Jim Hagarty

Last summer, I built a board fence around my backyard, and despite its simple design, it was not an easy thing to construct. There were a hundred problems to face and overcome – a lot of them I’d anticipated and some I hadn’t.

There were property lines to find and posts to line up, stringers to level and dozens of decisions to make about style, lumber, nails, etc.

But among the difficulties I hadn’t counted on having when I set out to build Fort Hagarty was the neighbours’ pet, T.J. Dog.

Since she arrived as a pup in the yard next door, T.J. and I have been pals. A year ago, she used to be able to sit in the palm of my hand and lick my face. Now, I’d have to have a hand as big as a bathtub for her to be able to do the same thing. Still, she’s as happy and energetic today as she ever was and whenever she sees me, she goes into fits until I play with her, which I normally enjoy doing.

But the problem with all young dogs, I suppose, is that everything to them represents an opportunity to play. And so things weren’t any different when I spent a Saturday recently in the neighbours’ yard, screwnailing 150 boards to the new fence between us. It was all one, big day of fun for T.J.

Although her owners had wanted to tie up their pet for the day to keep her out of my hair, I convinced them she’d be no trouble. And so, for the next few hours, this big, black rambunctious mutt and I engaged in a battle of wills, which I realize in retrospect, we may have both won.

Every time I climbed over the fence, which was already tacked up, into her yard, even if I’d only left it five minutes before, T.J. behaved as if this was her first sighting of me in months. As I’d climb down the stepladder, she’d jump four feet in the air in greeting and we’d have to spend five minutes getting reacquainted. My only chance to get clear of her was to send her off in search of her ball.

In fact, getting her to fetch various articles, it turned out, was the only thing that allowed me to finish the fence at all. Every few minutes, she’d bring me her slobber-covered green tennis ball which I’d fire off into as obscure a place in the yard as I could find, hoping to get in a few more nails before my frisky companion returned.

And so, we settled into a routine. I’d drill in a few screws, wrench the wet ball out from between her teeth, toss it into some bushes, and put in some more nails. For variety, from time to time, she’d bring me an overripe pear to throw or a stick.

Somehow, the job got done. But it wasn’t easy. When she needed a rest, the dog would lie across my feet. On the odd occasion when I had to remove a board completely to straighten it before nailing, she’d stick her head through the opening and have a look around my yard. This resulted in a few exciting moments when I removed a board to see my cat sitting on the other side of the fence. T.J. saw her too, went berserk and tried to squeeze her foot-wide body through the six-inch-wide gap.

Other times, I would end up standing on the stick she brought me while I worked, unaware of its presence below my feet. Only after persistent tugging, would she finally rescue her prized possession.

But the biggest impediment I found to building a fence with the neighbour’s dog on the loose, were the sudden and unexpected outbursts of affection she lavished on me from time to time. Sitting on the ground, lining up boards and holding a power drill to a fence with a hundred pounds of dog painting my face with a tongue the size of a tea towel and trying to eat my nose, made me realize how right my neighbours were to offer to tie up their pet for me.

On the other hand, that was one of the happiest days I’ve spent in a long time.

©1991 Jim Hagarty

My male cat Buddy is the original creature of habit. He does the same things at the same times and in the same ways day after day after day. Original thoughts aren’t something he entertains a lot.

One of Buddy’s favourite routine activities is to run around outside after dark. Every night, winter or summer. So, in the evenings after supper, I let him out and he takes off in search of his cat pals from here and there up and down my block. He was a feral cat when I got him, living by railroad tracks in a village near my home, so his ways are mysterious.

On hot summer nights, he won’t show up at the door again until morning. But in winter, he stays out only as long as he can put up with the cold. And he can put with the cold until five minutes after I’ve gone to bed.

Every night it’s the same story. I shut off the TV, then go to the front door, open it and look out. I yell out my first call of the night: “Come on Buddy. Here boy. Bedtime.” I look up and down the street. There is not an animal to be seen in any direction.

Back inside, I shut off the kitchen lights and then head to the bedroom to change into my pyjamas. I go back to the door, stick my head outside and call again: “Come on Buddy. That’s a boy. Come on in!” The street is quiet and empty, like a ghost town in a cowboy movie. I go back inside.

I shut off the livingroom lights, draw the curtains, lower the thermostat, shut off the diningroom light and go back to the front door. “Come on Buddy,” I holler. “BUUDDYY!!!
Nothing.

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty! That’s a boy! Come on in!!!”

Less than nothing. The air is still. If there are any small beings out there, they’re all hiding and holding their breath.

Back in the bedroom, I turn off all but the bedside lamp, flick on the radio and find a magazine to read. I turn back the sheets and kick off my slippers. Then head to the front door for one last try.

“BUUUUUUDDDDDDYYYYYY!!!”

Nothing.

I wait by the door for five minutes. Then look again.

“HERE KITTY, KITTY, KITTY!!!

Nothing.

Last ditch effort: bribery.

“D’ya want something to eat, Buddy? You can have something to eat! I’ve got some nice food here for you!”

I loudly and vigorously shake a jar filled with kibble.

Nothing.

“Okay, that’s it. The little beggar can freeze to the sidewalk for all I care.” I flick off the porch light. Lock the door.

Finally, into bed. Read for a while. Shut off the light. Turn down the radio. Pull up the covers. Roll over. Snuggle up. Close my eyes. Let out a big breath. Start to lose consciousness. Watch the opening credits to my first dream.

And at the front door …

“Meeeeeeoooooowwwwww!!!”

Out of bed. On with the light. Open the door. And as he strolls by me on the way to his bed in the basement, Buddy always glances back at me as if to say: “What the heck kept you? It’s cold out there.”

Did I mention Buddy likes to live dangerously?

©1989 Jim Hagarty

I spent a bit of time again this past year with my two favourite psychiatrists – Dr. Hans Sawe and Dr. Klaw Hammer – and I savoured every moment I shared with them.

Dr. Sawe, especially, never fails to calm me down when my nerves are frazzled. As I was apparently born with a worried look on my face (I shamelessly stole that line from a friend) he has a lot of pacifying to do. But he manages, time after time, to cut everything down to size to a point where it all fits together. We end every session with a little inside joke, claiming that all my worries are from that moment forward “just Sawe dust in the wind.” We laugh.

When I am with my Hans Sawe, I am, within a very short period, at peace. He makes me exercise in a rhythmic pattern and I guess that activity must release all those precious endorphins in me because even my breathing slows down. He is sharp and loves to sink his teeth into things.

As I get older, I long more and more for the things of my early days on this planet as so many of them have pleasant associations for me now. One of those was the time spent, not only with Dr. Sawe (yes, he’s getting up there), but with his cousin, Dr. Krawscutt Sawe. My father and I would go visit Krawscutt under the evergreen trees by the “driving” shed (to differentiate it from the woodshed, I suppose), and spend the occasional afternoon chatting as we cut our problems down to size.

To anyone with rattled nerves, I would recommend using a Sawe to calm you down.

As well, Dr. Hammer has been a lifesaver for me on so many occasions. There’s just something about the way he can put things all together that is truly awe inspiring. Like Sawe, he insists on rhythmic motions and a fair degree of physical exertion. As well as concentration. Many a patient has had his feelings bruised because he failed to pay attention to Hammer. He’s fair, but if you drift off, sometimes he’ll nail you.

I look around me and see what other professional people are using to help them relax and I say, more power to them. But some of them just don’t do it for me. Dr. Ard Likker, for example, just seemed to make things worse, though he always held out such promise at the start of a night. Ditto for doctors Bier and Ail. Dr. Toe Bacco also wasn’t much help either, though I relied on him for many years. Our relationship went up in smoke eventually.

One talk therapist I have not yet visited is Dr. Mary Wanna, though I might book an appointment some day. I know a few of her clients and they seem pretty laid back.

And there are even new generations of Sawes and Hammers that are glamorous, even powerful, but they’re too charged up for me.

No, just good old Hans Sawe, Klaw Hammer and I around a wooden table under a maple tree on a nice summer day (even not so nice a one) and I’m a happy guy. Or as close to happy as I ever get.

Because try as I might, my life often seems like one big construction site.

©2008 Jim Hagarty

I felt like a bear climbing out of its den after a long winter’s sleep. The hibernation was welcome but so is the spring. As long as I live, I’m sure, those first warm rays of sun on my face after winter will be a lift to the spirits.

And another welcome lift appeared when I stepped outside my front door last Wednesday to find my neighbours’ children Bradley and Jennifer standing shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk across the street from my place, staring in my direction and looking for all the world like a couple of rosy-cheeked kids in a Norman Rockwell painting. Though the weather was balmy, they were still bundled up. I hadn’t seen them more than once or twice, and then only briefly, since last fall.

“Well, if it isn’t Frank and George,” I called across the street to them. “How’re you fellas doin’?”

After checking for traffic, they crossed the street hand in hand and were soon standing beside me.

“We’re not Frank and George,” protested Bradley, the older of the two, with a very serious look on his face.

“You’re not?” I said. “Well then, who are you?”

“You remember us, Jim,” said Bradley. “I’m Bradley and she’s Jennifer.”

“Oh, so that’s who you are.”

“Come on Jim,” said Bradley. “I know you’re just foolin’ us.”

“That’s right,” I admitted. “I remember you two. So, how’re you boys doing?”

“Oim not a boy,” said Jennifer, after popping her thumb out of her mouth. “Oim a dirl.”

“Oh, I see,” I said. “And you’re a dirl too, Bradley?”

“No way!” he said. “I’m a boy.”

“Of course you are,” I said. “I can never get that straight

“So, your mom’s a boy too?”

“Nooooh, she’s a girrrrrrl!” they corrected me, in unison.

“And your brother Steven? He’s a girl?”

“Nooooh! Smarten up, Jim. He’s a boy,” said Bradley.

“Oh, now I get it,” I said. “Sometimes, I’m such a dummy.

“And your dad? He’s a girl like your mom?

“Nooooh!” came, a loud chorus of denials. “He’s a boyyyyyy!”

“Well, that worked out pretty well then, didn’t it?” I said.

“You know what, Jim?” said Bradley. “I know you’re just foolin’ with us.”

“Ya!” cried Jennifer. “And oim a dirl.”

As I was sweeping off my driveway at the time, my little neighbours, whatever their gender, pitched in. Bradley grabbed another broom out of my garage and Jennifer a whisk and for the next 15 minutes, I swept dirt off patches of pavement and they swept dirt onto the patches I’d swept off. Spring cleaning takes a little longer this way.

I’m glad winter’s over.

©1988 Jim Hagarty

Anyone who might have been wondering what the popular crisis for the summer of ’92 would be, got a hint this week with the media reports about our disappearing ozone layer and warnings about contracting cancer from too much exposure to the sun.

Expect to read about this subject at least once a week during the next six months. Sun “experts” will pop up in the papers like freckles on a fair-haired kid. Do this. Don’t do that. Buy this product. Don’t buy that one. Science, which gave us the ozone dilemma, will now rush in to give us the solution. But, as usual, missing from the debate about our newest problem will be the right answers.

Here they are.

1. When going out in the sun, be sure to wear a little-known device which is designed to cover the head. Equipped with a brim, it prevents direct sunlight from reaching not only the upper head, but the shoulders, face and neck. Perforated, it allows air to flow through and heat to escape. Commonly known as a “straw hat”, it is available for prices as reasonable as $3. It was worn by an earlier generation, mostly farmers, who didn’t know anything about the ozone layer, but it has fallen out of use in recent years in favour of the bareheaded, windblown look.

2. To protect your bare back, chest and arms, wear what has been known in days gone by as the “long-sleeved shirt.” Button it at the neck and the wrists and wear light colors only, preferably white, which reflect the sun away instead of absorbing it as dark colours do. Again, farmers, unaware of the ozone crisis, used to dress like this on even the hottest day in August. In fact, especially on the hottest day of August.

3. Bare legs can be a danger spot on hot, sunny days, but then again, an apparel has been invented to protect them. Called “long pants”, this clothing completely covers both legs right down to the ankles and past them. Again, wear light colours on hot days. Farmers, though oblivious to that ozone thing, knew 100 years ago about long pants. It was easier to see ice on a pond in July than “shorts” on a farmer. It still is, I expect.

4. On the sunniest days in July, cows take off, not for the beach where the sun is even hotter, but for shelter from the sun wherever they can find it. If available, they often congregate under big, leafy apparati known in days gone by as “shade trees.” In a way, it is surprising cows would take this action, as most of them appear to have little working knowledge about our ozone problems. Humans could be encouraged to do the same. (However, it is good advice to search out your own tree and let the cows find theirs.)

5. In the old days, very few farmers were ever seen wearing bikini bathing suits as they rode their tractors down the dusty fields on hot days. This had less to do with fashion – some of them might have looked just fine in a two-piece string thing – as it did with that old friend and enemy, the sun. Farmers rarely wore sunglasses, as the brims of their hats protected their eyes. And, they never wore “sunscreen” for all the reasons given above. They laughed at people who ran around in their underwear to get a “tan.”

6. Before every tractor had a cab, some farmers equipped their tractors in the summertime with big umbrellas to keep the sunshine away. Umbrellas, it seems, are now primarily used to shield us from the rain. Why not the sun?

So, to repeat the farmer’s answer to this sun problem:

a. Wear clothes.
b. Stay in the shade.

Leave it to farmers to complicate even this simple thing.

©1992 Jim Hagarty

When you reach your mid 50s, it is not unusual by that time to find yourself becoming one of the oldest persons at the family reunions.

It seems to happen slowly, almost without your noticing, but before long, there are a whole bunch of babies at the get-togethers and not so many people with hair as thin and white as yours.

This is the case with me. As a kid, there seemed no end of aunts and uncles coming to visit and whose homes we would vacation at in return. But now, I can count only two aunts and one uncle among my older generation.

And on Saturday, when I returned home from the hardware store, my son said excitedly, “Your Uncle Jack was here.”

“You mean my cousin Jack,” I corrected him.

“No, your Uncle Jack.”

Sure enough, he was right. This was startling only in the fact that my uncle lives a long way away, in North Bay. And he’s 96 years old.

A little old to be just dropping by.

He had come down, with his daughter, in his “new” 2002 Chevy Cavalier to visit a few relatives and his old home town. To appease his daughter, he let her drive, but he left no doubt he was fully able and ready to do the five hours of piloting himself.

Jack left me with me a recent news clipping from the North Bay Nugget which did a feature story on him under the headline, Never Too Old: Local golfer still hitting links at 96. A colour photo accompanying the story shows him draining a 12-foot putt.

I caught up with my uncle and other members of his family at a restaurant in St. Agatha later that afternoon and had a terrific evening of fun. There was not much reminiscing; my uncle truly lives in the moment. He was interested in my children, and learning about their interests.

In the newspaper story about him, he is quoted assessing the reasons for his longevity this way: “I’ve been a happy person all my life. I never took trouble to bed with me. And my wife always had me have a rest at noon, when I was in business.”

Jack Simpson was born in a farmhouse just north of Stratford (it’s still there) in 1908. The First World War was four years away. The Titanic was under construction in Ireland. The Wright Brothers had taken their first flight at Kitty Hawk only five years before. So much has occurred in the world around him over the past near century that could have made him depressed and cynical and bitter. But he never gave in to any of that. Instead, he remains a man with a boy’s heart – living to enjoy life and all it has to offer.

It wasn’t as if he never had any trouble. For the last few years of my aunt’s life, he devoted himself to the care of a wife who would come to not even recognize him. But rather than weep alone, he remained outgoing, learned how to cook for himself, and now, by all accounts, is quite the chef. A chef who, at 93, went out and bought himself a whole new set of pots and pans.

My Uncle Jack plays golf three times a week with his friends at a North Bay club that has more than 80 seniors who regularly play, more for the social aspect than the sport itself. Many of them don’t even keep score.

He is looking forward, this winter, to flying to Mexico for the baptism of his great-grand- daughter.

Twenty-three years ago I stayed overnight at his place and by accident, made off with a tube of toothpaste from his bathroom, a tube I’ve never gotten around to replacing. We have joked about that off and on whenever we’ve met or talked on the phone in the time since.

And the first thing he said to me when I walked into the restaurant Saturday night was, “Where’s my toothpaste?”

Yes, a happy person he has been with a instinctive knack for making those around him happy too, through the use of humour and an ability to direct his gaze outward and not in.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Jack.

I’ll get that toothpaste in the mail tomorrow!

(An angel paid Jack a visit a few years ago, about three weeks after he played his final round of golf. I hope he didn’t die of a broken heart. I never did send him the toothpaste.)

©2004 Jim Hagarty

You might have to put on a miner’s helmet for this one and turn on the lamp, but if you keep digging, you might just strike gold at the bottom of it.

I love serendipity, even though I’ve never been exactly sure of what it is. It seems like it’s the Universe just having a bit of fun and maybe also reminding us that we are not so much in control of the events of our lives as we think we are.

Several years ago, our aged aunt found her independence on the decline and moved into a seniors’ residence and eventually, a long-term care home. Her husband Bill was gone but he left her with a car he had bought for her in 1997, a vehicle she no longer needed given her new circumstances. She had always been a very generous person and so she canvassed her very large family to see if anyone would like her Pontiac Sunfire. The only takers were my family and she offered it to us for free.

Not only that, she paid $1,000 to have it well-prepared for us mechanically when we came to get it. We had to put a purchase price on the change-of-ownership papers. We entered the figure of one dollar.

The years went by and the car served us well. But in the interim, we acquired newer, better cars and it was used less and less. This winter, we put it up for sale and a buyer was found. But it didn’t work out and I was secretly glad to make the decision to keep it a while longer.

After a lengthy period of ill health, Aunt Barb fell into a coma two weeks ago and passed away peacefully with her family by her side a few days later. She was 93.

Eight days later, time needed for everyone to return home from far-flung locales to be with her, a funeral was held in a city down the road from where we live. My wife and daughter left for the church in the morning in our Chrysler Sebring and my son and I would drive there at noon in his sleek Honda Accord. Except that the brand new, expensive battery he had just installed had died somehow overnight and his car wouldn’t start.

There was no time to get it going. Our only option was to take the Pontiac Sunfire, even though our mechanic had advised us to not drive it out of town anymore. It was, after all, 23 years old and we had stopped putting money into it.

So, dressed up in our finest suits, my son and I climbed into the old car and headed for the city. We chuckled at the irony that we had ended up driving our aunt’s car to her funeral.

The celebration of her life over, we walked with relatives to the parking lot where two young nieces were delighted to see the Sunfire. Their great aunt had let them use it for the driver’s exams that would give them their licences.

Our son asked if he could take the Sebring to a party he wanted to go to out in the country and we agreed to that, thinking it was safer. So he left in the Chrysler and my wife and daughter and I rode home in the Pontiac.

There had been no plan to use our aunt’s car to drive to our aunt’s farewell and home again and yet, by the time we shut off the engine in our driveway Saturday night, all four members of our family had done just that.

Our aunt’s loving nature had supplied us with a car for free when we needed it. And as it turned out, we needed it to get to the church to say goodbye to her.

Sheer coincidence, you say.

I am not so convinced. I prefer to think that her love didn’t end with her final breath. And I am pretty sure now that it never will.

When she was alive, our aunt gave a lot more than a car to everyone she knew. And those gifts we will continue to share as our lives go by because her nature is now part of ours.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

P.S. Another reason for our fondness for the car: The Pontiac is 23 years old. Our son is also 23, at least for a few more days. Our daughter turns 23 later this year.

©2020 Jim Hagarty

Everywhere you look nowadays, helpful household hints are popping up like dandelions on the lawn in spring. In ads and news stories, on radio and TV and in flyers that come to the house, people are telling us about new uses for old articles. Everyone, it seems, has a better way of doing things than the way we’re doing them right now.

Take all those lids from empty paint cans you keeping tripping over in the garage, for example. To you, they’re just paint lids – round pieces of tin that pretty much outlived their usefulness the day the paint can went dry. But to the happy, helpful household-hint inventor, they are grist for the handy hopper. Insert lids in idea mill, turn crank and presto! Out flows a tip or two – drill holes in lids, hang them on wire over garden, wind will rattle lids, noise keeps crows away. That sort of thing. (A majority of household inventions are designed to keep crows away.)

Almost every article ever made, it seems, has several other uses besides the one envisioned by the person who designed it. A wire clothes hanger tops the list of versatile things you probably have kicking around. You can hang a roll of paper towels from it, use it as a radio antenna, hang food from it for the birds (except the crows) or even, I suppose, string a bunch of them together into a fence.

Plastic margarine containers, besides holding margarine, have about 4,200 other handy uses at last count. (The large ones are great for burying small, deceased pets, given the fact they don’t disintegrate for a few hundred years.)

The paint roller can also be pressed into service in a number of ways never dreamed of by the paint companies who thought they’d only invented a way to apply paint to walls. How were they to know they also come up with a handy device which, when placed at the end of a work bench, would act as a sort of conveyor of lumber? (Paint rollers have limited effectiveness for scaring crows away, although throwing the roller at the birds has been known to work. Results, however, may be temporary.)

But if you want to see a household hint inventor’s eyes glaze over, show him or her an empty plastic milk bag. This little see-through beauty is the amateur inventor’s dream come true. It can store any number of things from hamburger to clothes pins, marbles to bath soaps. One day it might be holding vegetables in a freezer and the next, toothbrushes in a suitcase. It’s so versatile, it’s almost a shame to waste it storing milk.

When the household inventor isn’t thinking up ways to organize things and scare away crows, he or she is busy dreaming up simple ways to use food and other easily available commodities to clean up the house. From lemons to clean wood, vinegar to clean glass, and toothpaste to clean almost everything else (and prevent cavities at the same time), we are now able to turn our kitchen and bathroom shelves into veritable cleaning arsenals.

In fact, one day this summer, while I was polishing my shoes with the back of an orange peel, I read about a handy way to kill fleas. Put a dish of soapy water under a light, said the item, and stand back. Attracted by the light, fleas will jump in the water and drown. It worked, more or less. Fleas would come to the side of the dish, all right, but were a bit reluctant to jump in. They had to be scared into it or picked up and dropped in.

With a few modifications – an old bathtub instead of a dish and a floodlight instead of a reading lamp – I’m sure this handy flea catcher could be harnessed to trap bigger prey.

Like crows, for example.

(P.S. I was just kidding about the orange peel.)

©1990 Jim Hagarty

Memories light the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories …

So sang Barbra Streisand who apparently was gifted with a sort of memory flashlight that lit up the corners of my mind. I think I used to have one of those too, but there seems to be some dark corners in my mind that rarely get lit up anymore.

I found my wallet after three days. It was sitting in my basket of pills in a kitchen cupboard. I had forgotten where I put it and apparently also forgot to take my daily pills for three days or I would have found it. The only bright spot, I suppose, is that I am living so frugally (read tightwadedly) these days I barely missed my money and various cards.

This raises a disturbing question in two different ways, both having to do with my memory. One: Why would I put my wallet in the pill bottle basket and think that was the correct place to put it? Two: I take these pills daily so apparently I have not taken my pills in three days or I would have found my wallet before this.

Oh man, this is not good. I am hopeful that the light is not beginning to burn out at the top of the stairs as I don’t know where to buy a replacement bulb.

Hmmm.

I rejoiced, put the wallet in my pocket and headed for a nearby big city to do some drooling over the goodies in an electronics store. But my first stop would be a fast-food restaurant where I planned to try out their new mushroom/bacon melt cheeseburger. I could not wait. I walked into the restaurant but something was different and yet familiar. It took me a while to realize I was standing in line at a popular coffee shop, at the opposite end of the parking lot from the bacon melt dispensary.

This isn’t even funny any more. I finally made it to the right place and had the burger – the best one I have ever tasted in my life. If this keeps going the way it is, I’ll be able to try it for the first time again next week.

But I reached the summit of Mount Fergetevest last week while preparing to do the supper dishes. No one was home of things might have not gotten out of hand.

I ran the hot water full blast in one half of the double sink, put in some dish soap and filled the sink with all the dirty dishes I could find. Then I sat down on the couch in the living room and surfed the Internet – for 90 minutes.

Finally, I walked back into the kitchen to discover the water still running full blast. Where it had once been almost scalding hot, the water was no ice cold. And the only reason disaster was averted is the thin stainless steel wall that keeps the two sinks separate is slightly lower than the sink walls so the billowing water from the first sink ran into the empty sink and drainedW

One thing I notice, when you share forgetting stories with others, in an effort to downplay your concern, they always come back with, “Aw, that’s nothing” and then regale you with stories about how they left their mother-in-law on the roof of the car which they were packing up and then drove away with the old lady still up top or how they left the back door to the house open when they left for vacation and found a family of raccoons living inside on their return.

I know the intent of people such as this is to let you know that memory farts can occur at any age and I know that to be true. Way back in the ’70s, after maybe my worst-ever lost weekend, I misplaced my car for six days. I was afraid to find it in case it was lodged up against a tree somewhere or in a farmer’s field. I was still in my mid twenties when that happened.

I love the story of the most famous actor on the planet not being recognized by a bartender.

“What’ll it be Mac?” says the barkeep.

Shocked, the actor says to him, “Do you know who I am?”

The bartender yells out to the pub population, “Can anybody help this poor bloke? He can’t remember his name.”

©2020 Jim Hagarty

For years I have told people that someday, I would like to try painting pictures.

To sit by rivers and woods for hours on end, capturing idyllic scenes on canvas, would be such a thrill for me, I’ve said. It would be great therapy. A way to release tension and worry and put myself back in touch with the beauty of the natural world, to achieve a “oneness” with my fellow living beings, as artists like to say. I had lots of “twoness” and “threeness” in my life, but never enough “oneness.”

But it is a sad fact of living that there are more dreams dreamed than dreams realized and so it seemed to be with me. If I had actually sat down and painted as much as I talked about sitting down and painting, my works would have filled a gallery or two. Especially if I painted as well as I was sure my natural talent would allow me to.

“Someday, I’m going to do it,” I said. And I meant it.

This past Christmas, my “someday” finally came. One of my gifts was a set of oil paints and canvasses. Finally, these lonely voices of joy and despair, trapped for so long within the jailcells of this prisoner’s heart, were about to burst into colourful form and shape, where they could be viewed by others, their essential naked vitality, breathed in – and out again.

My soul was locked up behind a wall of inhibition and this painting kit was like a set of keys to set me free. (There’s nothing like getting set free to really make a day.)

But, alas, inspiration took its time to show up. The art kit sat on my desk at home until one recent Thursday night. At 9:45 p.m., I set everything up on my kitchen table. I got out my brushes, opened up my paints, put the canvas before me and started painting.

At 11 p.m., it was done. There in front of me, in glistening greens, reds and yellows, lay a colourful first exposé of 39 years of frustrated creativity. And it was done. In one hour and 15 minutes.

“There’s nothing to this,” I thought.

Across the bottom of the canvas stretched a strip of bright, perfectly green, green. That was grass. Above it, was a wider strip of bright, perfectly red, red. That was a fence. On the fence sat the perfectly white outline of an animal. A cat, to be precise. And above it, in a perfectly jet black sky, was a big, round, perfectly yellow moon.

I toyed briefly with the idea of starting a business: “Jim’s Speedy Masterpieces. Works of Art While U Wait.” But the idea vanished when I realized that, looking at my creation, I felt no “oneness” with anything. No “union with the universe.” No “stirring of my soul.” Though I did sense a stirring in my nostrils from the cleaner I used on my brushes.

So, Cat On A Fence Looking At The Moon seemed to have pretty well done it for my artistic aspirations. That was, of course, until I read this week that the National Art Gallery in Ottawa paid $1.8 million for an American artist’s painting, called Voice of Fire, a big red stripe bordered by two big blue stripes.

Now, I’m already planning Bird In A Tree Looking At The Moon, Cow In A Field Looking At The Moon and Coyote On A Hilltop Looking At The Moon. When the National Art Gallery, gets a load of those, I’ll be achieving a “oneness” with a very, large bank account.

But before they’re painted, I’ve my book to finish.

Did I tell you about my book? “My Life: A True Story?”

I’ve always wanted to write it. And I will too.

First free Saturday afternoon that comes along.

©1990 Jim Hagarty