony.

Twelve hours? Three weeks?

I still can’t get used to this after all these years. There was a time when we were all together 24 hours a day. Now in their early 20s, we’ve had separations that have lasted as long as six weeks and they have spent time in some far-flung places.

I remember the first day I dropped them both off at nursery school. I was a stay-at-home dad and had been with them all day long, every day. As I walked away, I could hear through a window of the school my daughter screaming at the separation. I sat in my car and openly wept like I never had before. To punish myself even more, I slipped a Fred Penner tape of songs, their favourites, into the car stereo. Then the waterworks flowed without stopping.

But the tears were good and even then I was grateful for them. Finally, this cold, cold heart was melting. It’s been not much more than a puddle on the floor ever since.

By Jim Hagarty
2013
Retired boxer George Foreman has 12 children, and each of his five sons is named George: George Jr., George III, George IV, George V, and George VI. His four younger sons are distinguished from one another by the nicknames “Monk”, “Big Wheel”, “Red”, and “Little Joey.” One of his daughters is called Georgetta. I saw him interviewed on TV one time and he was asked why he named almost everybody George. He said, “You go 15 rounds in the ring with Muhammad Ali and see how many names you can remember.”

By Jim Hagarty
2006

Maybe your experience has been different from mine, but for some reason I cannot explain, I can’t get rid of my junk by holding garage sales. They obviously do the trick for other cluttermongers – some communities, in fact, pass bylaws limiting the number of yard sales a homeowner can have in a year because some are basically small businesses in disguise – but the few I’ve had have ended only in discouragement and embarrassment as I am continually forced to haul all the old stuff back into the garage.

It might be my prices. I’ll admit, greed gets the best of me and with visions of walking away with sagging pockets of silver dollars and two-dollar coins, I may be pricing myself out of the market. Maybe $10 is too much for a picture frame that cost $3 five years ago.

And presentation could be a problem. I kind of just spread everything around loosely on the grass, on the driveway, in cardboard boxes, on a couple of old tables. It may be that I need to hire a marketing guru or business coach to help me catch the eye of those hard-nosed bargain hunters out there.

But the biggest drawback, I can easily see, has to be with my timing. It appears as though you cannot straggle out of bed at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning and start pricing and hauling your stuff to the street after that. The real, professional garage sale junkies have already ransacked the town by then and have gone to wherever these people hang out between garage sales.

Which might be the crux of the problem. I guess I am a stranger in the yard sale subculture. If you get offended by people wandering through your garage offering you a buck for things they’ve been clearly told are not for sale, then yard peddling might not be the thing for you. And putting an ad in the paper saying, “No early birds, please” just seems to serve to attract them.

You also cannot have sensitive feelings to be a success in the garage-sale world. When someone thinks 25 cents is too much to pay for an old flute and tries to work you down to 15 cents, you simply can’t take it personally. Accept that you are talking to an alien, take their 15 cents and move on, and see if they ascend to some sort of Mother Ship after they leave.

In fact, if rudeness bothers you, don’t even think about exposing yourself to it by displaying the things you’ve been hoarding all these years. Your tender ears might be shocked at what you’ll hear.

But here’s the real rub. If everyone was as much a washout at this activity as you are, you might feel surrounded by compatriots. That, however, does not seem to be the case. A woman down the street announces proudly that she made $500 on her recent sale ($75 of which was yours as you now own a used kids’ pool table). And an old friend from another town says he recently hauled in $950 at a blowout lawn sale.

Give me a break!

Two summers ago, my son and I sat patiently watching people glance at – and walk by – our pile of what might euphemistically be called rubbish on their way to a neighbour’s place two doors down. The couple there were doing a booming business and we watched with bewilderment at how everything they had for sale, sold, including all the stuff on this big, long table. And then, when they were packing up, somebody came along and bought the table!

Last weekend, I put a few things out and amazingly, sold a couple of items. I leaned the bike I bought a few weeks ago for $10 up against a tree with a pricetag of $15 on it, hoping to launch a career as a capitalist. A woman pulled up in her car, got out and asked whether or not I’d take $10 for it as that is all she had on her. I said sure.

I also vowed never to do this again and have spent all week making deposits at the various charities around town as well as the dump where I probably should have been taking all this stuff all along. No one asks me impertinent questions at the dump.

By Jim Hagarty
2015

What we don’t have enough of in this world are people who hit you when they’re talking to you. Man I just love that. To keep your attention, I guess, the uninvited guest in your personal space keeps tapping you on the leg, the knee, the forearm, the elbow – any dangly part that can be reached – as they relate their fascinating tales, which are whispered conspiratorially as though the code to the U.S. nuclear warheads supply was being revealed.

And gosh darn it (sorry for the foul language), their stories do compel. In their presence, I am almost tempted to tell them that with narratives as captivating as they regularly roll out, there is no need for them to assault the people around them to get them to listen. But then, if I provided talker-hitters with that opinion, they might stop with the tapping and my gosh (there I go again), I love it. Maybe I even need it.

I sat beside such a touch-feely raconteur at an event the other day and I found myself fighting the urge to place body parts within his reach that he hadn’t yet tapped. It was a thrill listening to his tales and a cheap thrill feeling his hand all over my body. Well, not ALL over. That’s my secret goal for the next time we sit side by side. Which can’t come soon enough.

And yes, I promise to come out with my hands up, officer.

By Jim Hagarty
1992

Recently, the issue of whether or not men should be allowed to parade their bare beer bellies around town, came up for discussion and the controversy has been ballooning out of control ever since.

Please, allow me to inject a little perspective into the debate.

First of all, it took men a couple of hundred years of concerted political pressure to win the right to get those bellies out there where everybody can have a good look at them. (As powerful as King Henry VIII was, he was not at liberty to let that big gut out of its confines. For that matter, neither was the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.) If we are going to turn back the clock and force men back into covering up, we are going to have to be prepared to accept some of the other niceties of those ages, like spittoons, bleedings and beheadings. Seen in this light, the unrobed beer belly is a true sign of social enlightenment. (Seen in another light, it might be a sign that its owner has been drinking too much beer, but that’s another subject.)

Secondly, this idea that a great big, floppy, spongy belly is to be considered somewhat of a human eyesore, just doesn’t make sense. Exactly what part of the belly is to be found repulsive? The fact that it’s big? Bigness isn’t despised when it shows up in other men’s parts such as the shoulders or biceps. Do we object to it being floppy? If it was a pillow, we’d think it was great. As for spongy, what’s the problem? Serve up a cake that flexible and Betty Crocker would be breaking down your door to get at your recipe.

No, it’s obvious, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and, therefore, there can be no test to determine that a large, unclothed, male belly in a public place doesn’t belong there.

Thirdly, though it might seem to be a bit of a leap in logic, the bare beer belly is, in many ways, modern society’s last defence against the tyranny of youth and beauty that is always waiting around the corner to jump us. This week, it’s beer bellies. Next week, it will be knobby knees. Then freckles. Double chins. Bald heads. Soon, teams of Ugly Police will be enforced to cover up those parts of the male deemed to be repulsive.

So, in many ways, man’s struggle to bare his bloated belly is the struggle of free people everywhere. “Let my belly go!” should be our cry.

And lastly, and I want you to think about this carefully, if men are determined to shed some clothes on hot summer days, and the law allows it, is it not possible that the shirt could be the lesser of several evils. Imagine, for a moment, a situation where those men with the bellies decide one day that the shirt will stay but other garments just have to go. Is this a scene we want to contemplate?

Therefore, I see any criticism of the male right to expose yards of hairy, sweaty, bouncy, belly flesh on hot days as an attack on vital freedoms. And that is why I am proposing we march bare bellied through the streets this weekend. And I invite women everywhere to shed their tops and join us, as a sign of solidarity.

So, if you happen to see groups of women parading down the street this weekend with their shirts off, you’ll know my call for action has not gone unheard.

(Some background: A court ruled that it was legal for women to bare their chests in public in Canada and weekend topless marches in several towns and cities were organized to celebrate the milestone. My newspaper column above, which seems a little obscure to me now, was published the day before the marches. I was in favour of the court’s decision and still support it, but women have not taken advantage of their new right in large numbers, even on beaches, with some exceptions.)