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Rants Week of May 20, 2007

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1. Do you ask your spouse silly questions? This morning, while deleting 100 or so junk emails, I said, “Do you want to meet available singles in Tenants Harbor?” And Marsha said, “Who is it, I wonder?”

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2. This morning there was a post card in my mail box that said I had a certified letter. I rushed down to the post office and was told that they didn't have my certified letter and that if I'd taken time to read the postcard it said right on it that they wouldn't have that letter until later in the day. I asked my postmaster to return it to sender. Anyone who is serious about putting a piece of mail in my hands will not put me to the bother of driving 10 miles to the post office more than once. How do you feel when you get a certified letter? Do you send your friends certified letters? Do you send out your mother’s day card by certified mail? Perhaps you should. Then, when it comes time to split up her estate between you and your brothers and sisters, you have the receipts to show that you cared. Most people agree that mail is pretty reliable because even your bills from the power company and credit card companies come by regular mail. When you send out a piece of certified mail are you saying any more than: “You are one of my enemies. I don’t trust you and the way things look through my glasses right now, I’m probably going to sue you some day.” Ok, if you’ve either lost both your legs in a car accident or gambled away your weekly paycheck, a bank might send out a friendly foreclosure notice by certified mail. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com What you think about this? If you don’t use email, send me a certified letter.

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3. Have you mastered the spam control on your email? When I tried to set up mine I found that many of the letters I get from you were directed into my junk mail or deleted email folder. Even today I find most of your letters in the deleted mail folder. My guru is coming over tomorrow to simplify my life and I can’t wait. Like you, I get around 400 emails every day. Many are from radio friends who say things like this: “Okay. I was hoping for an occasional ‘heck of a job, Alberto,’ but I understand.” Now because this letter did not come from Alberto, I have no idea of what my friend is talking about. I suppose the easiest thing to do is either to delete it or to reply with a simple “Thank you.” Tell me if you think what I do helps: I copy the letter that came in and paste it at the top of the letter I’m returning. It gives my friend a frame of reference for my reply which I write underneath. A problem you have certainly encountered with email is that you can't see faces or ask for elaboration. Unless you are good friends with someone, an abrupt email might be misconstrued as indifference or even insulting. You have seen a few people add the word “smile” at the end. When you come right down to it, wouldn’t life be a lot simpler without email? Don’t wish for an email free life though, because it is very likely that within a year or two someone will take it away from you.

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4. Today I cleaned all the paper off my desks and flat spaces. Paper is the enemy and will overrun me as I obviously permitted it to do. I scraped all the paper together and neatly piled the whole thing on a shelf. This is the only way I know of that gives me the feeling of a fresh start. Computers should do away with paper but it seems that the computer takes up so much of my day that I never get to attending to the paper. You have probably heard tell that Napoleon let his mail set for three weeks before answering it. He knew that within three weeks most questions answered themselves. Because I probably won’t get at that pile of paper for months. I can only hope there are no bills in there.

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5. This letter comes from my cousin Truman who writes: “Some time ago (August 2006) a lady wrote a letter to the editor of the Courier Gazette mentioning something about if only Mr. Skoglund had been alive during World War Two. I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Courier stating "I have it on good authority that humble personally ferried General Washington across the Potomac in his trusty little motor boat." They never called me to verify or published the letter.” Thank you for that, Cousin Truman. Cousin Truman is an antique dealer. When someone comes into his place and says, “Do you buy antiques?” he says, “I have to. I can’t steal enough to stay in business.”

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6. From what I’ve heard and seen lately, funeral directors can, if they wish, retire much sooner than school teachers. This is because funeral directors, like garage mechanics, provide products as well as services. And when I thought about this, I thought of a line in a Mickey Spillane book that I’ve read in Swedish over 30 times. “A $5,000 funeral doesn’t prove anything --- he was still a gangster.” That was written 50 years ago but one might wonder how, even today, a funeral could possibly cost $5,000. This was explained to me by a funeral director last week who told me that the bereaved often ask him which casket is better. He said, “If I tell them that that $5,000 casket is better than that $3,000 one, how am I going to prove it?”

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7. A week or two ago we mentioned Norwalk virus. Because you didn’t follow up with an email and tell us how to prevent Norwalk virus infection I looked it up myself and am going to do it now. To prevent Norwalk virus infection: 1) wash hands with soap and warm water after toilet visits and before preparing or eating food; 2) cook all shellfish thoroughly before eating; 3) wash raw vegetables before eating; and 4) dispose of sewage in a sanitary manner. To many people #4 means: Pump it overboard at night.

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8. When my wife Marsha heard that I was going to a meeting of funeral directors out in Salt Lake City, she wanted to go with me. Years ago she went to one meeting of funeral directors with me down in New Hampshire and said she had never met a group of people who told her so many funny stories. And she’s right. More than any other group of people, funeral directors hear, “Oh he wanted to do this so bad, but he never got around to it.” These people realize that life is no more than what you have right this minute --- and you’d better laugh and get everything out of it you can. Play with your kids. Thank your friends and relatives for all the things they’ve done for you. You can afford that trip right now. Let the kids pay for it when they cash in your life insurance policy. My mother always wanted to go to Sweden with my father, but she died with lung cancer when she was 54 and never got to go. So might I suggest that you laugh? Might I suggest that you play now? Let your heirs pay later. I’m going to say it again: how many people on their death beds ever look up and say, “I wish I’d worked more.”

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9. A few minutes ago I started to say that most of us have more possessions than we need. The only thing that saves some of us is an occasional move from state to state. When you start to pack your worldly goods into your car, before you even get up to the level of the windows you could come to the conclusion that you have many things that you can live without. A funeral director told me that the only thing you can take with you are your happy memories. Pleasant memories of kind words and deeds are relatively inexpensive and you don’t need two or three barns to store them. Think about this. How many hearses have you ever seen with a hitch on the back for a U-Haul?

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10. This morning they said on the news that temperatures in Maine were 21 degrees below normal. No one who lives in Maine was surprised because in Maine it is always 21 degrees below normal. Maine people take it for granted that the normal temperature in Maine is 21 degrees below normal. This is why you can come to Maine and pay over a million dollars for a small house lot on the ocean --- if you are lucky enough to find one. People who live in and between New York City and Washington, DC, where it can be 90 degrees and muggy all summer, are willing to pay anything to summer in a place where temperatures are 21 degrees below normal. And, as anybody who has been to St. George, Maine knows, when you live right on the edge of the salt water, in the summer it is 15 degrees cooler than it is 10 miles inland where it is only 21 degrees below normal.

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11. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t open the Encyclopedia Britannica and read whatever page I see before me. You know as well as I do, no matter what you read, it usually provides food for thought. Today I read that seventy percent of English villages are known to have already existed in 1086. The people who live in these villages know this. Many years ago I got in a taxi in Athens and the driver said, “This is the coldest winter we have had in this town in 2500 years.” The frames were raised on my house on May 11, 1811. In many places in the world this would be considered a fairly recent piece of construction. But, according to Google, the oldest house in Denver was built in 1859. I seldom ride down to St. George from Thomaston without looking over to the point of land where my ggggg grandfather, Moses Robinson, lived in 1734. And I even go out of my way to be friendly with our new neighbors, the Tolmans, who didn’t get here until 1757. I’d like to remind you again that the people who live in villages are aware of these things. I once mentioned to a man from Lindisfarne that some of my ancestors visited his town on June 8th, 793, and he said, “Oh yes. We’re still talking about it.”

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12. I just saw on TV that 50 percent of married Americans are dissatisfied with their sex lives. This makes sense. 50 percent of married Americans are men and 50 percent of married Americans are women.

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13. Right after that comment I saw on TV about 50 percent of Americans being dissatisfied with their sex lives they said that women should have their own checking accounts. I asked my wife Marsha if she believed that and she said, “No, we don’t have any money to fight about.”

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Brad Terry will play a special anniversary recording session /concert at the Maine Sound Stage in Brunswick Maine on his birthday, June 9 2007. This will feature pianist Fred Fischer with whom Brad played his first gig ever! Brad's Birthday concert will be the first in a septuagenarian series, hopefully continuing for the next 12 -18 months. On the list of future collaborators are Joachim, Mateusz, Bob Winter, Triology & notably Roger Kellaway with Steve Swallow. Saturday June 9th at 7:30 p.m. Maine Sound Stage, Ft. Andross, Maine St., Brunswick $14 at the door $10 Students & Seniors