Author: Jim Hagarty

Today we look in on our happy homeowner as he prepares to install smoke detectors in his house.

There he stands in the store before multiple shelves filled with detectors of various shapes, sizes and prices. He is scratching his head in confusion, trying to decide which ones to buy. As he plummets into an abyss of bafflement, his scratching increases. Soon, his fingernails claw at his face, his neck, his nose. His back.

He develops a glaze over his eyes as he attempts to assess the quality of his life, wondering if what is left of it is worth $12.99, $14.99 or $23.99. There are so many choices. One alarm is so sensitive it beeps at the mere mention of the word smoke. Another is so keen it goes off if there’s a fire anywhere in the neighbourhood. A deluxe model has a big light on it so the homeowner can see the fire. Flames, after all, are so hard to see in the dark. It also has a computerized voice that yells: “Get outa bed, ya big dummy! Your house is on fire!“

Realizing his life is probably half over by now anyway, he decides the deluxe model would be an extravagance and finally chooses the medium-priced alarm. And, after all, he is not a duke or a prime minister. He buys two of them and heads for home.

An hour later, he has succeeded in getting his new smoke detectors out of their cardboard boxes and plastic wrapping. There they lay on the kitchen table, all shiny and new and ready to start detecting. Various tools from power drills to screwdrivers and hammers are brought from the basement and scattered about the room. In the homeowner’s hands is a lengthy sheet of instructions written by space-shuttle scientists from NASA in their spare time. As he reads, he scratches.

“Insert enclosed battery into alarm and press test button. Alarm will beep.” He inserts. He presses. He waits for the alarm to beep. It doesn’t. He does. He scratches. He drives to the store to buy new batteries. He mutters.

“Locate on ceiling, at least six inches away from closest wall, no more than 12 feet away from farthest wall and no more than 26 feet away from nearest alarm.” He sits on the floor with tape measure, slide rule and calculator. He scratches. He almost cries.

Standing on a chair, he drills holes in his ceiling and installs the first alarm in his kitchen. Stepping down he admires his work and then takes another look at the instructions. “Do not install an alarm in a kitchen where smoke from cooking might set off device frequently.”

He says, “Oh no!” and other things like that.

Much later, both smoke detectors are installed and ready to go to work. He lights a candle, blows it out and holds the smoking wick up to one of the alarms. Smoke pours into every opening in the device and curls up around the sides. Rather than beep in protest, the alarm appears to enjoy it.

He tries again. Still no beep. “This thing wouldn’t go off if I threw it down a chimney,” he thinks to himself, as he contemplates burning down his house with the smoke alarms in it. He is almost upset. Finally, a chirp escapes from the device, barely loud enough to wake a bird.

“Good enough,” he says.

The next day, while explaining the previous night’s activities to a friend, he is told that what he really needs now is a fire extinguisher. Back at the store, he stands before multiple shelves filled with extinguishers of various shapes, sizes and prices. They range from a small one recommended for putting out cigarettes to one which can handle a small forest fire. Some are refillable. Some are not. Some have pressure gauges. Some don’t. He scratches. His skin is raw.

“May as well just buy a firetruck and park it in the driveway,” he thinks to himself.

But he won’t. He wouldn’t know what colour to get.

(Update 2020: A fire inspector explained that the worst thing a homeowner can do is blow smoke into a detector to test it. It ruins the device. The proper way to test it is to push the little button and wait for the screech. Oh, well.)

©1989 Jim Hagarty

So, you’ve finally started your long-anticipated first job in journalism and the conditions of this initial venture into the happy world of publishing have you asking yourself whether you made the right career choice.

Your employer’s computer system is more than 10 years old, with outdated programming and teeny-tiny monitors. The phone at your desk is also a relic with no hold or redial or call-waiting features. The paper still uses a darkroom that looks like it belongs in a funhouse at a carnival and your publisher thinks the page-design program QuarkXPress is a special train service in Toronto.

And you’ve calculated that, at the rate those first-job bucks are rolling in, you should be able to buy a 1981 Chevy Corsica by the year 2008. The picture looks bleak, I know. Believe me, I know. But what do you do? Pack it in, run to the local Food World and start stocking those shelves for $17.50 an hour or keep tapping out those stories like the one about the woman who makes quilts out of her husband’s old neckties and hope that some day, the Toronto Globe and Mail will leave a message on your answering machine desperately asking you to call about a position?

To be honest with you, I don’t know what you should do. (But if you do end up at Food World, can you lend me your employee’s discount once in a while?)

I do know, however, that few people start at the top and that many of those who do hit it big early end up spending the rest of their careers working their way down the ladder. I also know some people have had it worse than you and have survived. Some have even thrived and believe now that that first tough job built character if not a bank account.

Take me, for example. I’ve been there. It seems, sometimes, that I created there. At my first job as a reporter with a weekly newspaper (circulation 3,000), I was paid $4.20 an hour to be there. I typed up my stories directly onto paper on a manual typewriter (as in not electric) and developed my photos in a lab so small that I literally had to open the door to turn around.

The paper I started with was located in an old, old building that I believe was standing when the pioneers came to clear the bush to make way for the town. (One theory runs that it was built by extraterrestrials as a halfway house on their way to Mexico.) Besides housing the few employees who regularly cranked out the newspaper, the building was home to several other equally furtive creatures.

One day, for fun, I closed the darkroom door to discover to my chagrin that I was sharing the space with a bat. And on the frequent occasions when I had to visit the office at night, I would turn on the lights and stand in the doorway for a few seconds to give all the cockroaches time to scurry under the panelled walls before I entered the room. Even the mice in the place seemed spooked by the roaches.

On Monday afternoons, I had to package up all the stories and photos in a big brown envelope and take it to the restaurant on the corner where it would be placed on a bus and sent the 30 miles up the road to the publisher for printing. Now and then, the bus would fail to pick up the package and I would have to drive it there myself.

But those of you who think these pay and working conditions should have been enough to make me quit haven’t taken into consideration the status associated with the job I had. On Wednesdays, for example, I would fill the back of my little hatchback with bundles of the latest issue and deliver them around to the stores, remembering, of course, to pick up the copies that hadn’t sold the week before. This gave me a special opportunity to be taken to task by storeowners and customers alike who found just about everything that was published the week before highly objectionable.

However, my best opportunity to “touch base” with the readers came during winter, when I often had to clean the snow and ice off the sidewalk in front of the newspaper office by 9 a.m. and could expect to be accosted by readers who hadn’t connected with me in the stores.

And what stint covering the troubles in Iraq or Afghanistan could equal my annual assignment photographing my town’s Santa Claus parade where the major fun the little juveniles riding on the floats had was to bounce candies off the balding head of the hapless, hatless news photographer trying to take their picture.

But I survived and despite the odd memory lapse brought on by those direct frozen candy strikes, I have enjoyed the ensuing 25 years in this business. And I have only four payments left on my ’81 Corsica.

So buck up. And for Pete’s sake, either stop whining or phone Food World.

©2004 Jim Hagarty

After a hard day dealing in the real world of work and worry, it’s really nice to know a person can go home, flick on the TV, and escape from the dreariness of everyday life with a little light entertainment. Take this past week, for example. Here are some of the things that happened on the tube.

On Friday night, Sophia faced a moral dilemma when an ill friend asked for help in ending her life. Eddie’s life was endangered when he befriended a young woman who was being pursued by a pair of killers. And Carrie defended a single mother charged with the death of her infant son.

Meanwhile, an ordinary doll took on homicidal tendencies after being possessed by the transmigrated soul of a killer. And an anatomical dummy intended for instructional use became a dangerous tool in the hands of a mentally unbalanced young man.

Saturday morning, an athletic counsellor at a camp for the blind tried to prevent a vision-impaired man from committing suicide. In the afternoon four men hijacked a crowded subway train and threatened to murder one hostage for every minute the ransom demand was late. That night, Stevie planned to avenge his father’s death when the gun used in that crime turned up in another case. And defence attorney Cromwell uncovered greed and adultery while investigating the plight of a woman accused of murdering her wealthy husband.

Sunday afternoon, a former police officer became the unofficial protector of a Chicago prostitute stalked by a killer. While frustrated in love, a lonely, overweight mortuary worker embarked on a tireless campaign to win a young man’s heart. And while visiting a friend in Jamaica, Jessica encountered voodoo and black magic when a family celebration was marred by murder.

Later that day, a murder was committed at a crowded reception honouring a deceased painter. While that was going on, a smalltown schoolteacher, pregnant by rape, fought to keep her job after officials accused her of immoral behaviour.

Early Monday, an American woman helped a sanitary engineer thwart an outlaw who shot her father. When a policewoman was murdered while helping to capture a rapist, her roommate volunteered herself as new bait for the trap. While a pretty, Second World War correspondent suffered a nervous breakdown over the death of her married lover.

Monday night, an attorney fell in love with her client, a San Francisco newspaper publisher who may have been a manipulative murderer. And Hoffs experienced date rape while working undercover on a case at a medical school. Meanwhile, an investigation continued into a tough vice cop’s alleged involvement in a series of shootings. And after murdering his mistress, an Italian police inspector passively accompanied his men as they searched for the killer. Later, an infamous murderer escaped from his sanitarium and headed back to Haddonfield, Illinois to continue the homicidal rampage he started 10 years ago.

Tuesday night, Ben went behind bars to defend a prison guard facing murder charges in a mock trial staged by mutinous inmates. While Angel, a law student-turned-vigilante, returned to the streets of L.A. to track down the murderer of her guardian. And a single mother struggled to prove herself innocent of the murder of her three children.

And later that day, a young lawyer learned that the woman he loved was actually a witch whose coven planned to sacrifice her to the Antichrist.

Wednesday morning, a psychiatrist’s family was besieged by a psychotic group of mental patients during a citywide blackout. While a young girl was kidnapped to ensure the death of a victim of a car-bombing incident. That night, the parents of a young Chinese patient, who was dying from meningitis, wanted to perform an ancient healing ritual.

Thursday morning, a blind girl was unaware that her family had been murdered and the killer was still lurking in the house. While a wandering musician was swallowed up in a hotbed of passion, deceit and murder when he arrived in a snowbound Canadian town.

And last night, the victim of two attempted rapes turned the tables on her attacker. While two vindictive students at a boarding school used a classroom as a tool in their plan to drive a teacher insane. However, their plan failed so they forced him to watch television for a week.

It worked.

Next week, he asks Sophia to help him end his life.

©1989 Jim Hagarty

At long last, we Canadians are realizing what harm we are doing to our precious environment. And, being the good citizens we are, we’re now beginning to make a real effort to change our destructive habits.

But in our haste to mend our ways, we’re having trouble deciding what exactly it is we should and shouldn’t be doing to help save our world. There is so much conflicting information floating around, it’s been hard to know what’s right and wrong. Until now, that is.

Here is a definitive list of environmentally friendly tips for the average person. It should be all you need to get you going down the right path.

1. Burger containers at some restaurants are now made from material that is biodegradable. Some of the burgers, however, are not. Go ahead and eat the containers.

2. To solve the problem of people throwing litter on your lawn as they walk by your house, it is recommended you put a large garbage can at the end of your driveway with a sign: Please DO NOT Deposit Litter In Can.

3. Biodegradable garbage bags with drawstring closers make a handy substitute for disposable diapers, which take decades to disintegrate. Simply place the baby’s lower half in the bag, tighten the drawstring up snugly around his or her waist and change bags when appropriate.

4. Plastic shopping bags are harmful to the environment so it is recommended that you do not use them to carry home grocery items from the store. An alternative, is to put your purchases in the pockets of your pants, shirt, coat, etc. The pockets on trouser-type slacks can hold up to a half dozen oranges and if you wear a hat, you should be able to tuck several small things under it. For those bigger shopping sprees, take the whole family and fill their pockets too. Take care where you stuff frozen foods.

5. Conservation of water is important in these days of the greenhouse effect. It is recommended in summer that you shower in the spray from your lawn sprinkler, thus accomplishing two jobs at once. Neighbours will get used to the sight of your naked body frolicking through your backyard and may even join you in time.

6. Composting of biodegradable food wastes plus lawn clippings and leaves will produce fresh, loamy soil which you can spread around in your flower beds and garden. Even fill up the flower pots in your house. After you’ve run out of places to put it, dump it over the fence into the neighbour’s yard, take it out in the country at night and throw it in a farmer’s field, or sell it. Erect a sign: Soil. For Sale. Dirt Cheap. Or: Mud Pies. Fresh Daily.

7. To reduce toxic fuel emissions from your car or truck, cut your driving in half. Drive to work, then walk home. The next day, walk to work and drive home. If you work in Kitchener and live in Stratford, set aside a few extra minutes for commuting.

8. Learn to like weeds. Who says stinkweeds stink? Who says dandelions aren’t dandy? Why get crabby over crabgrass? Bond with your bindweed. Kith a thistle. Throw away your herbicides and pesticides. Bugs are beautiful.

9. Pester your friends and family about their lack of environmental consciousness. This will eventually result in fewer trips between their houses and yours, leading to significant reductions in fuel consumption and pollution from exhaust emissions.

10. Listen to your old Mom Nature. She just wants us to clean up our rooms.

©1989 Jim Hagarty

This week, I heard about a man whose cats are always named Fred. If his cat dies or runs away, the new one he gets to replace it is automatically called Fred. I like that guy’s style.

For a joke, I picked up a piece of clay about the size of half a chocolate bar and pretended to pop it in my mouth and chew it, while the neighbour’s little girl watched me intently.

“Hmmmm!” I said. “Is this mud ever good.”

“Do dat again,” she commanded. So I did. And a third time.

In horror, I watched as she reached to the ground, picked up a chunk of clay and actually started eating it. Mud trickled out of both sides of her mouth and down her chin. I quickly got her some water, told her to take a sip and spit it out. She took a big gulp and swallowed it. I tried a second time. She swallowed that. I sent her home, went in the house and locked the door.

During the recent heat wave, my long-haired cat Buddy stretched out for hours on the floor in front of the big fan I have going on high speed all the time. His fur blew straight out from his body and he looked like he was riding on the top of a 747 jet. Cool cat.

When I find something I like, they cancel it. Three of my favorite TV shows have gotten the axe in the last year. My little sports car has been discontinued. I haven’t heard my favourite Saturday night radio program in months.

“Boy, this is a great dance,” I said to a friend recently. A few minutes later, the band leader read an announcement: “The organizers of this dance regret to say this will be the last dance we’ll be holding.”

You know you’re about to have your ear bent when a stranger sits down beside you at the lunch counter, gives you a sideways glance, and asks: “How’s it goin’ there, Buddy?” My advice: eat up fast and call for your bill. This happened to me two weeks ago. A total stranger replayed, for my enjoyment, his experiences along every inch of the 100 miles of highway he’d just driven.

“So I meets this guy in the service-centre washroom,” he tells me. “The same guy that’s been tailgatin’ me for the last 20 miles. “Where’d you get your licence?” I says to him. “Out of a cereal box?” He says if I wouldn’t putt along like a senior citizen on a Sunday, maybe people wouldn’t drive so close. “Oh is that right?” I says. “Well who died and put you in charge of traffic control?” I says to him …”

Before I could get the waitress to take my money, I found out a few more things be says to him, he says, and what the other guy says back plus a few things the first fellow’s sister says when he got back to the car. Guess what I says to him as soon as I got my change?

A friend and I were walking along in a big mall. I looked down at a $2 bill on the floor. I picked up it up. He looked at me enviously, then saw another $2 bill. I saw another one. In all, I found $6 and he found $6. We went immediately to a burger place and spent it. You’d have thought we’d each won a million bucks.

The best names I ever heard given to pets belonged to the two kittens in a recording studio near here that were named Woofer and Tweeter.

Wondering whether or not you’re a yuppie? if you use any of the following words and phrases in your day-to-day conversation, you probably are: male bonding; stressed out; accessing; sending a strong message; impacting; dialoguing; fellowshipping, a quick read; a must see; have a happy.

Thankfully, works for me, do lunch and touch base are all on their way out.

If you are showing signs of yuppieness, a quick cure would be to spend a day at your uncle’s farm, baling bay.

Friday night, two young women walked stark naked past the variety store near my house.
Saturday night, same time, there were 20 young guys hanging around outside the variety store.

Least, that’s what I hear.

©1988 Jim Hagarty

Now, this is your situation. You’re a judge, and your next defendant is Glen Lickers, police chief of a community near Brantford, who comes before you charged with impaired driving. One smirk, and you’re through.

You keep your cool this time but the stress has put your marriage on the rocks, so you phone up a noted therapist in Austin, Texas: “Hi there. This is Patricia Love speaking. How may I help you?”

You’re surrounded. It’s obvious.

Colleen Acres, spokeswoman for the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association, sends you a letter about the whys and wherefores of spring planting. Your clever entry in the Stephen Leacock Awards for Poetry contest is replied to by a Daphne Mainprize.

To forget your troubles, you sign up for a wine appreciation course at Conestoga College and find out your teacher is none other than Ron Sober. You decide to call him and you somehow get a Dr. G. A. Surgeoner of the University of Guelph on the line. You’re exasperated and you know, I can’t blame you.

The woman at the Michigan kennel where you leave your pooch on your way to Florida is Rhonda Setter. Worse yet, she looks Irish to you. Before you leave Canada, you get invited to attend a meeting in Guelph on ethical issues and the main speaker is Joan Toogood. You don’t go and then start wondering if she really was.

I agree. It’s getting sickening. You pick up the paper for a little diversion and see that George Gathercole, the former chairman of Ontario Hydro, has died. And there’s a cute little story about Bill Passingham, the 100-year-old motorist who recently passed his driver’s test. There’s an ad for a Holstein dispersal sale being held by Ron and Betty Dickerhoof.

You hear the music from the Twilight Zone playing and you wonder: “Is it them, or is it me?” Then you read about Stewart Ladyman, the B.C. school superintendent, who is upset because Grade 8 rugby students hired a stripper during an overnight school trip. You turn to the court news and there’s Jeffrey Flight, convicted of leaving the scene of an accident.

That’s it! You’ve had it. Turn the page and there’s an article about Idaho wildlife veterinarian Dave Hunter. Another about Brian Daly, lawyer for the Fort McMurray Today newspaper. Astronomist Jennifer Sunshine’s got a big blurb in there and you see that Ann Board’s been elected a member of the board of directors of Farmers’ Market Ontario.

Go to the phone, right now, and call the authorities. If you live in Ingersoll, however, you might want to take a pass when you find out you’ll have to speak to Mayor Jack Warden. Or is it Warden Jack Mayor?

Sooner or later, however, you’re just going to have to give it up as a bad mess. Sure, some people’s names bear some connection to what they do or are or claim to be. But these quirky names listed above are mere blips on the screen of nomenclature. (I looked it up. It sort of fits.)

Always remember this man’s name and you’ll be able to get the others out of your mind. Jack Hammer. A lawyer? A hotel owner? A politician?

No, my friend, Jack Hammer sells power tools.

There. I hope you feel better. If it starts to bother you again, give me a call.

See you around.

©1995 Jim Hagarty

Working in an office isn’t all rush and worry. We have our good times, too.

For fun, there are various games we like to play. They’re a riot.

My favorite is Telephone Tag. It’s a simple game, but with the right people on the other end of the line, it can be a real barrel of laughs.

The object of Telephone Tag is to catch the person you’re trying to call in another office, when he’s actually at his desk. If he catches you at your desk, you lose. Along the way, there are lots of little twists and turns.

Let’s listen in on a recent game.

“Hello there, Richard?”

“No, this is Mark. Richard’s in a meeting. Who’s calling, please?”

“This is Jim Hagarty, from Stratford.”

“Tim Hagany?”

“No, that’s Jim Hagarty.”

“How do you spell that, Tim?”

“That’s H-A-G-A-R-T-Y.”

“What’s your number there, Tim?”

“It’s 271-2220, extension 134, but tell him not to call for the next half hour. I’ll be out.”

A half hour later, there’s a note on my desk: Richard called. Call him back as soon as you can.

“Hello there, Richard?”

“No, this is Bob. Richard’s on another line. Do you want to hold or call back?”

“I’ll hold, thanks.”

“Hello? Who’s this?”

“Richard? This is Jim Hagarty.”

“Sorry, I’m not Richard. This is Bruce. Richard’s on another line. Can I take a message?”

“What have you done with Bob?”

“Bob?”

“Could you tell Richard that Jim Hagarty from Stratford called back?”

“What’s your number there, Jim?”

“It’s okay. He has my number.”

“You’d better give it to me again, Jim.”

“Okay, okay. It’s 271-2220, extension 134.”

“And your name again?”

“Hagarty. H-A-G-A-R-T-Y. Jim. From the Stratford Beacon Herald.”

“Beacon what?”

“The Beacon Herald. The newspaper in Stratford.”

“Okay, Jim. I’ll pass this on.”

Lunch time, at last. A few minutes late getting back. Note on my desk: Richard returned your call. Call him back.

“Hello, Richard?”

“Sorry, it’s Mark. Richard just stepped away from his desk.”

“Well could you tell him to step back to his desk? I have to talk to him.”

“Hey, Tim. How’s it going?”

“Great, Mark. Could you please get Richard for me?”

“Hang on Tim.”

“Sorry Tim. Richard’s out of the office. Can I get him to call you?”

“Okay.”

“Hello Tim Hagarty?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Richard Seapea.”

“RICHARD! Great to hear your voice. I wanted to ask you about that story on farmers and the federal election …”

“Sorry Tim. You’ll have to talk to Mark about that.”

“Could you switch me over?”

“Love to Tim, but Mark just went home for the day.”

Final score: Richard 4; Mark 2; Tim, 0.

©1988 Jim Hagarty

If you’re a regular reader of the Stratford Gazette newspaper, you might have noticed that my smiling face has been missing from this page the past two weeks. In fact Wandering Mind has wandered away a few times in the past year. I could say that this is simply because I’m too busy with other duties here to get a column written but such a declaration would be, to use a modern euphemism – less than genuine.

What is genuine is my desire to pump out a good piece of writing in this space week after week but sometimes I sit down at the keyboard, stare expressionless at the monitor and the monitor stares back. I blink first.

Determined, I tap out a few sentences but at moments such as those, where the creative well is dry, trying to squeeze out something good is about as possible as a chef trying to bake a wonderful pie with only mud as his main ingredient.

The phenomenon of a scribe such as I going blank is known as writer’s block and everybody pretty much understands what that is. Some writers get a little more technical and declare that their “muse” has temporarily abandoned them. Others say horsefeathers: it’s all a big excuse.

But I’m here to tell you writer’s block is real. I don’t know where it comes from just as I don’t know where inspiration comes from, but I do know if you’re blocked, your chances of producing anything anyone would want to read are about the same as a baseball pitcher pitching a no hitter with a broken arm.

I wrote my first column for the Mitchell Advocate in 1977, so I’ve been hacking away at this strange little exercise, off and on, for 31 years. My first columns were called One Day at a Time and they were serious, preachy, sentimental and now that I look back, probably depressing as well as naive.

A few years later I was tapping out The County Line in the Stratford Beacon Herald and shortly after I started it, a faithful reader commented that my sappy column on my neighbour’s dog that had just died was a total downer.

“You have a good sense of humour,” he said. “Why don’t you use that?”

Around that time, I ran across every writer’s favourite slogan: Write what you know. A light went on. I had often written on subjects I knew very little about.

So one night, armed with laptop, sitting on my couch, losing another wrestling match with WB, I noticed my two cats fighting over the same heat register. Eight registers in the house, and they both wanted the same one. How like humans, I thought. So I wrote about that and I started getting a reaction from readers. I kept it up and began to enjoy myself.

But humour, especially when you don’t feel too humourful, is probably the hardest thing to write, so homeruns from this batter, some days, are pretty hard to come by. I have found that, if a column comes flying off the keyboard (as this one seems to be doing), it will probably be passable. If I have to struggle with every word, I’d be better off not to write a column at all.

I wonder if people in other careers face similar difficulties. Do carpenters get carpenter’s block – days when they just can’t build that front porch railing or install that window because they’re blocked? Do farmers get on the tractor and then off again right away because they have farmer’s block and just can’t face the cultivator? Do exotic dancers have nights when they just can’t whip the laundry off and instead, hide in their dressing rooms?

It will pass. It always has. So be patient with me. I want to put a smile on your face every Friday but I know from experience that I can just as easily get you bawling your eyes out and I don’t think you want to go there with me.

The last thing I want to do is give you reader’s block.

Now that is a writer’s scariest nightmare.

©2008 Jim Hagarty

So there I was amidst the stony ruins of the Forum in Rome, walking where Julius Caesar and his pals used to hang out a couple of thousand years ago. I was on my holidays, 7,000 kilometres away from home and family and friends. Talk about a stranger in a strange land. There were people, people everywhere but not one of them knew me. And I sure didn’t know them. But that non-stop anonymity is one of the reasons a long-distance holiday is relaxing, I suppose, and why it’s so nice to get back home when it’s over.

Out of this sea of unfamiliar faces speaking unfamiliar languages came a man with a question.

“Pardon me,” he said. “But do you know how to get out of here?”

I answered his question as well as I could and as he turned to leave, he posed another one.

“Are you from Canada, by any chance?” he said.

“Yes I am,” I replied. “Ontario.”

“Ontario, eh?” he beamed. “So am I. Whereabouts in Ontario?”

“Stratford,” I answered.

“No kidding?” he laughed. “I’m from Walkerton.”

We both marvelled at the odds of our running into each other so far away from home and wondered even more when he named a friend in Stratford and I was able to say I knew that person.

“So,” he said. “Have you always lived in Stratford?”

“Well, I was born there,” I answered, “but I was raised on a farm near Bornholm.”

“Bornholm?” he practically shouted. “Well, doesn’t that beat all? I was raised in Monkton.”

“You’re kidding?” I replied. “What’s your name?”

“Eldon Yundt,” he answered.

“Any relation to the baker?” I asked.

His brother, he replied. His name is Laverne (Pete) Yundt and he is now on Elma Township council.

“Your brother used to have a delivery truck,” I remembered. “He brought bread to our farm.”

“I used to drive that truck,” he said, astonished. “What’s your name?”

“Hagarty,” I said. “Jim.”

“Hagarty? Sure. I used to stop with the truck at the Hagarty farm. I don’t remember you, but there were a bunch of kids running around.”

And so we chatted about Monkton and Bornholm and Walkerton and Stratford and he took my picture and I took his. Then he shook my hand and headed off in search of the exit.

There are 2,800,000 people in Rome. Italy is home to 57,116,000 Italians. The population of Europe is 673,900,000.

And one sunny afternoon in June, 1990, not far from the place where Caesar was cremated in 44 B.C., I ran into a guy from Walkerton who used to bring baked goods to our farm in Logan Township more than 30 years ago.

I could have walked around Walkerton, population 4,687, for a year, And never bumped into Eldon Yundt.

But if I did meet him, I bet we wouldn’t have taken each other’s picture.

©1990 Jim Hagarty

My province of Ontario in Canada is looking to restrict the use of cellphones in automobiles that are in motion and I fully applaud the move. I cringe every time I see a driver come whippin’ around a corner with a thin metal communication device plastered to the side of his or her face.

But there are a dozen other distractions for drivers from eating a full fast-food meal spread out on their lap, to applying makeup, to text messaging, to carrying on a marriage-ending spat with a spouse.

And then there’s smoking. As one who puffed away for almost 20 years on a pack a day before giving up the addiction in the mid ’80s, I can freely admit that the habit did not improve my driving ability. Every car I ever had ended up eventually with a lovely hole in the upholstery of the driver’s seat. This was the result of the occasional cigarette tumbling from my fingers or lips and landing between my legs on the seat below. Inevitably, it would roll out of sight.

If yakking to a friend or client on a phone is a distraction, imagine driving along with a burning butt under your burning butt.

Fortunately, for everyone involved, cigarettes weren’t responsible for the few accidents I’ve been involved in over the years but I shouldn’t joke about it. It is a very serious matter.

Maybe drivers should be banned from doing anything but driving when we’re behind the wheel but as long as auto manufacturers are allowed to design interiors that are more homey and appealing than the insides of some of our homes, we are going to play while we steer. DVD screens front and back, GPS, full stereo systems powered by MP3s.

How long before there are wireless mini laptop computers set into our dashboards?

I read recently that all this splashy technology in cars, homes and offices is reducing our ability to concentrate on anything for any length of time and I believe it’s true. Twenty years ago, I could sit for an hour in a coffee shop with a newspaper; now I gulp down what I order and flee as though on my way to a fire.

Since Alexander Graham Bell sent a few words down the first telephone wire in the late 1800s, we’ve had a love-hate relationship with our phones. We love the convenience of them but hate how they allow peddlers into our homes at all hours. We love being a call away from emergency help but hate when callers take us away from our favourite TV shows. Most of all, we detest the rudeness of some telephone users, whether cell, cordless or landline.

Thirty years ago, when I worked at another paper, the chain we belonged to brought in an expert on telephone etiquette so we could better attract and keep customers. I don’t remember most of the tips but since then I’ve tried to live by this one: When you are talking to someone in your office and your phone rings, ignore it. If you answer it, you’re telling the person sitting in front of you that this other person who just rang is more important to you. And if you talk for any length of time, you’re just plain being incredibly ignorant.

A guy I worked with at yet another paper years ago used to call me into his office and take those phone calls while I sat there. I might not have minded if he and his caller talked business but they’d rattle on about how the Toronto Blue Jays had done the night before and discuss personal family stuff I didn’t want to know.

I used to get up and walk out. Maybe I was offended or maybe that short attention span thing was already setting in.

Go Ontario! Ban the phone, the food, the movies, the music, the makeup, the magazines, the novels (yes, some drivers read while they drive). Just as our atmosphere has been polluted, so have our lives. Good things are good at the right time and place and in the right quantities. We need water to live but water can also kill us if we fall off a ship into it.

If a phone ban saves one life, that would be well worth a call home about. From a cellphone. In a parked car.

©2008 Jim Hagarty