Author: Jim Hagarty

I’m as friendly as the next guy, I guess. I say “hi” to total strangers on the street, I hold doors open for men, women and kids and I nod and smile appropriately when the situation calls for it. I’ll even shake hands all around if shaking hands seems to be the thing to do.

But I’m afraid I’ve had just about enough of this hugging thing that’s sweeping the nation. Women hugging women, men hugging men, men hugging women, women hugging men. People that are strangers one day, are molesting each other in public the next.

These are not just casual hugs I’m talking about, you understand, where an arm is thrown around a neck, a shoulder is pulled to a shoulder and a cheek brushes an ear. The latest thing is the full-body embrace where the huggers stand toe to toe, shin to shin and other parts to other parts and squeeze together closer than plaster to a wall. And the modern hug is not something that can be accomplished in a hurry like the handshake of old but instead, it’s a long drawn-out phenomenon.

In the old days (as in good, old), the strength of a person’s grip during a handshake indicated how much that hand shaker liked you, resulting in well-liked people receiving many hand injuries. Now, the length and tightness of a hug is a sign of how much affection the hugger feels towards the huggee.

Therefore, I submit, today’s hug is not meant to spread cheer or love, but it is offered instead as proof (to the world) of how deeply loving is the hugger and is therefore, primarily, a selfish act. It also serves to make non-huggers feel awkward, isolated and even guilty for being so aloof.

In any case, it’s an insidious practice and these days, I find myself forced to be in a state of constant vigilance, lest huggers sneak out from behind doors and walls and leap upon me with a body lock. I’ve suffered enough of these hugs in the past few years to know I’d live in total peace if I was lucky enough never to get another one. But, alas, I know there are more to come.

The war cry I hear in groups of people these days goes like this:

“Hi! I’m a hugger!” says Person A as he approaches Person B. Before Person B can respond to that information, Person A has his limbs tightly locked around Person B who couldn’t escape if his last name was Houdini. So, the fact that a person is a “hugger” has apparently bestowed on him the right to grab people at will and throw them into physical positions not unlike that attained by professional wrestlers in the ring.

Like smokers who take it for granted everybody’s eager to breathe in what they’ve just breathed out, huggers believe they’ve earned the right, being so full of love and all, to embrace other human beings whenever the urge overtakes them.

Personally, if you haven’t gathered by now, I object. Serious physical contact, I believe, beyond the traditional handshake, should be saved for people whose long association with each other along with the obvious bonds of affection between them, have earned them the right to press body to body. I refer, I guess, to family members, husbands-wives, very close friends, that sort of thing.

This all came to mind for me the other night when I was at a gathering where huggers abounded. They were grabbing each other like teenagers at a drive-in theatre. I feared for my safety and fled to a corner to stay free of the flailing arms, necks and legs.

Towards the end of the meeting, I happened to remark to a friend: “Well, at least I managed to make it through this without getting hugged.” In retrospect, I wish I’d said that to someone other than this friend. As I went to leave the room, he and a buddy jumped me, and against my struggling, we were soon locked together closer than three bear cubs on the first day of winter.

In a future column, I shall discuss another blight on modern-day society – the indiscriminate holding of hands.

Hang on, Association of North American Hermits. My membership fee’s in the mail.

©1991 Jim Hagarty

I got missin’ the ’60s the other day. That happens now and again. Some little thing reminds me of the good old days and back I go to the time when things were really hoppin’. Back to the days of drive-in theatres, all-night parties and music, music, music.

“Where’d all those good times go?” I thought to myself as I sat, remote control in hand, in front of my TV set. “Oh, to have the ’60s back, if only for a moment.”

But, alas, they’re gone forever.

Or are they?

I flipped through the channels. There on the screen appeared The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour Reunion, the new Star Trek, the old Star Trek, the New Leave It To Beaver, the old Leave It To Beaver, the new Perry Mason, the old Perry Mason. Reruns of Bonanza, the Dick Van Dyke Show, the Honeymooners, the Lucy Show. The new Gidget. You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx was on. A comedian on a talk show was doing an Ed Sullivan impersonation. Much Music was showing a video accompanying the song When We Was Fab by George Harrison with an appearance by Ringo Starr and another by Madonna, dressed and acting for all the world like Marilyn Monroe. Also a video by Mick Jagger. PBS was airing a documentary on the 20th anniversary since the Beatles released their landmark album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and advertising an upcoming special on John Lennon. Canada’s Man Alive was taking a documentary look at the year 1968. Another station was showing the life of Ricky Nelson. On another was a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. Bo Diddley was on Late Night With David Letterman where Sonny teamed up with Cher for one more shot at I Got You Babe. An awards show was honouring the Beach Boys. Bob Dylan was being inducted into a hall of fame. Carl Perkins was getting a lifetime award.

As I flipped around the dial, I hit commercial after commercial. The California Raisins were singing I Heard It Through the Grapevine. The actors in a beer commercial were jumpin’ around to the Beatles’ old hit, A Hard Days Night. Butter was being spread to the tune of Donovan’s ’60s’ song, Mellow Yellow. An Elvis impersonator was singing a hamburger restaurant commercial.
I turned the TV off and the radio on.

“Coming up next,” said the disc jockey, “is this week’s number one song, I’ve Got My Mind Set On You, by former Beatle George Harrison. Also, Roy Orbison’s re-release of his old hit, Cryin’, and Tiffany’s, I Think We’re Alone Now, the old Tommy James and the Shondells’ hit. Then we’ll have the Bangles version of the Simon and Garfunkel song, A Hazy Shade of Winter, Tina Turner with her version of the Beatles’ classic Help and Billy Idol with Tommy James’ Mony, Mony. Rounding out the set will be Elton John’s, A Candle In The Wind, his tribute to Marilyn Monroe, and finally, that great new remake of Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.”

I switched to a country station.

“Okay, we’re back,” said the announcer. “That was Ronnie Hawkins’ re-release of his old hit, Mary Lou. Comin’ up next is a song from that great new album Cowboyography by Ian Tyson followed by Talkin’ To Myself Again by Tammy Wynette. Rosanne Cash will do her remake of Tennessee Flattop Box written and recorded years ago by her father Johnny. Vince Gill will sing the Paul Anka song made famous by Buddy Holly, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore and last in this lineup of non-stop music, Don McLean will sing Patsy Cline’s He’s Got You.”

I turned the stereo off and went out to the mall. A ’58 Chev Impala convertible was sitting by the news depot, the first prize in a raffle. In the early ’60s, we had a ‘58 Chev. A Biscayne 4-door. Great car. I wandered down to the record store to check out the latest albums. Displayed on a rack outside were the best-selling records for the week. George Harrison’s Cloud Nine. Paul McCartney’s greatest hits. A new comeback album by Robbie Robertson of The Band. Paul Simon’s Graceland with harmony vocals by the Everly Brothers on the title track.

I ran into a friend and we headed for a pub downtown. A deejay played the best of the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis. Neil Sedaka. Jan and Dean. On the way home, I rented a movie – Stand By Me – about a boy growing up in 1963. In the video store window was a poster for La Bamba, about the life of late great ’50s rocker Richie Valens and another for The Tin Men, also set in 1963.

On New Year’s Day at a family gathering, knowing I like his music, my young nieces and nephews called their Uncle Jim into the basement where they were dancing up a storm to George Harrison’s new hit record. My two-year-old niece took my hand and the two of us started doin’ the boogie woogie along with the others. I think they were all amazed to think somebody that old could actually dance without falling down in a heap on the floor.

It occurs to me now how ironic it is that their favourite song on a January day in 1988 would be by a musician who belonged to my favourite group in 1964. And that a man once accused of opening up a generation gap is now closing it.

Thanks George.

For then and for now.

©1988 Jim Hagarty

They’re looking for a new groundhog in Wiarton, Ontario, Canada, in the wake of the tragic death of the latest in a long line of spring-predicting Willies.

I might just have the guy for them – if I can only catch him.

On Tuesday, at lunch time, I was startled, while peering out my kitchen window, to lay my eyes on a big, fat brown creature so familiar to me from my days growing up on the farm. I don’t remember ever seeing a groundhog so large and round, however; this guy’s found himself a motherlode of food somewhere.

I watched in amazement as the giant rodent made his way across my yard and disappeared behind the shed, munching on grass as he went. I slipped out and shut the gate to hopefully keep him in the yard so the kids could see him later.

At suppertime, I was telling the family about the sighting and looked out the window to show them where he had been. Lo and behold, he was there again, chewing away as though he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

My neighbour keeps telling me stories about how coyotes have been sneaking into Stratford at night and snatching cats and other small animals roving free. Recently, he said they’ve been spotted out near the city dump. I don’t know if what he says is exactly accurate, though I’m inclined to think he might be right. It is true that wildlife that had long ago been chased out of the area by people are making a return, for whatever reasons. A bear was found wandering around the city of Kitchener-Waterloo not long ago, for example.

Wolves and crosses between wolves and dogs and coyotes and dogs have been spotted from time to time in the county surrounding Stratford. The (screamingly ugly) turkey vulture returned 10 years ago and is now increasing in population at such a rate as to be considered a nuisance. Years ago, a rattlesnake (non-poisonous, if I recall) was found near the village of Brodhagen and I once heard a pretty convincing story about bobcats living in a bush near Prospect Hill about 20 miles from me. The man who told me this tale said the animals created noises at night that sounded like babies crying, causing the hair on the back of the necks of the farmers who heard them to stand straight up.

My backyard in the east end of town, by no means in the wilderness, has so far seen rabbits hopping around almost every year along with annual visits from Canada geese. A raccoon knocked over our garbage a while back and now a groundhog shows up. Cats of every description have wandered in and out, hanging around our composters like late night partiers at a drive-through window and the odd dog lumbers through.

Sometimes late at night I wander back with another smelly pail-full contribution to those same composters at the back of the lot. Though it’s dark, I can find my way easily having lived here for two decades. Now I’m starting to re-think the practice, wondering what sorts of creatures I might stumble over on my way.

Groundhogs were not our friends on the farm and many of the pesky creatures joined Willie in the great beyond in our attempt to prevent damage to our machinery from the groundhog holes our wheels would fall into throughout the fields. The irony is, through all those years on the farm, I never saw even one groundhog wandering around on our lawns near the house. And rarely, if ever, did we see rabbits or wild geese. Raccoons sometimes showed up at the barn but not the house.

I don’t know if our current menagerie is attracted by the fact we use no chemicals on our property (no big political statement, just haven’t gotten around to it, plus our kids play in the grass), but something’s going on.

If I meet a coyote by my composter one of these dark nights, you’ll probably be able to hear me screaming like a bobcat (or crying like a baby). I just hope my neighbour’s there to save me.

Generous soul that I am, I am willing to donate my groundhog, now named Stratford Sammy, to the good people of Wiarton. No charge, unless the town has a budget, in which case, $500, which, according to my research, is a real bargain.

©2006 Jim Hagarty

My four-year-old niece Erin thinks I’m great. On an average day, remembering that she does makes me feel great.

Whenever I visit her home, she gets so excited to see me arrive she leaps into my arms as soon as I step inside the front door. Now how many places can a person go in this world and expect a greeting like that?

So when she wanted me to steal an hour away from work and be her buddy on Bring a Friend Day at her nursery school last week, “no” was not an answer that was available to me.

When I pulled into her parents’ driveway, I could see her through the picture window, all bundled up in her winter clothes and sitting on top of the television, waiting for me to show up. I beeped the horn, she saw me and headed for the door.

“I’ve been many things in my life,” I said to her mother as I entered the house, “but this is the first time I’ve ever been an item for show and tell.”

“It’s not show and tell,” Erin protested. “It’s Bring a Friend Day.” I stood corrected. I would stand corrected many more times in the next hour.

After a hasty goodbye to her sisters and her mother, Erin and I walked mitt in glove down the front steps. Before we reached the sidewalk, question period was well under way.

“Is this a sports car?” she asked, as I was unlocking her door. I told her it was.

“Do you have only one car?” she enquired, as I buckled her seat belt. When I told her one was all I have, she replied: “We have two cars. My Daddy has a big car and my Mommy has a small car but my Daddy takes the small car to work because it has more gas in it.” That’s a good idea, I said.

“Why do you have a beard?” she asked. When I said I wasn’t really sure why, she said, “My Daddy used to have a beard.”

“Oh?” I said, and figuring I’d get in a question of my own, I continued, “Why doesn’t he have it any more?”

“He shaved it off,” she said. Good reason.

As we neared the school, I slowed down and turned in.

“How do you know where my school is?” Erin asked. I’d been there before, I told her.

“When?” Before she was born, I said.

“Have you been an uncle for a long time?” she wondered. I have, I assured her.

Inside the school, I helped my little friend off with her coat and boots and carefully followed her crisp instructions on where they – along with her hat and mittens – belonged. She had some trouble realizing unmarried uncles just don’t know the things that are so obvious to moms and dads.

Inside the school room, the first order of business was to go have a look at baby Sniffer, the pet hamster who lives in a cage near one corner of the room. Sniffer was busy sleepin’ it off, half buried in a pile of wood shavings, but the way Erin described him, I could tell he’s a real panic when he’s awake.

“This is the new baby Sniffer,” she said. “The other baby Sniffer died.”

To kick off the hour, the nursery school leader called us all to sit on the floor in a big circle, the buddies seated directly behind their little friends. Each child had to introduce his or her buddy.

“And who did you bring with you today, Erin?” asked the leader.

“This is my Uncle Jim,” Erin proudly told her schoolmates and after a mild round of applause, she added: “He has a beard.” The other kids all looked my way and confirmed that what she said was true. They couldn’t have been more impressed if they were staring at an alien. If there was a prize for most unusual buddy, Erin would have won it.

The next hour was packed with activities as Erin showed me every single item in the school. After checking out a puppet show someone else’s buddy was putting on, we headed for a child’s kitchen where we cooked up and ate a make-believe meal. Before the hour ended, we drew pictures and coloured them, made things out of playdough, climbed up to a loft where we looked out over the classroom and had some real cookies and juice.

Each time I said I’d better go – she was to stay after I left – Erin found us one more thing to do until finally, I was the only buddy still there.

“All the other buddies have gone home, Erin,” I said to her. She looked around, saw I was correct, and immediately leaned over and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. I realize now it was a “here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” smooch because as soon as it was delivered, I was tuned out in favour of a more interesting channel.

Uncles are great things to have around. At least until Bring a Friend Day is over.

After all, you can’t get very much serious fun happening while someone old enough to grow a beard is hanging around.

©1988 Jim Hagarty

Dear Readers:

For almost seven years now, my owner has been taking cheap shots at me in this column and for seven years, I’ve put up with this literary assault, figuring it’s been worth a bit of aggravation for a bowl full of cat food and a warm place to sleep every day.

But the gloves are off now. I’ve had it. I don’t care if I have to go back to hunting for a living and crawling up on car engines to keep warm in the winter. I just have to fight back. I have to answer the charges he’s levelled at me.

First of all, he says I was found living by a wall under an air conditioner in a parking lot. What nonsense. I was actually residing quite happily with my family in a nice apartment and had just stepped out for a breath of fresh air when I was scooped up and taken to spend the rest of my life with him. Next thing I know, I’m at the vet’s getting spayed (thank you so much for that little pleasure) and being scolded 20 times a day.

The lies! The lies! Let’s look at some of them.

He has said repeatedly that I have been murdering mice and birds and he even claims he caught me with a half-grown rabbit in my mouth one day. False. The dead mice he found me with expired coincidentally when I ran up to play with them. The little birds I supposedly “chewed up” died unexplainably as I was trying to help them back to their nest. And the rabbit in my mouth? Hey! Give me a break! It was orphaned and I was just trying to mother it. You’ve heard of animals from one species doing that for the young of another species. Haven’t you?

As for my “crawling across linoleum floors” to throw up on his carpets, I can only say I was trying desperately to make it to the door and the outside before I tossed my kibble. But I’m only non-human. I’m not perfect.

Have I scratched my claws on the arms and backs of his furniture? No. Never done it. I know it might have looked from time to time as if I was ripping and tearing at upholstery but in actual fact, I was simply trying to rearrange the furniture. Hey! I’m here 24 hours a day, looking at the same four walls. He drops in for meals and a sleep. Is it wrong for me to want the odd change?

As for my so-called assaults on the male cat who also lives here, again, looks can be deceiving. We’re only playing, for Pete’s sake. It’s just a game. He runs as fast as he can away from me in apparent terror and I catch him and tune him up a bit. We both have a good laugh about it later. Has my owner never heard of good, clean fun?

And finally, this stuff about me attacking and wrecking his precious leather slippers. What a crock. Those slippers are almost 25 years old and he wears them all the time. He cuts lawn in them. Shovels snow in them. Paints the house in them. It isn’t my fault they look like they were used for target practice by the Canadian army.

He even has a picture which he says depicts me inflicting more damage on his footwear. If he ever shows it to you, don’t believe it. I was sleeping that day when his wife crept up, put the slippers around me in a compromising way, called me and snapped the photo the minute I woke up.

This was definitely trick photography at its worst.

In any case, he won’t be writing any more of his libellous comments about me in this newspaper. My lawyers – Sue, Grabbit and Run – have obtained a restraining order against him, prohibiting him from distributing any more slander.

And if I ever get my own column, you can bet I’ll be telling a story or two about him.

Sincerely,

Grumbles

©1994 Jim Hagarty

It used to be, no matter how tough living might get for adults, babies still had it pretty good. Their daily schedules were fairly simple, involving little more than sleeping, eating and playing.

But, alas, it’s getting to be a rough world out there for them too. Before even their first year of living is up, they’re out on the fall-fair circuit and in the malls, entered in gruelling baby contests, competing with their fellow rug bugs for the baby limelight. Gone are the carefree days, even for them. Their first encounter with groups of other babies is likely to come, not in a playpen surrounded by toys, but racing down the length of a gymnast’s mat surrounded by other clawing, crawling, babbling innocents while scores of howling adults stand huddled around the racing area, yelling and screaming encouragement to their tiny relatives.

And all this activity is captured on hours of videotape to be played back in living colour for the amusement of relatives, friends and total strangers for the next 30 years of the kids’ lives.

Harmless as they may seem, these contests are sending a not-so-subtle message to the next generation: Winners are more valued than losers. It isn’t as if they wouldn’t soon learn that lesson anyway, but the importance of winning didn’t used to start dawning on them till they started taking exams in school.

Now, at 10 months of age, some of them have already experienced the thrill of victory as they hear the cheers go up at the announcement that they won. Many more of them have sensed their parents’ disappointment at having a second-class baby who couldn’t make it into the top three.

I recently attended such a baby contest and soon found myself down on my knees just beyond the finish line waving a stuffed miniature mouse doll in the air and loudly beckoning to a young relative entered in a diaper derby. A half dozen other eager tykes were also taking part in the contest to see who could crawl the length of a mat the fastest but I was taken back to see that one out of the whole number was actually able to walk. Though she must have been of eligible age, it seemed strange to me that crawling babies could be expected to have a chance against a walking one.

Despite that advantage, my little relation shot out of the gate like a cannonball and headed straight down the mat for his mother at the other end who was enticing him with loud, motherly type chants and a breadstick. It looked like it was all over but the acceptance speeches when the lone walker among the bunch suddenly lunged down the track, stepped on my relative’s head and crossed the finish line with a flourish.

From that humiliation, my family marched on to another tent where babies were being judged for their beauty and brains. So many were entered, they had to run them off in heats. After a half hour’s wait in a hot sun, my relative sat at the front of the stage on his proud mother’s knee and went into a stupefied trance as an overenthusiastic emcee shoved a microphone in his mouth and started asking him questions about the distance of the sun from the earth, the average weight of the mature Arctic polar bear and other such simple things. These of a kid who so far, can say “dad” when his father’s around and “twee” when he sees leafy branches waving outside his bedroom window.

As expected, some smirking Cary Grant of a toddler who’d come prepared for the event, recited a few lines of Shakespeare, stood on his head and played Greensleeves on the viola before accepting his first prize victory. My relative finished out of the running.

What’s next? Babies on steroids? Babies with managers? Baby olympics? Betting on babies?

Obviously, it’s time for an inquiry.

©1989 Jim Hagarty

I was peeling a potato at the sink in the kitchen, thinking about how much work a potato is to prepare when you consider the little bit of food you end up with. But when you’re Irish, you eat potatoes.

The back door to the house was open. I used to leave it open to encourage my cat to run away. But Grumbles has been sent to punish me and so, it seems, I must suffer.

After a few more swipes at my supper-to-be, I suddenly heard the distinctive pitta-pitta-pitta of an animal’s claws on the linoleum floor behind me. I looked around to see a short yellow dog with a big furry head trotting unconcerned on his way past me.

“Well, hello there Rover,” I said, as I was in a rare be-kind-to-strange-dogs mood. “How’s it going?”

“Name’s not Rover,” he growled back, curtly. “It’s Biff,” he barked. “Mind if I look around?”

“Be my guest, Biff,” I laughed and I thought, “Now, isn’t that cute.” Then, as the dog roamed off into the dining room and soon, out of my sight into the living room, I went back to the potato and mused about how darned good life really is after all and how it’s just so great to be alive and if this is as good as it gets, well that’s all right with me. As I recall, I even started whistling a happy tune. The theme to the old Andy Griffith Show, I think it was.

Biff spent quite a while, really, in the living room but I knew he was just doing a careful inspection. Dogs and cats are intrigued by new territories and like to do a lot of sniffing, I thought. And I vaguely recalled something else about dogs and territories and things like that but I just couldn’t remember exactly what it was.

Eventually, Biff had seen all he wanted to see so he retraced his steps through the hall and back out into the kitchen, stopping for a few seconds beside my appliances. Shocked and unable to speak, I watched as he claimed territorial rights on my stove in the way that I suddenly remembered dogs stake their claims. Having identified the stove as falling within his territory, Biff loped on out of the kitchen, through the back door and was gone.

As I knelt beside the old stove with pail of water and sponge in hand, erasing the territorial claim Biff had so carefully placed there, I found my sense of humor again and started chuckling.

“Boy, this’ll make a great story some day,” I thought, and as I scrubbed I pondered how strange it is that an incident which might upset you at the time it happens, eventually, when the pain is gone, can become a story you’ll tell and laugh about for years to come.

I thought about other similar mysteries as I set the table and prepared to eat. Before I sat down for supper, I went into the living room to put on some music. It was then I realized how fleeting happiness can be and how quickly a good mood can go bad. Standing before my stereo, I discovered, to my sadness, that Biff had claimed more than my stove as part of his territory while on his visit to my place. He had taken a shine to certain other of my possessions. He particularly liked both of my stereo speakers, especially the black cloth covers on the fronts. He thought, while he was there, he may as well claim my wood record stand and what the heck, why not include that blue captain’s trunk over there in the corner.

Tears welled in my eyes as I discovered, too, that Biff had a special thing for wooden office desks.

In the evenings these days, I sometimes go for long walks along the streets in my area. Occasionally, I call out, “Biff. Oh Biff. Here Biff!” From time to time, when I think to do so, I ask people on the street, “Did you happen to see a short, yellow dog named Biff around anywhere?” So far, no one has.

All I can say is, I’m a bitter man. It’s my firm belief now that if animal-rights activists want people like me to treat “non-human animals” with respect, they’re going to have to teach the pets of this world a few more manners.

And they can start with Biff. Providing they get to him before I do.

(Update: All that furniture and stereo equipment is gone now. The stains on the speaker covers turned white and stayed that way. I was never able to find a way to get them out.)

©1987 Jim Hagarty

It is a common perception that Americans are tough on crime. I never gave that notion very much thought. I just accepted that the people of the U.S. do not have a high tolerance for bad guys.

But now I have some proof that our southern neighbours aren’t foolin’ around when it comes to scofflaws and mischief makers. A news story this week convinces me just how seriously some of the 50 states of the Union (not all) take their administration of justice. It is the fact that apparently, in at least one place in the U.S., a man can be charged for farting.

Yes, it’s true. A guy in West Virginia was charged with battery on a police officer after passing gas last week and fanning it towards the cop who was booking him for driving offences.

As Patrolman T.E. Parsons prepared the breathalyser machine back at the police station, suspect José A. Cruz, 34, scooted his chair toward Parsons, lifted his leg and “passed gas loudly”, the complaint taken out against him said. According to the complaint, Cruz then fanned the gas toward the officer.

“The gas was very odorous and created contact of an insulting or provoking nature with Patrolman Parsons,” the complaint alleged.

For his part, Cruz says he didn’t aim his nasty missile at the patrolman at all. He said he had an upset stomach at the time, but police denied his request to go to the bathroom when he first arrived at the station.

“I couldn’t hold it no more,” he is quoted as saying in a newspaper story this week.

Cruz said the officers at the station thought the gas incident was funny when it happened and laughed about it with him but things turned serious later.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “I could be facing time.”

This situation raises several curious observations. Is crime in West Virginia so well eradicated that they are now going after people who pass gas inappropriately? And sent to jail on such a charge, how would you answer the other prisoners when they asked you why you were being locked up?

Now, I don’t think what José did would look very good on his résumé and surely this was not his finest moment. But should the gaseous ones among the population really be incarcerated?

And if so, what are the various penalties that should accompany such an offence? And are other bodily functions potential lawbreakers too? Does belching border on the criminal? What about sneezing too loudly, spraying in seven directions in the process?

I’m afraid my grandmother, rest her soul, would not have done well in a West Virginian society that charges aggressive flatulence producers. Because on that subject, she had two favourite expressions.

“Wherever ye be, let your wind blow free,” she would say.

And hearing one of her six children express themselves in such a way, she would remark, “Well, that’s better out than an eye!”

She also would tell members of her brood: “Go outside and let the wind blow the stink off you.”

When Cruz is done serving his time, I think he should consider trying to sneak into Canada. In this country, we don’t believe in capital – or rectal – punishment.

He needs a vacation. He could come up here and bum around for a while.

©2008 Jim Hagarty

As a homeowner in the midst of perpetual renovations, I tend, at times, to be preoccupied.

That’s why I almost fall over from fright every time teenagers yell at me when they pass me in a car as I’m ambling down the sidewalk. And for some reason, it happens to me a lot, especially on weekend nights. It seems to be some sort of right of passage of teens these days. Hang out of car windows and scream at befuddled homeowners and you earn a badge, or something.

As I walk along, to and from the coffee shop, I calculate in my mind.

“Now, I’ll need 50 boards, no, wait a minute, 60 boards, so I have a few left over and two screwnails per board both top and bottom, no, make that three, so that’s six nails times 60, which is 360, but I better get 400 so I’ll …”

“GET A LIFE !!!” yells a kid at me as he hangs half out the back window of a speeding car jammed with young people as it flies down the road past me.

I’m never prepared for the shock of that yell and I shudder every time.

Sometimes the call of the yelling joyriders is clear and distinct.

“PARTY!!!” is a favourite.

But much of the time, the scream just comes out as, well, a scream.

“Aaaaaaaaaaah!!!” they yell. Or, “Heyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”

Sometimes, more than one kid hangs out of the car windows and they yell in unison. Sometimes an “Aaaaaaaaaaah” and a “Heyyyyyyyyyyy” together. It sounds somewhat jungle-like. Sort of a “Heyyyyyyaaaaaah!!!”

But however it’s done, I almost swallow my tongue every time they do it to me. Because as often as it’s happened to me, it always comes a big surprise. And because I’m never ready for it, I’m also never ready with a snappy answer to yell back. And that is the most frustrating part of all.

If I could just once get them back.

Friday night, I was out on the sidewalk again, thinking about my house renovations.

“Before the ceiling goes up, I’ll have to move the transformer for the doorbell over to the cupboard where the electrical boxes are and run new wire from the switch outside the front door …”

“Yowwwwwwwwwww!!!” yelled another wild pack of teens as they speeded up behind me in their car and as usual, I almost fainted.

As they careened on down the highway away from me, I again regretted not getting out an answer. Just once, I thought, I want to get them. Just once. A few seconds later, I came to a stoplight and as I stood waiting for the don’t walk signal to change, a car came screeching around the corner. In it was the usual mob.

“Hey youuuuuuuuuuuu!!!” yelled the driver.

But this time, I wasn’t preoccupied. Or befuddled.

At last.

“SHAAAAADDDDDAAAAAPPPPP!!!” I yelled back.

Ah, what a feeling.

Free at last.

Of course, it wasn’t quite as thrilling as hanging out the window of a speeding car.

But it’ll do.

©1992 Jim Hagarty

I was sitting on my front porch one day last fall when a teenager flew by on his bicycle and as if on cue, let loose with a dramatic “hawwwwkkkk phllllooootttt!!!!”, a sound that is becoming more familiar with each passing day. This call of the wild cyclist was followed by a punctuated “schppllaatt!!!!”, itself almost a signature of the age we live in, as the former contents of the young man’s mouth met up with the sidewalk below him.

I was struck by a couple of things (thankfully, not by those contents) about this now-common, everyday occurrence. First, I shuddered to think I had recently strolled along that same sidewalk in my bare feet and now may never do so again. And I was impressed at how the boy who so pointedly parted with his little wad of phlegm seemed totally relaxed with this public displaying of his bodily fluids. I am sure, had I accosted him about his behaviour, that he would have been completely unaware that anyone could possibly object to what he’d done so nonchalantly.

And why would he know anything might be out of place? Spitting is all the rage and not a word about it from anyone, not even the many cranky old geezers in print who should have been onto this by now. We are surrounded by people who seem to be suffering from a very serious oversupply of saliva and nothing is being done about it.

Where are studies to find out why the mouths of our young people are filling up with secreted liquid so many times during the day that their only hope is to relieve themselves of this throaty burden wherever and whenever they must?

The walk from the parking lot to the public building where I once spent my working days reminded me of the jaunts I used to take as a boy across the pasture fields on our farm, journeys that required me to take care that each step landed on nice green grass that had yet to be eaten, and not in the brown stuff that resulted from the foliage that already had been digested.

A friend asked me a while back why I always walk with my head down and I couldn’t answer him but now I know that the reason is that for years I was forever on the lookout for the recently deposited products of the overactive mouth and throat glands of the hundreds of young people who used the same thoroughfare that I followed to work daily. And my rather morbid search (I’ll admit it) for these random “spitfalls” did not end at the front door of the building as they could be found in copious quantities on the hall floors and the steps inside.

This always led me to wonder at the mental process that suggested to a person that a good idea would be to lay a slippery patch on the steps that weary workers used to climb to and from their offices all day long.

A friend and I were one day chatting in a cafeteria in a public building when a big, young guy strolled by and let fly with a bundle of the material under discussion into an open garbage can, in full view of dozens of people who were eating their lunch. In this case, it occurred to me that the action might have had more to do with the man’s need to be seen than it did with his need to expectorate which I think is a key to understanding the activity. In a word, spitting is cool possibly because it is something you wouldn’t see uncool people doing.

More than half a century after the last disgusting spittoon was removed from the last public place that had one, the hock and the splat are back. Lined up at a bus stop a while back were half a dozen teens and from them, in the space of a quarter hour, dozens of little packages were brought to the lips and shot to the ground. Obviously some sort of social-bonding ceremony of the New Millennium.

But, you will say, and I would have too, that this must just be one more example of how uncouth and uncivilized today’s young males have become. I say I would have agreed with you had I not, on two separate occasions, followed young women along on the sidewalk to work and stepped around the little gifts they left me in my path.

A while back, as a middle-aged man stood in a large downtown Toronto mall watching the world go by, his balding scalp was struck by a very wet spitball from the second-floor mezzanine. Purposely done? Probably not. Someone just had to spew. If the odd bare head got in the way, hey, what’s the biggie?

Isn’t that what hats are for?

Now in case you think Saint James’s halo is hugging his head a little too tightly, I need to confess that I too have taken part in the above objectionable behaviour. But in my defence, I was never showing off. Most often I did it right after a disgusting bug flew into my open gob.

(This week, Saskatoon city council considered a bylaw banning spitting in public places. As well, council is also looking at banning public urination and littering.)

©2004 Jim Hagarty