Month: April 2017

By Jim Hagarty
2017

Unlike Donald Trump, I have big fingers. Large, unstubby fingers. Too large, in fact, for certain tasks. I play a classical guitar, for example, because the neck is wider than a steel string and I can fit all those gangly digits onto the fretboard. However, sending text messages is a big effort for me. I just now tried to send two words to a friend: Fingers crossed. First attempt came out Gungers crossed. Second attempt, Fungers crossed. Guess I will have to start using Siri. I wonder if Siri plays guitar.

By Jim Hagarty
2017

One of my favourite pastimes in recent years has been to walk past construction sites and examine the proceedings. Yes, it’s true, I have become a Certified Sidewalk Superintendent. I have my full papers from the National Construction Industry and am completely licensed to stand at a distance and detect whatever flaws I might witness being perpretrated on a new building.

I earned this stature because of the many astute observations I have made over the years, criticisms that range from the subtle, “Who the hell designed this mess?” to “That thing’s gonna fall down in a year.” I am able to make these assessments based on my own past, working three summers on bridge construction when I was attending university almost 50 years ago, and from growing up on a farm where we built a lot of sheds and things.

And so it was that a big hole was dug in the ground last year on a lot just a stone’s throw from my (well-constructed) house. Although I was not notified that construction was under way, I soon detected the activity and began my daily inspection tours. For the first while, I had no idea what was being planned for the hole, but the builders, thankfully, erected a very nice sign showing an artist’s conception of a new medical centre. It was very appealing and I hoped the builders would adhere to the architect’s vision very closely.

I walked by almost every day, even during the winter months, and was mostly impressed with the gradually evolving three-storey brick structure. It would be a very welcome addition to the neighbourhood and to be honest, I could find little fault with the construction though it wasn’t for a lack of trying. The thing that appealed to me about it was the fact that it was all function and no frill. If it was a car, it would be a stripped down Chevy Malibu.

Some modern buildings look like works of art with metal protrusions and glass hanging out all over the place. I always wonder how they will replace those special panes of glass and fiberglass panels 30 years down the road. I worry about stuff like that which makes me an excellent Sidewalk Super.

Finally, the completed Stratford Medical Centre opened its doors on a Monday in early January. I just happened to have an appointment that morning.

Guess who was the Medical Centre’s first patient?

A very fitting development, I must say.

I asked my doctor if I would be honoured in some way, maybe with a special gift, a plaque on the wall, a large framed portrait in the lobby.

In response, the good physician fought me off bravely and handed me a prescription for more drugs.

One thing I have noticed about our changing times is the lack of respect these days for the critical role Sidewalk Superintendents play in the scheme of things.

What a shame!

By Jim Hagarty
2017

It is a tall order sometimes to calm the nerves in what seems to be a high-pressure situation. Playing guitar and singing as a solo act at an upcoming concert might qualify as one of those times when performance anxiety can mess with a man’s mind. It is at times such as those that I most need to heed my own advice. If I concentrate on what I am doing and not on how I am doing, things seem to go much better. Because in the end, the only thing I can control is what I do on stage. How well the members of an audience think I am doing is completely up to them. If a stray rotten egg or tomato grazes my cheek, I might be concerned, but that has rarely happened. The insurance I can buy myself, and I guess this goes without saying, is to be well prepared. Being a touch on the lazy side, I tend to not practise enough which heightens the anxiety. But a minute or two into the performance, I know how the thing is going to go. And, thankfully, it usually goes pretty well.

My friend and fellow blogger Al Bossence (thebayfieldbunch.com) captured these two red-winged blackbirds at the bird feeding station at his home in Huron County, Ontario, Canada, this week.

By Jim Hagarty
2014

This morning everyone had showered and left the house. To work, to school.

I wandered into the bathroom for my own shower. I closed the bathroom door but didn’t lock it. Why would I? I was alone.

So I was happily showering away when something strange happened. The water went suddenly cold. Then almost as quickly, became hot again. A few seconds later, it did it again. No one else in the house to turn on a hot water tap and leave me with only cold. Or was there? I wished I had locked the door.

I tried to think of some other explanation for hot-cold-hot-cold-hot water from the shower head. The only thing I could think of was the possibility that the earlier showers had maybe depleted the hot water tank. Still, I knew if there was no hot water left it would first turn very mild and then eventually cold.

I left the bathroom and quietly crept upstairs. I thought of yelling out but didn’t want to hear anyone yelling back. I looked everywhere. Nobody there.

Darned boogeyman again, I guess. Every now and then he likes to put in an appearance, just to remind me he’s not really ever going to leave.

By Jim Hagarty
2017

I live in a small, Canadian city, population about 35,000, a two-hour drive from the metropolis that is Toronto. Stratford, Ontario, has been around a long time, in Canadian terms anyway, considering the whole area it sits on was so thickly covered in tall trees 200 years ago that the sun, the wind and even the snow had a hard time making it down to the forest floor.

Toronto has been around even longer than Stratford and I always think of it as a few hundred Stratfords all shoved together into a big hot mess. I have family there. They love it. I love that I live in the one Stratford that sits all by itself out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, walking or driving, I can be out into the countryside that surrounds my town in only a few minutes. And yet, the place is just big enough that its citizens can still cling to a little bit of anonymity if we want to.

But it seems Toronto has discovered Stratford, or at least, some residents of it have. Because if you have the nerve to stick a For Sale sign on your front lawn, a city slicker from Trawna will scoop that sucker up faster than a half-price loaf of bread at Wal-Mart.

My neighbour bought a little bungalow just up the street from me about 35 years ago, or even a few years before that, I forget. He paid just over $20,000 for it, raised his family in it and fixed it up considerably in the intervening decades. A year ago, he sold it for about $250,000, though I never heard the final, precise figure. The couple who bought it have spent the last 12 months fixing it up even more and last week, put it on the market again, this time for $349,000. That seemed to be a bit of a stretch but news is that already a couple of potential buyers from Toronto are fighting over the place at that asking price. In fact, there have been a few instances recently where the sellers in Stratford have gotten more than they have asked for.

This has caused a veritable wave of my neighbours (and me) to take to our front lawns and between dancing heartily up and down waving streamers with delight, we have stopped to consider the possible meaning of all this to our own humble abodes and to our financial futures.

Of course, the downside of all this is that, with the homes in town gaining in value seemingly by the minute, a local homeowner cashing in on all this new-found motherlode, could probably not then turn around and buy another home in Stratford, without choosing to live in one that is just barely staying three steps ahead of the bulldozer.

I knew of a farmer many years ago, though not as many as you might think, who sold his farm for $19,000, a pretty good price at the time, and who made plans to move to town and buy a house. However, the man who bought his farm had no use for the farmhouse so he made the very generous gesture of offering to let the old farmer continue to live in his house for as long as he liked. Whether or not there was any rent involved, I can’t say, but I was always under the impression the man was allowed to live there for free, which he did for a few years, happy to be able to linger on among his memories for a while.

Finally, the farmer decided to make the move to town and buy that dream house. However, by that time, his $19,000, which would have bought him a nice little place when he first sold his farm, wouldn’t even come close.

I bought my bungalow just down the street from my neighbour 32 years ago for $59,500. I had bought it from a guy who paid $33,000 for it two years earlier.

I was one of the idiots dancing a jig with streamers outside yesterday, never realizing till then just how much I love the people from Trawna.

But all the while, I nervously remember the $19,000 farmer.

And I wonder what became of him.

As time slips by and I slow down
I find no need to go uptown.
The bars as bright as in my youth
Hold no delights, to tell the truth.

I’d rather sit in my own home
And play with doggie and his bone.
Or read a book or take a walk
With doggie, up and down our block.

But I remember way back then
When going out with all my friends
And staying out sometimes till dawn
Was what our fun depended on.

I don’t regret the wilder time.
My young man’s life before my prime.
I smile to recall things we did
And nights we might have flipped our lid.

And now I’m dull,
I sit a lot.
Am I unhappy?
No I’m not.

• Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2014

Instincts.

The glass coffee pot broke today. It is one of those small five-cup pots that sits on a burner and the coffee drips into it from above. Without the pot, the coffee maker would need to be thrown away too as it is relatively old and there is no chance of replacing the glass pot.

Too bad because it makes great coffee and you don’t have to make enough for an army every time.

This evening, the idea came into my mind to go to a local second-hand store to look for another pot. The chances of finding one would have to be one in one thousand or one in ten thousand but it seemed worthwhile nonetheless and the voice in my head kept nagging me.

I drove there, walked around for five minutes, and voila! There was an identical glass coffee pot selling for $2.

Now the thing is, this glass pot is unique to this coffee maker so I don’t understand why someone would donate it to the second-hand store. It would be useless to you unless you owned the right coffee maker.

I just wish my sixth sense would tell me what lottery tickets to buy, if I was to ever start buying them.

By Jim Hagarty
2012

There is no such thing as a big job. There are only small jobs. Every “big job” is just a series of small jobs.

We are all capable of completing small jobs but we put off big jobs because they look too daunting. My grandfather used to say that as soon as you start any job, it is half done, referring to the mental block many of us bring to the doing of what appears to be a large task.

Thirteen years ago, I self-published a 400-page, hardcover book of family history. Today I was asked by a relative how I managed to accomplish such a big undertaking. I told her I made one phone call a day to some relative somewhere in the world and recorded the information I was given. A call and the subsequent entering of the information into my computer might take minutes or it might take an hour. And even though I might be enthusiastic and tempted to make a second call, I resisted and waited till the next day to make it. In that way, I didn’t overdo anything and lose interest in the project as a result. And I did better work.

Eventually, it all came together.

I have to keep reminding myself of this almost every day. My backyard has been a mess this summer and I get discouraged whenever I try to create order out of the chaos, which was created entirely by yours truly. Finally, I remembered a clutter-clearing tip I read about for creating order in a room. Start at one corner, and move slowly around the room, never leaving a spot till it is perfectly cleaned and in order.

So, on Monday, I went out the back door of my garage, turned right, and started there to tidy. Five days later, I’ve gone about 15 feet but everything in that distance is in order now and I am no longer in despair at the size of the project. In fact, with the radio going, it’s actually kind of a pleasant undertaking.

The flip side of having a wonderfully ordered environment is to not let it get upside down in the first place but that is a whole different skill set having to do with never placing anything anywhere “temporarily.” That skill set eludes me yet, unfortunately, but I am working on it. It has something to do with keeping the mind laser-focused on the present moment and I’ve never been great at that.

Shepherding my thoughts sometimes is akin to the job of herding cats.

I have tried herding cats. Years ago, I went to the trouble of going to the pet store to buy a leash for my cat. I put the leash on him and went outside to take him proudly down the sidewalk for a walk. He went for a walk, proudly or not I couldn’t tell. I was left there holding a leash with an empty collar piece where his neck had so recently been.

Corralling my kaleidoscope thoughts is often just as successful.