The humble Farmer at Bowdoin College, January 31, 2003
Thank you for visiting this page of Rants.
Below are the rants from The humble Farmer radio show for the week of
March 4-10, 2007
Rants from The humble Farmer radio program -- week of March 4- 10, 2007
1. Within the next few months I will be speaking at a state association of funeral directors in one of those big states west of Texas. The man who heads up that state’s funeral directors association called me on the phone and sounded quite excited about having me entertain his group. He said, “Let’s see, if you start telling stories at two in the afternoon, you can finish at four.” Of course that kind of startled me. Two hours? I said, “Perhaps you should understand something. In my business, when we talk too long, our customers can get up and walk out.”
2. My friend Richard says he has lost 68 pounds. This weekend he plans to lose two more. I told him that if I lost even 58 pounds I’d qualify to sit around on a beach and let a bully kick sand in my face. Richard says that he doesn’t want people to get the impression that he put on 100 extra pounds by eating junk food. Oh no. Richard is quite proud that he put on all that weight eating steak and potatoes and the best things money can buy. He says this weekend he plans to fast for 24 hours. I don’t think that is a good idea unless you plan to climb a mountain and are looking for a mystical experience. But Richard says he figures he can lose two pounds in a day by fasting and that 70 sounds a lot better than 68 --- unless you are talking about your age.
3. You know that I carry a tablet and two pens in a little pocket on my right pant leg. Every time I hear something that I want to tell you about, I pull out my tablet and make a note of it. But I’ve been lax recently and this is why. The right leg pocket on the pants I’ve been wearing lately has a flap that closes down over the pocket and fastens with Velcro. And because that little flap makes it hard to pull out the tablet I sometimes don’t bother to snap it out and write things down --- so you have been spared having me tell you about a lot of strange and wonderful things. But --- just knowing where I carry that tablet of unedited rants gives you an excellent opportunity to make a comment. The next time you see me, nudge your friend in the ribs with your elbow, point at that pocket on my right pantleg, and say, “Do you know what that is? --- A lot of flap over nothing.”
4. Perhaps the most useless hobby in the world is collecting empty beer cans. Running a close second to collecting beer cans is studying languages. You have heard me tell how, while riding on a train through France on my way to speak at Nijenrode university in Holland, I woke up and jumped off at a small village--- thinking I was at the place where I was to change trains. Because the only French word I knew at the time was fox pass, and I certainly made one there, I almost starved to death before I was able to escape the following day on the next train out of town. Oh, and the thousands of francs I had in French money that I had left over from a previous visit were outdated. I’ll never forget that trip. Being trapped in a small town in France with no French francs and no idea of how to say hunger and thirst in patois is not my idea of European travel. But after surviving France and coming back to tell about it, I resolved, while well past the age of 60, to learn to at least read French. Amazingly enough, it can be done. I have a very funny Harlequin Romance in French which I have read over and over. The next time I go to France, I will be ready for them. But --- with my luck --- when I step up to the window and say, “pom fritts, por favor,” they will reply, “Do you want fries with that?”
5. You will recall that I said that I lose at least three pair of glasses a year. This would be a blessing to a poet because a poet could say, “I wonder where my glasses go…” and then write a poem about “I wonder where my glasses go…” which could be sold to a glossy magazine for enough money to buy another pair. As usual, I asked for your help and opinion. Dean in Casco offers the following:
I wonder where my glasses go
When I come in from shov'ling snow,
They've moved from where I set them down, …..
And then Dean says, That's all I've got so far. It sounds more Robert Frost than Longfellow to me. I'll see if I think of more. I may have to change the "down", or the next line will sound more Dr Seuss than Frost.) Noble, noble offering, Dean. Thank you.
Then, Mike in Winterport sends this:. By the way, I’m humble@humblefarmer.com and I’d like to hear from you, too. Remember that the muse should flow as water from an illuminated Roman fountain, not appear in gobs and squirts as from a trampled tube of toothpaste.
I wonder where my glasses go
Once I have laid them down,
I'd like them to remain in place
And not go gadding 'round.
They have a way of wandering off
Though how I cannot guess,
It might be someone lugs them off
Though no one will confess.
I wonder where my glasses go
When they're not on my face,
No longer where I left the things,
They've gone some other place.
Perhaps they're with the keys I've lost
And pens that I've misplaced,
But I can't find a one of them,
My memory's disgraced.
I wonder where my glasses went
Can't even form a theory,
I only know my oculist
Has never seemed so cheery!
6. Because I have this new Vonage telephone thing on my computer, I can call my friends in Holland and Sweden. Calls that would cost $25 or $30 and that I could never make now cost only a few pennies. You might quite correctly point out that having a phone bill of $31 a month instead of $85 or more (and then not making any out of the country calls) is un-American and I can’t argue with you. Before I got the Internet telephone, last fall it cost me over $30 to send a four or five minute fax to Barcelona. I probably shouldn’t even tell you about how cheap this Vonage phone is, relatively speaking, because if the telephone companies find out about it you can be sure it won’t be long before the Internet telephone will be outlawed. Or at least the price of the Internet phone will be doubled. But I’m going to use this Internet telephone and enjoy it while I’ve got it and with any luck at all I won’t live long enough to see the Internet telephone shut down. You can learn a lot by calling your friends and relatives in other countries. You can also be exposed to an altogether way of thinking. For example. You knew I was going to give you an example. For example, in Sweden they use centigrade instead of Fahrenheit on their thermometers and today I called my cousin Sten Gunnar Skoglund in Sweden and I asked him what the weather was in downtown Boras. And he said that it was exactly halfway between being warm and cold. And I asked him what he meant. And he said, “The temperature is zero.”
7. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, makes sure that there is always a plate of food waiting for me in the refrigerator. I try to force myself to leave my computer at noon, although I’ve been known to be trapped at the keyboard until 2. And when I’ve heated my dinner up to 1 minute 33 seconds I put it on a wooden tray, sit down in front of the television set, and click through the soap operas as I eat. The other day I saw a guy standing at a bar getting drunk because he blamed his brother for his wife’s miscarriage. I was not staggered by the sociological ramifications of this because even our little Robinson-Gilchrest family reunion makes a soap opera look like a Nancy Drew novel. A distant cousin, who showed up for the first time, was reading my computer screen over my shoulder one day as I said, “Here’s you, and here’s your brother and here’s your sister.” And she said, “That’s not my sister.” Got it? I think her mother had 4 children by four different fathers back in the 1930s when such things were just as common as they are now, but were not acknowledged as easily as they are now. I’m not passing judgment. As a genealogist I’m only recording facts. As a sociologist I’m given food for thought. This woman’s sister dropped by my farm 20 years ago and said, “Hey, I’m your distant cousin so and so. My mother gave me up for adoption years ago and I’m back here in St. George to locate my biological cousins. I want to know about my roots. I told her who her relations were and she called some of them. But she didn’t call everyone, so a woman almost old enough to collect social security didn’t learn that she had another sister until she read it over my shoulder on a computer screen. Has this happened to you or someone you know? How does it feel? Would you want it to happen to you, or anyone you love? Should mothers tell their kids, “Hey, there was a time back there when I was very young and poor and foolish and in love and you have another sister I farmed out who might show up here some day.” You know that there is nothing people lose interest in quicker than something they know or take for granted. And you know that there is nothing that whets the appetite of the press or society more than a whiff of something that is labeled secret. When I started collecting the descendants of Moses Robinson and putting them in my computer years ago, there were at least three people who were not pleased when I called them and asked for family information. One man didn’t want his children to know that he had run off and left his first wife with another batch of kids. Someone else didn’t want her kids to know that she’d been married twice. Another very old woman, whom I now have good reason to believe did have had 4 kids by four fathers, got very nasty and told me to mind my own business. On top of that I also know of a good old neighbor who was told years ago by some classmate when he was in school, that he was adopted. So. What do you think? I’m humble@humblefarmer.com Should parents blab all, even before kids are old enough to understand, or should the concerned parties read on a computer screen somewhere down the line that “mother” has been lying to them for 50 years?
8. Dear Humble, I am a musician, and for the last eight years or so, I have relied almost solely on your show to inspire my playing for the evening gig. It was your show, when I was 8 years old, that sparked a desire to spend the rest of my life playing music. So far, I'm not hungry. If the possibilty and interest is there, I would love to do a documentary on you, your show, this issue, your life, music, etc. I have no experience whatsoever as a documentarian, but I'll bet [that with] a bit of our time, a digital video camera and a Good Idea Grant from the Maine Arts Commission that I can do it. It is all in the subject anyway, and you are the Almost Perfect Subject. Hope your well, Best wishes to you and Marsha. My Wife and I would love to come visit you for supper this summer. We will bring dessert. If your not interested, then to hell with ya anyway. Be Well, Adam
9. Winky’s wife was at her weight-watchers meeting. She says, "My husband insists I come to these meetings because he would rather go dancing with a woman with a trim figure." Woman next to her says, “What's wrong with that?" "He likes to do it while I'm stuck at these meetings."
10. You have heard me talk about the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor convention in Panama City. I was at that humor convention for four days. I learned a lot and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Of course, because I’m a speaker all I do is go to conventions but this one was different because --- it was so nice to be at a convention where I didn’t feel I had to be nice to everybody.
Robert Skoglund
785 River Road
St. George, ME 04860
(207) 226-7442
humble@humblefarmer.com
www.TheHumbleFarmer.com
© 2007 Robert Karl Skoglund