Well, I made it through my big concert Friday night where I shared a bill with Valdy at a concert hall in Stratford. Not sure why, but my nerves calmed down a few hours before the show and I had a lot of fun. – Jim H.
By Jim Hagarty
2017
I think a man can assess his level of compassion at any given moment in time based on the amount of dog slobber he will allow to be applied to his face before he bolts.
By Jim Hagarty
2012
This is one of my fondest memories of growing up on the farm.
One hot summer day, my Dad, my brother and I were standing in a field of young corn, which stood about waist high or lower. I was 10, my brother, 5. The air was still and humid. Suddenly, Dad saw a whirlwind coming our way because he noticed the top leaves of the corn stalks were twisting. Whirlwinds were common in the summer on the farm. We most often saw them as they picked up dust in the barnyards; they looked like mini tornadoes.
On this day, when the twister got close to us, Dad grabbed the straw hat off my brother’s head and tossed it into the centre of the funnel. The hat shot up quickly as though fired from a cannon. And it stayed aloft, floating in ever widening circles at the top of the twister. I kept thinking that the hat would soon fall back to earth, but it didn’t. It just kept flying and flying until it was hundreds of feet in the air and drifting southward away from us.
My brother started crying, thinking, as it turned out rightly, that he would never see his hat again. Eventually, to our amazement, a hawk joined the hat in the updraft and the two of them floated effortlessly around and around in a circle that continued to grow wider and wider. In time, hat and hawk became just specks in the sky and finally disappeared from our view altogether.
To a boy my age, this phenomenon cemented the conviction in my mind that my Dad was some sort of super genius as well as hero. But he was born on that farm and had spent all his days on it and was as familiar with its environment as the most wily cat or bird would be.
I didn’t think of this aspect of the story till many years later, but at some point and somewhere, that straw hat would have had to have floated to the ground again, who knows how many farms south of ours. What would have been the reaction of another farmer and his sons if they were out in a field somewhere and saw a straw hat suddenly appear hundreds of feet in the air and slowly drift towards them to the ground?
That poor Dad would have had to think quickly to provide the explanation to a couple of young boys wondering why a hat was suddenly descending from the heavens.
I would like to have heard the story he told them.
By Jim Hagarty
2017
A friend told me I think too much. So I went home and thought about that. All day. And now, I think, she might be on to something. Recently, for example, I started thinking: “Wait a minute. On April 7, I am going to walk out onto a stage with a wooden box with a hole in it with six plastic strings attached, and with my eight fingers and two thumbs, I am going to do something to the box to try to entertain a group of innocent people who have gathered there and paid money to hear sounds from my wooden box and whatever I manage to force out of my voice box.” At least I think that is what I’ve been thinking.
(Tonight, at The Hall in Stratford. Valdy and I in concert.)
![DSC_0011[3]](https://i0.wp.com/www.lifetimesentences.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_00113.jpg?w=836&h=444&ssl=1 "DSC_0011[3]")
My friend and fellow blogger Al Bossence (thebayfieldbunch.com) took these remarkable photos of blue jays at a bird feeding station at his home near Bayfield, Ontario, Canada, this week.
By Jim Hagarty
My guitar and I will be opening for legendary Canadian folk artist Valdy tonight at 8 p.m. at The Hall in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Some tickets are still available at the Black Angus Restaurant and at Filsinger Music in Stratford. Also, I have six tickets available and can leave them at the door for you if you want. Send me an email at hagarty@cyg.net to order. They are $20 each. I opened last year as well for Valdy and the show was great. It is worth the price of admission just to hear Valdy play guitar if he never sang a note all note. My “act” involves songs as well as stories, as you might guess.
By Jim Hagarty
2012
My family was away so I popped our 13-pound poodle Toby in the car and we headed for the Erie Drive-In for an ice cream cone. Toby hasn’t gone there often but he sure likes it there as they give him a tiny doggie cone.
This day, there was only one other car there and I parked beside it. I got out, in spite of the heavy protests from the dog who was frantic that I was leaving him behind. But I reassured him, then closed the door and walked over to the ice cream window. While I was standing there, I suddenly heard my car horn go off and thought, “WTH (that’s, What The Heck?, but I actually thought the letters WTH)”. There, in the driver’s seat, was standing Toby, looking intently at me, with his paws on the steering wheel.
I don’t know how he did it. It isn’t as though the horn on that car is super sensitive. He must have stood up, leaned back against the seat and then fell full force on the horn part of the steering wheel. When I finally came back with my cone and his in hand, the couple in the car beside mine were laughing. And they told me a story about their friend who left his car with the keys in the ignition and the dog inside. The dog promptly touched the button to lock the doors. The car’s owner had to go home and get another set.
I think the only one more surprised than me to hear my horn honking was Toby and I will never forget the look on his face as he stood there anxiously behind the wheel, waiting for my return with the goodies.
By Jim Hagarty
2014
I wrote a new song this week. I soon realized it is the best song I have ever written. A few minutes later, it dawned on me that this is, in fact, probably the best song that has ever been written – by anyone.
Wow! You can imagine my happiness at that discovery.
So, what you do with the best song ever written, of course, is sing it 24 hours a day till you hate it worse than oatmeal porridge (which is not recommended for human consumption). It is at that point that you are willing to entertain the idea that it might not actually be the best four minutes of song styling ever put together since the beginning of music. That distinction goes to My Boomerang Won’t Come Back.
However, having thudded back to Earth isn’t the least bit disconcerting because you still think the thing is pretty darned good for an amateur. You have to or you’d never write another one.
Besides, there is always next week when you probably will come up with the best song ever and My Boomerang … will just be a distant, but wonderful, memory.
Ian Tyson was interviewed by a Canadian radio host a while back who asked the folk/country artist what the best song he ever wrote was and the only answer could be Four Strong Winds. Tyson wouldn’t cooperate and gave him the name of a song he’d just come up with.
“That’s the best one I’ve ever written,” he said excitedly to the dejected interviewer. “You always think your latest one is your best one.”
I guess I am in good company. But no matter now good I get at this, I will never surpass the writer of Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?
Nobody could.
(To hear some of the best songs ever written, you are invited to hear Valdy and me in concert at The Hall in Stratford on Friday, April 7, 2017, at 8 p.m.)
The Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra, based in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, recently released a CD of cover songs and originals called $3 Pants. The recording is a lively collection of 13 songs, some of them covers of hits by well-known writers from June Carter to Ian Tyson. Also included are six originals, written either solely by Michael Earnie Taylor or in collaboration between Taylor and other songwriters. The effort was recorded in Stratford and produced by Taylor for Laughing Cactus Group. Other musicians contributing to the CD include Jeff Laughton on bass, Ross Mulligan on guitar with vocals and kazoos by Terri Dans and Carol Miller. Michael Earnie Taylor contributes guitar, kazoo and vocals. This first song, featured here, is Ring Of Fire, written by June Carter, wife of Johnny Cash who had a big hit with it. $3 Pants is available in the Corner Store.
Ring of Fire by the Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra.
(If the song doesn’t play on the main page of the blog, click on the large song title which will take you to the page where the song is located. It will play properly there.)
