Lifetime Sentences

Photo by Al Bossence (thebayfieldbunch.com)

By Jim Hagarty
1995

This week, in our continuing feature, This World of Science, we look at yet another new development involving cows. You’ll remember, only recently, our in-depth study of the efforts by environmental scientists to get cows to emit less methane gas and thereby save the planet. Now comes the news that another group of scientists is working on a way to get cows to emit something more productive.

Yes, it’s true. “Experts” say it’s possible the cow could someday be used to incubate human embryos, freeing up women from the drudgery of morning sickness, mood swings and labour pains.

(Before we proceed, it must be asked why scientists are so fond of experimenting on cows. Could it be because they are more docile and easier to work on than, let’s say, alligators or wolverines? When are they going to start poking around on the insides of grizzly bears?)

In any case, if they can work out “species compatibility” in the labs, you can bet your milking stool some big-eyed Holsteins will be delivering bouncing babies before too long. But, as usual, scientists continue to explore only what is possible without giving much thought to the consequences of their discoveries.

Fortunately, Lifetime Sentences has given this matter serious consideration And is ready with some probing questions of the geniuses who would have us spending our first nine months of development in the barn instead of the house.

Here are some of the important issues we should all be trying to answer as we sail blithely along on the wave of yet another new technology.

1. When it’s “time”, do we pile the cow in the car or truck and rush off or if there’s no vehicle around, can we simply ride the animal to the hospital?

2. As a matter of fact, do we go to the hospital at all or do we head for the vet clinic?

3. Does the father wear a cap and gown into the delivery room or overalls and rubber boots?

4. Do we feed the newborn baby pablum or fresh hay?

5. What do we do, as the child grows up, if it just wants to lie under shade trees on hot summer days and chew gum?

6. Do we hang a pretty necklace and locket around the child’s neck, or a bell?

7. Do we sew the child’s name inside his pants or affix a metal tag to his ear?

8. Should we even mention branding time?

9. When the child starts school, should we ban after-class visits to the fridge or to the silo?

10. What happens, when they get to be teenagers, if their first love lives, not down the street, but on a farm outside of town?

11. What if their table manners resemble grazing more than they do fine dining?

12. And if we have, by the same manner, a large family, how do we gather them up for church? Do we rope them, herd them into the car or drive them up a ramp into a truck?

13. If their major skills end up being jumping fences and butting heads, do we try to teach them piano anyway or go with the flow and let them be football players and professional wrestlers?

14. Will we still be able to use the age-old putdown, “Were you born in a barn?” or might some people start answering, “As a matter of fact, I was.”?

15. And the most important question of all is this: what the heck do we do if they moo?

By Jim Hagarty
2014

In spider hunting news, a man in the United States set his house on fire this week and caused $60,000 damage to it when he tried to incinerate a spider with a homemade blowtorch. His big mistake? Using a homemade torch.

For Pete’s sake just put down the money for a real blowtorch and kill safely away!

I have four Spyder Sendoff blowtorches at my house in various locations and whenever I see one of those creepies crawling along, I just whip out one of these awesome little devices and barbecue it.

I hope this guy has learned his lesson and gets the proper equipment in the future. And I wish him all the best with his new fire insurance company.

Photos by Al Bossence (thebayfieldbunch.com)

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By Jim Hagarty
1988

As parties go, the one I threw on a recent Saturday night could be considered a good one. No one got punched out, the insults were kept to a minimum and damage to my house was not extensive. And in time, we’ll all be speaking to each other again.

About the only negative turn to the whole affair came the next day when I wandered out to the kitchen to find the countertops covered in boxes and plates of uneaten desserts that had been brought to the party by the guests. To a man hoping that his body will not take up any more space in this world than it already does, this was akin to a wino waking up in a liquor store. Impulsively, my hands started grabbing butter tarts, chocolate squares and peanut-butter cookies. A week’s weightwatching went down the tubes faster than the crumbs down the front of my shirt.

I was shocked.

To head off further trouble, I packaged up almost everything, walked the two blocks to the home of friends and knocked impatiently on the back door.

“I baked you up some goodies,” I said, as I stepped inside.

“For us?” they exclaimed, in pleased surprise. “Well, that’s very nice of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” I replied. “I know how busy you’ve been so I thought I’d just whip you up a few things.”

Back home, I stared at the one item I didn’t give away – an unopened box of my favourite chocolates – and decided I’d take it with me to the next family get-together. An hour later, almost as in a trance, I tore the wrapping off the box and ate five of the 24 big, creamy chocolates inside.

I put the box back on the bottom shelf of the cupboard and resolved to take the 19 remaining large chocolates to the next family gathering. Two hours later, as I was putting the box back on a higher shelf, I told myself I’d take the 15 remaining giant chocolates, box and all, to our family reunion in June.

After supper, in desperation and alarm, I took the box with its 12 remaining jumbo chocolates, tucked it under my arm, and carried it with me on my nightly, walk around the neighbourhood.

I went back to the house I’d been to earlier in the day and banged with my fist on the back door, determined to give my friends the chocolates I should have given them hours before along with all the other stuff.

There was no answer.

Back on the sidewalk, I decided to give the chocolates to the woman who serves me at the coffee shop every night. I carried them in with me, sat on a stool and set them on the counter. A man came out from a back room and while he served me my coffee, he looked at the box of chocolates, then at me, then at the box, then at me.

“I can’t give him these,” I thought. “He’ll think I’m nuts.” Back outside, I carried the box with its nine remaining small chocolates on my walk up and down the streets around my home as I pondered my dilemma.

“Tomorrow, I’ll take these seven chocolates to work and give them away there,” I said to myself as I put them back on the very top shelf and headed for bed.

First thing Monday morning, it seemed silly to me to offer six little chocolates to the people I work with. They’d think I’m cheap.

So when I got home from work that night, I opened the box with its five dainty chocolates and thought: “There’s not enough to give away and they cost somebody too much to throw out. I wonder what I should do with them.”

As I carried the box and the rest of the garbage out to the street that night for pickup Tuesday morning, I was glad the ordeal was over.

The next day, a friend of the friends I gave the goodies too, asked me to make her up a batch of the great peanut-butter cookies I’d made for them. I said I would, went to the bakery, bought her a dozen for $2.40 and took them to her on Wednesday.

Now I have orders for more from three other people.

See if I throw any more parties.

By Jim Hagarty
2017

Does this ever happen to you?

A close family member – wife, son, daughter – leaves the house, gets in the car and drives off. You said goodbye, have a good day, see you later.

A few minutes go by, and then arises the greatest racket from fire trucks, ambulances and police cruisers. Heading down the main street at lightning speed. You can see them out your kitchen window. They’re heading in the same direction your loved one just did.

And you think, “Oh my God. What if they were in an accident?”

There is an intersection not far from your home where, for some reason, there are a lot of fender benders at least and sometimes more serious crack ups.

Then your mind goes to all the horrible follow-up imaginings.

Will a police officer be knocking on my door in the next little while?

Instead, comes a text:

“Anything you want at the store?”

“Can I bring you a coffee?”

“I’m going to stay over at my friend’s tonight, Dad.”

You go sit in the recliner and hug the dog.

By Jim Hagarty
1994

I was happy for the opportunity one hot summer day recently to speak to a class of journalism students all about the ins and outs of headline writing and so I prepared a little talk on the subject in advance.

And when the day of the big lesson arrived, although I was a bit nervous about the encounter, I charged into my responsibility with no small amount of passion, hoping to ignite a flame or two in the 13 eager, young future newspaper reporters who sat in the classroom before me, attentive to my every utterance.

So, I began uttering.

“The biggest task of the headline writer is to capture the essence of the story and to do it with life and colour and without leading the reader to believe he’s about to read something in the article below, which, in fact, he fails to encounter,” I said. “An accurate headline, even if it’s dull, is still better than a lively one which distorts the meaning of the story it’s announcing.”

Hearing my thoughts on the topic expressed in such an intelligent way, I felt a surge of confidence and so I looked around at the group before me to see how it was being received. They were staring at me like people positively hungry for knowledge who were hearing the truth for the very first time and recognizing their need, I started laying out a veritable journalistic banquet for them.

“An important fact about headlines you always want to remember is that they represent probably your best chance to draw the busy reader into a story she might not otherwise stop and read,” I pronounced. “A reporter’s hard work and best effort can be all for naught if her article has been poorly sold off by a lazy or inattentive headline writer.”

More wise words and another glance around at the troops. But this time, not all of them were glancing back. One young man over in the corner was resting his head, face down on his desk, in obvious meditation on the statement I’d just made. I continued, stressing how the size of the headline should bear some relevance to the significance of the story and warning against the urge to be too flippant, especially with serious stories.

Another look up, at this point, revealed a second meditator, two rows back, this one taking up a different position with his head resting on his arms which were resting on his desk and his face turned to the side. His eyes were closed, as he obviously sought to shut out other data and think only about headlines.

The lesson resumed. Getting headlines to fit. Writing headlines in the present tense. Taking care to avoid headlines clashing with other headlines on the page.

A third contemplator lowered his head to his desk and within seconds was breathing heavily, in an obviously deep, meditative state.

Apparently, I was getting somewhere.

Three down and 10 to go.

My lecture now nearing the 20-minute mark, I took another visual survey around the warm classroom to see how well the rest of the class was responding to what they were fortunate enough to be hearing. None of them had joined their three contemplative classmates, one of whom by this time had managed to curl himself into something resembling a fetal position, all the time sitting in his chair, but they all had adopted various poses which suggested apparent deep thought on their part.

One woman, who’d obviously freed her mind to follow the soaring flights of enlightenment I’d been releasing into the air before her, sat staring at me with a smile Madame Tussaud might have been proud to have achieved on one of the models in her museum. Her eyes, though appearing to be trained on me, were, in fact, wandering independently of each other, looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This is true concentration, I thought.

In the middle of the room, directly before me, sat a young man with his arms crossed over his chest, his head having fallen backwards over the back of his chair. His mouth was open as were his eyes which seemed glued to the ceiling tiles above him.

As the talk headed into its second 30 minutes, the surviving students went into other various learning positions and while most of them sat up straight, at least one young man’s eyes wandered upwards and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen eyes turned that far back in anyone’s head before. Several others, resting their heads on their hands, peered my way through eyes half-covered with drooping lids and at least two appeared to have developed a sort of glaze over theirs.

Needless to say, I was pretty happy with the way things were going and when I finished after about 45 minutes, they all seemed very happy too.

Except the guy in the corner who had been first to go into the meditative state and who took a while to come around. He seemed groggy, even disoriented.

But there was no mistaking that other quality on his face. It was the look of a man who now knew more than he expected he ever would about a subject.

I’ve seen that look before.