Month: August 2016

By Jim Hagarty
2007

The other day, I heard Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a radio interview from a national curling bonspiel somewhere say that it was so good to see such a great turnout. It’s a wonderful opportunity for ordinary Canadians to come together for a great occasion, he said.

Now, here’s my problem. (How the hell could he get a problem out of that, you wonder.)

What is an ordinary Canadian? Is he or she a person with ordinary physical traits? Brown hair? Under six feet, over five? Blue jeans? Eyeglasses? Toques in winter?

Or does such a person respond in typically ordinary emotional ways to circumstances around him or her? Cries, laughs, gets mad, etc.

Does an ordinary Canadian have ordinary habits? Couch potato, remote-control kind of routines? Lunch pails to work? Shopping trips to the dollar stores? Does he or she read cheap novels, listen to country music, drive trucks?

I have always been puzzled by this expression and the people who use it.

“This will appeal to the ordinary man on the street.”

“The ordinary joe won’t care about this.”

“To get elected, it will take a huge turnout from ordinary voters …”

Yes, I know. I’m stretching this out. We all probably have a pretty accurate picture of what is meant by the word ordinary in these references. But in order for anybody to be ordinary, there must be classes of people who are not ordinary for them to be compared to. Otherwise, it would be impossible to know just who was ordinary and who was not.

Are those who are not ordinary, extraordinary? Are they rich? Do they have the number of a Mercedes Benz dealer on speed dial? Can they go to Toronto Maple Leafs hockey games any time they want?

What is it that makes these people not ordinary? Are they extra attractive looking? Super smart? Have they won awards? Been on TV? Is their love life in the news? I am thinking that a person who refers to other people as being ordinary does not consider himself or herself in that classification of humans.

Is Stephen Harper, therefore, such a person?

I hardly think so.

If the prime minister of our country was an ordinary Canadian, then all 33 million of the rest of us couldn’t possibly be anything but. I know Harper didn’t really mean any of this and it actually seems like he might be about the most ordinary guy we’ve had at 24 Sussex Drive since Lester B. Pearson was the PM in the sixties.

Harper, after all, is writing a book about the history of hockey. Now what could be more Canadian and more ordinary than that?

And though he remains as stiff as a cat stepped on by a cow in winter, he does seem to be loosening up a bit.

And among the ordinary, the ability to not take themselves too seriously, it seems to me, is a chief trait.

Still, I kind of wish the leader of our country – and anyone else, for that – matter didn’t feel the need to talk about ordinary people when referring to fellow citizens. I can’t help but think there’s a subtle putdown in there somewhere.

I am open to being corrected, but I think l’m an ordinary person. Then I look around for fellow humans who are probably not: Conrad Black comes to mind along with wealthy hockey players who break other hockey players’ necks.

The best I can do is this, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy: You might be an ordinary Canadian if you recognize a picture of Gordie Howe, know the lyrics to a Stompin’ Tom Connors song and would walk a mile for a jar of true maple syrup.

As for curling bonspiels, I honestly don’t know if an ordinary Canadian would hang out at those.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There is a politician named Don
Who’s not sure what planet he’s on.
From the look of his burn
It might be Saturn.
Just wish he’d return and be gone.

By Jim Hagarty
Sorry for being late to get my blog up and going today. I had a medical appointment and a bunch of errands that needed running. I’ll see if I can get the old brain up and going here in the few minutes.

By Jim Hagarty
2006

Tests show German cat had bird flu.

This was a headline on a story on our national broadcaster CBC’s website on Tuesday morning.

I found this shocking, to say the least. First, that a cat could get the flu. Secondly, that it would come from its arch-nemesis, a bird. But mostly, that the cat was German.

I suppose, on reflection, that it would be simple enough for a vet to decide that a cat had the flu and maybe for an expert – one step up from the vet – to declare the ailment was bird flu. But who, I wonder, could say without question that the cat in question was German?

Is it possible it was, in fact, a Portugese cat, up from the south on vacation? Or an English cat passing through on its way to visit relatives in Italy?

What is the test to identify a cat as being German? Is it language, accent, lineage? I know we have our Canada goose, the U.S. its American bald eagle. I’ve heard all about the Tasmanian devil, the Shetland pony, the Jersey cow. The Aberdeen Angus, the Mexican chihuahua, the Irish setter, the Scottish terrier.

The Loch Ness Monster.

But the German cat?

As someone who is now in his 30th year of writing headlines, l know exactly what the CBC headline writer was getting at: the cat was from Germany. But when you only have so many words to work with, you sometimes have to get creative. If time is running out and the press guys are yelling at the editors, it’s easy to make a few mistakes.

Fortunately. I have not been in on a lot of embarrassing “heads”, but most of the few I have been a part of, I can’t share with you, because the Family Rating on this paper. on the one hand, and the offence to political correctness a couple of those memorable headlines would cause on the other.

But here’s one I can share. When I was district editor at The Beacon Herald in Stratford years ago, I once ran two photos on one of my pages. One was of a rabbit squirrel, the other of a man who was celebrating his 90th birthday. When the paper came off the press, of course, the old fella was identified as a rabbit squirrel and the squirrel appeared to be celebrating his 90th birthday.

I love crazy headline hunting and they’re a treasure when you find them. Like these old chestnuts, some of which you might have read elsewhere:

Grandmother of eight makes hole in one

Two convicts evade noose, jury hung

Milk drinkers are turning to powder

Safety experts say school bus passengers should be belted

Quarter of a million Chinese live on water

Iraqi head seeks arms

Queen Mary having bottom scraped

Prostitutes appeal to Pope

Panda mating fails – veterinarian takes over

NJ judge to rule on nude beach

Child’s stool great for use in garden

Eye drops off shelf

Squad helps dog bite victim

Dealers will hear car talk at noon

Enraged cow injures farmer with ax

Miners refuse to work after death

Two sisters reunite after eighteen years at checkout counter

Nicaragua sets goal to wipe out literacy

If strike isn’t settled quickly it may last a while

War dims hope for peace

Cold wave linked to temperatures

Blind woman gets new kidney from dad she hasn’t seen in years

Man is fatally slain

Something went wrong in jet crash, experts say

Maybe a German cat crawled up into one of the engines to keep warm.

Or a 90-year-old rabbit squirrel.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There was a young man from Boston
Who had a broken down old Austen.
He had room for some cash
And some illegal hash
But his shoes fell out and he lost them.

By Jim Hagarty
I went for my afternoon coffee and was remarking to myself that I hadn’t randomly seen a classic car all weekend. Then turned the corner and this beautiful 1960 Cadillac Coupe de Ville was sitting there. This car was of the era when North American automobiles took up a lot of real estate when they pulled into parking lots. In fact, after the invasion of Japanese and then South Korean small cars changed the whole industry, parking lot painters started putting their lines closer together than they had in the past.

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