Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2013

The other night a friend showed me something that I didn’t know existed. It is an archival CD, made with gold and guaranteed to keep information safe for 300 years.

This to me is startling. How can anyone know this little gold disc will preserve music (in my friend’s case) for three centuries? How would anyone be able to test that? Three hundred years is a long time. Three hundred years ago there was no Canada, no United States of America. The Rolling Stones were touring but they were pretty much the only band out there.

Who is going to give my friend his money back if it fails in its 278th year?

But wouldn’t it be great to dig up one of these CDs from 300 years ago and be able to hear what people sounded like back then?

By Jim Hagarty
1992

As it is with most human mistakes, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Having just replied in detail for the fourth or fifth time to the oft-repeated, post-Dec. 25 question, “Well, was Santy Claus good to you this Christmas?”, I decided to see if I could spice up my reply by naming gifts I had never received. By substituting a little illusion in the place of reality, I could hang on to a wee bit of the privacy so hard to find any more in today’s world and satisfy my questioners at the same time. My enquirers and I would all emerge satisfied from our Christmas post-mortem sessions.

Not being accustomed to blatantly telling untruths to people in answer to straightforward questions, I found myself a little uncomfortable at the start. But after my first couple of outright lies, it got easier. It was almost fun.

For some reason, I can’t explain, I settled on a popular brand of personal cassette tape player as the main Christmas gift in my reply to my questioners.

“Well, was Santy Claus good to you this Christmas?” came the question from my first victim.

“Sure was,” I replied. “I got a personal portable tape player.”

“Good for you!” continued my co-worker. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I said, with sort of a straight face.

With practice, I improved. I began elaborating about how I loved the tiny stereo so much I almost hated to take off the earphones to go to bed. I also started working it in there that this was the best Christmas present I had ever received.

At some point, I even decided to stash another gift for myself under the tree.

“Great Christmas,” I’d reply. “I got a personal portable tape player and a dishwasher.”

A few eyebrows shot up at the news of my dishwasher present but nobody pressed for more information about it and I think my secret wasn’t blown. But I realized I had better stop there and not begin adding things to the list like a new mini-van or a summer cottage.

My deliberate falsehoods were going over well but I suspect there comes a moment of truth in the lives of most people who practise to deceive and mine came Monday morning.

“Well, didja have a good Christmas?” asked Frank, a fellow worker.

“Great, thanks,” I said.

“Get lots of presents?” he continued.

“Yeah, I did all right,” I said. “I got a personal portable stereo and a dishwasher. “

“A portable stereo, eh?” said Frank. “So did I.”

My face flushed.

“How do you like yours?” he asked.

“I, uh, I love it,” I said, timidly. “Listen to it all the time …”

“I was wondering,” he said. “You’ll know. Does it take regular cassette tapes or those miniature cassettes?”

Not being the proud owner of such a machine, I was in a corner, explaining details of the device to a man who does own one.

“Ah, just the regular ones,” I suggested.

“And, how do you turn on the tape?” Frank continued. “Do you flip a switch to ‘tape’ or something and press a button?”

“Ah, yes, ah, just flip the switch to ‘tape’ and press the ‘play’ button.”

“Thanks,” said Frank.

“No problem,” I answered, weakly.

I realize now, I’m not, at heart, a very good teller of lies. I get so nervous in all situations where my credibility’s on the line that I believe I’d fail a lie-detector test even if I was telling the truth. And in a court of law, though innocent, I’d be sure to jump to my feet at some point during the deliberations and yell, “I did it!”

For the record, Frank, I got clothes for Christmas. Two books. Two CDs. A pen. A calendar. After-shave lotion.

And a candy cane. A great, big candy cane.

Bigger ’n a personal portable stereo.

By Jim Hagarty
2015
Every Christmas I make individual calendars for each member of my family. On the back there is a space to include a few words. For our daughter Sarah, who will be leaving for university next fall, I used a line from an Emmylou Harris song, Love and Happiness: “Wear your ruby shoes, when you’re far away, so you’ll always stay, home in your heart.” The last present she opened today was a pair of ruby shoes. I didn’t know she was getting them. Neither did her mother know about the saying I used on Sarah’s calendar when she bought the shoes. As omens go, this is a pretty good one. Merry Christmas.

By Jim Hagarty
2012

So the laundry tub drain is plugged. Fill the stupid tub with hot water. Burn my hand reaching in to pull the plug. Nothing. Fifteen minutes to empty the tub. Get a wire hanger, stick it down the drain for a while. Nothing. Pour a whole gallon of vinegar down. Nothing. Rats. Will need to call plumber and will need to part with $100 at least.

Frustrated. Then I remember Google.

Run upstairs to laptop. Enter laundry tub drain blocked. Four million hits (seems like it, anyway.) First one: Fill tub one-third full then use toilet plunger to free drain which is probably blocked by lint. But make sure to block second open pipe where washing machine water enters. So, stick plug in top of pipe. Get plunger. Tharump! Plug blows right out of top of pipe. Water shoots down laundry tub drain like crazy. Can’t believe my eyes.

OMG I love the Internet sometimes. Sorry Butch (real name), my friendly plumber, but we both know you’ll get me another day.

By Jim Hagarty
2000

Today’s Practical Pointers For Panicking Parents focus on the task of injecting nourishment into the very young.

Feeding a baby solid food is not a job for the easily discouraged. It takes patience, persistence and above all, the ability to duck quickly.

Not many people there are who possess all these virtues but they are the kinds of strengths that will eventually develop in those committed to the task of filling an infant’s unfillable stomach. Faced with the grim alternative – hours of non-stop shrieks of agony – most parents decide to do a bit of overnight character building, something they’ve been putting off for the past few decades.

Patience, most of all, is the number one quality desired in a baby-feeder because mysteriously, at mealtime, things that couldn’t possibly be of interest to any human being, whether newborn or 90-year-old, suddenly become utterly fascinating.

The dangling thread from a loose button on Daddy’s 10-year-old faded cotton dress shirt with the rip in the breast pocket turns into THE MOST AMAZING THING when pureed prunes on a spoon are trying to force their way into a baby’s reluctant mouth. Following the inspection of the thread, there’s Daddy’s greying sideburns, the end of the strap holding the baby in the high chair, the inside of Daddy’s nose and the fly walking across the kitchen ceiling that must be closely examined. Failure, by the impatient parent, to wait out these delays in the action will bring about screaming fits, profuse spitting and even wetting of pants not to mention some very bad behaviour on the baby’s part too.

Like a golfer carefully studying the lay of the land approaching
the green before making his all-important chip shot, a baby-feeder must not rush into the situation, poking an overflowing spoon in the direction of the central opening on the infant’s face. There are questions that need to be asked and answered. Is the mouth clamped shut tighter than the hatch on a nuclear submarine? Have the child’s eyes caught sight of the goo he’s being expected to accept into his gob? Are the baby’s lips pursed in a sort of pre-launch position, signalling that anything which dares to land on them will soon be shooting that fly off the ceiling?

If any of these conditions exist, of course, there is only one possible solution: GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! If this is not possible, then the only thing the anxious parent can do is resort to methods of distraction, such as calling the baby’s attention to things that don’t really exist. “Is that Momma I hear comin’ up the steps?” Dad might enquire in a hopeful tone, though, at the moment, Momma’s far away at Discount Don’s Giant Truckload Diaper Sale trying to work out a deal to trade the hatchback for a few more weeks’ worth of lifesaving baby pooper scoopers. When the baby turns quickly in the direction of the phantom Momma, mouth agape at the prospect of seeing someone who isn’t trying to force unpleasant glop into him, the successful baby-feeder will plunge the spoon in and out of that opening faster than a wiley mouse grabbing cheese from a set trap.

And this is where persistence pays off. Where Daddy might be able to wolf down a four-course meal during the two-minute commercial between Ain’t Life a Hoot? and the Six O’Clock International Round The Globe World Report, Baby is in no such hurry to see lovely footage of the 47 victims of the latest bus bombing in some insane country on the other side of the planet. On the contrary, his schedule till bedtime is simple: 1. Play with ball; 2. Play with ball; 3. Play with ball. So you can see, he simply doesn’t understand what the rush is all about.

A baby will eat, eventually, with special emphasis on the eventual part. One night, he may give up the stalling tactics after two minutes, the next night, after 10.

But sooner or later, the impenetrable stockade known as Fort Baby will fall, so long as the siege of the overflowing spoon isn’t commenced before its time.

However, on those rare occasions when, for whatever mysterious baby reasons, the drawbridge fails to lower, this is the only option for the bewildered parent: DUCK, FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE, DUCK!!! Because trying to stuff food into an unwilling baby is like trying to change the blade on a lawnmower while its running. Somebody’s going to get hurt and it won’t be the miniature gaffer strapped, appropriately, like a dangerous offender, in his little padded high chair.

When the pears start ricocheting off your ear lobes and you can’t breathe for the barley mash caking over your nostrils, it’s time to move on to the next agenda item.

Play with ball.

By Jim Hagarty
2012
My mother used to say, if you burn your ass, sit on the blister. I have sat on many a blister over the years. Not fun. But as I write this, for the first time, I am wondering how does a person burn his ass? Fall bum-first into the fireplace? Accidentally sit on the stove? Fall asleep for four hours nude sunbathing face down? Anyway, that was an expression she got from her mother and it’s folk wisdom at its best. Suffering the consequences of our mistakes teaches us at least as much if not more than enjoying the benefits of our successes.

By Jim Hagarty
2011

A farmer wears many hats, both literally and figuratively. He is a meteorologist, able to predict weather with uncanny accuracy, using the behaviour of birds and animals and even the leaves on the trees to make his forecasts. He is an agronomist, able to identify soil structures and needs and knowledgeable about both natural and chemical ways to enhance the power of earth to grow food. He is proficient in animal husbandry, able to deliver baby goats at 3 a.m. or treat a bloated cow and save its life in the process. He is a mechanic, able to keep machinery new and old in running order. He’s an architect and carpenter, erecting sheds, barns and all sorts of other outbuildings and feeders.

And maybe most important of all, a farmer is an inventor – the world’s first do-it-yourselfer, a man who through necessity and to satisfy his own curiosity, comes up with ingenious solutions to tricky problems and dilemmas. In another life, my Dad could have given Thomas Edison a run for his money. The most fun he had farming was in designing new ways to do jobs with less back-breaking labour. Some of his solutions were no solutions at all and, in fact, has some serious consequences which I will write about someday, while other ideas worked out brilliantly.

I was always in awe of this ability of my father to assess a chore and devise a strategy to do it in a better way. I have inherited a little bit of this ability and love nothing more than to solve a problem with some thoughtful ingenuity. In both my Dad’s case and mine, necessity always has been the mother of invention as neither one of us could just go out and buy the latest, most expensive gadgets.

Many years ago, the five-acre gravel pit at the back of our home farm froze over well in winter and some chums and I would have hockey games on the ice. But even on great pond ice that sometimes was so smooth and glassy you could hardly stand up on your skates, a couple of hours of hockey would rough it up a lot and leave it with ruts.

To the rescue came Dad one day. He drove the smallest of our John Deere tractors right out on the ice and parked it near the rink we had carved out. He then chopped a hole in the ice and into the opening he dropped one end of a hose that came from a pump that was attached to the power take-off of the tractor. He started the tractor and engaged the PTO. The hose underneath the ice sucked up water from below and he grabbed the other end of the hose and flooded our rink with it.

The tractor stayed there for the longest time and when we needed to, we started it up and flooded the rink. I know that that little success would have made my Dad very happy. He had put his thought power to work and solved another problem, albeit a small one.

Over the years he came up with more ingenious schemes than that, but to a 10-year-old boy, having a Dad who could perform a miracle like this while his friends stood around in wonder, was a pretty special thing, and went a long way to cementing his hero status for me.