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This is a rough draft of The humble Farmer's Rants for the week of October 21, 2007

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Rants October 21, 2007 All of these rants were recycled from 2005. I plan to use them on my first TV Rants Only program which I hope to record today.

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1. The real natives who live in St. George, Maine are pretty moderate. Listen to my story. For years, Steve Dennison kept my cows through the winters. I can’t keep them over the winter so Steve, who already has 20 or 30 head, winters them for me. The grass was getting pretty green when I went over to see him one day and said, “Steve, I don’t want to rush you, but you’re welcome to bring them cows over to my house any time you get around to it. And Steve says, “That reminds me. Do you remember selling me that wood loading conveyor 30 or so years ago?” And I remembered that I’d sold it to someone but I couldn’t remember who it was. And Steve says, “I came by your house one day and asked you if you’d like to sell that wood loader and you said you’d think about it. Three years later I came by your house again and said, ‘Robert, I don’t want to rush you, but do you want to sell that wood loader?’” 050527

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2. Booth Tarkington wrote Penrod in 1913. Chapter 19 is a litany of the things Penrod consumed in one afternoon. Candy, lobster croquettes, an extrodinarily large pickle, a glass of raspberry lemonade, a box of sardines, and a half pint of lukewarm cider. Mug in hand, a gentle glow radiating toward his surface from various centers of activity deep inside him, he then ate a slice of watermellon, a bag of peanuts, a box of popcorn larded with partially boilded molasses, three waffles thickly powdered with sugar, a slab of Neapolitan ice-cream, and two and one half weniers. Because you might be having supper right now, I’m not going to tell you what happened next. But Penrod’s lack of intestinal fortitute came to mind last night when, for the first time in our marriage, my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, was suddenly struck down. She never gets sick, so I couldn’t believe it was the flu and I asked her what she had eaten since supper. Do you believe peanuts, popcorn, a large Dairy Queen chocolate sundae that a friend had left in our freezer, and a diet coke? Just the diet coke would have finished me. 050527

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3. My wife Marsha’s friend Donna is very generous, and I mentioned it to her one time. Donna was raised on a hen farm over in Waldoboro by Seidenspacker Pond. She had four or five brothers and sisters and Donna said, “I learned to share at an early age. If I didn’t give them what they wanted, they took it anyway.” 050422

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4. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, and I were looking at a DVD movie on one of those little computer disks the other night. Marsha is a charter member and fanatical supporter of our local video rental store. And I read on the screen that if you copy the movie on this DVD computer disk the FBI will batter down the doors to your home, you will be fined $250,000 and you will go to jail for five years. A good friend of mine got in a drunken brawl and blew a man away. Bam. He only served three years for killing a man but I would have to serve five if I copied a movie. Years from now, people will think of our era as that transitional period when a man’s life was no longer worth as much as a plastic disk containing a Spiderman movie. 050729

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5. I got a very interesting email from Glenn who writes: “It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a mess about having "In God We Trust" on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!” I was thinking about this just before I got Glenn’s email, and although I’m the last person to tell anyone to sit down and shut up for any reason, I am one of the millions of people who don’t think it hurts a thing to pay lip service whether you believe or not. Lip service don’t cost you nothing --- and you aren’t hurting anyone. It is just like having compassion for poor people. Why shouldn’t you and I have compassion for unfortunate people? Compassion is not like universal health care. Having compassion for poor people doesn’t take a minute of your time. And think how good it makes you feel to stand up there and say that you have compassion when it doesn’t cost you or any of your friends a cent. 050415 in rants twice

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6. will be glad to hear that we finally caught Knox County’s infamous peeping Tom. We used video cameras to record everything he did all day from the time he got up until he went to bed, until we finally got him.

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7. Do you miss the good old songs you used to hear? I don’t see any sense in these rap songs they sing nowadays, do you? Back when I was a kid they sang songs like, Chickery Chick, chala chala, chekala romy, in a bananica, bolika wollica – and they made sense. This morning I got to thinking that it had been a long time since I had heard I’m a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas. You know you’re old when you realize that you miss the good old songs. Old people have always cried that they no longer hear the good old songs. You probably recall Aristophanes’ story about the young man who sneered at his father when the old man requested someone sing one of the good old songs called Simoides' Shearing of the Ram. The kid had to explain to his father that Simoides’ Ram was a corny old song. Do you hear the same thing from your children and grandchildren? Do they listen to music that you can’t understand or appreciate? You might have seen a TV program advertised on which they promised to play the 40 worst songs from last year. Did it make you wonder how they could be sure they got the right ones?

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8. My friend Sally paints pictures of lighthouses. It is not unusual to find people on the coast of Maine who paint lighthouses, but Sally lives far from the ocean in Virginia. What makes Sally unusual among artists is that she doesn’t display her pictures. She doesn’t try to sell them. I think she should because she did one painting of a fish factory that is so good that you can smell it. Which makes me wonder how many Maine artists have rubbed bait on the back of a painting just to give it some intangible salable organic ambiance. I’m going to see if I can’t get Sally to put some of her pictures into a Maine gallery next summer. Linda Bean Jones has got a nice gallery down the road from me in Tenants Harbor and Sally would fit right in there. Of course I wouldn’t want anyone who knows about art to know that I like Sally’s paintings because that would destroy her right there. I like artists like Barbara Ernst Pray and Bjorn Rundquist and Andy Wyeth and Bradley Hendershot which proves that I don’t know anything about real art anyway. I’d never make a good critic because I admire artists who paint houses and places I recognize. And I admire artists who actually get paid for their work. And when Sally showed my photos of her paintings it reminded me that Priscilla Adam’s daughter --- I think she was a sculptor --- was offered something like $600 for her first work. She wouldn’t sell it, which upset Priscilla, her mother. And the kid said that this was her baby, her creation and she said, “Would you have sold me for $600?” And Priscilla said, “I never had such an offer.” 050729

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9. Two or three years ago I had around 700 Nigerian letters in my computer. I can’t remember why I was saving them because they’re sad letters. They are letters written by lawyers or ministers --- family friends of a lonely someone without children, aunts, siblings or cousins. This person died in a plane crash or was poisoned by his business partners. And what makes it really sad is, every man jack of them had from 20 to 78 million dollars in a big black box. I know what you’re going to say. Of course you probably don’t want to die even if you haven’t got a cent to your name, but think how much worse someone feels about dying when they have 28 million dollars in ready money lying around in a box. It would be just like dying with five cord of dried and split birch stacked neatly in your barn. You did all the work and next winter somebody else is going to be toasting popcorn over your crackling fire with your wife. But --- I have been studying these Nigerian letters for several years now, and I’m noticing a pattern here. The landscape is littered with hundreds of thousands of people who died in a plane crash or a car crash or a train wreck and every single one of them left umpteen million dollars behind and no heirs. Nigeria must be a strange place, indeed, because the minute you stop breathing in the state of Maine, the man in charge of selling your trailer is going to be mobbed by relatives you haven’t heard from in years. 021105

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10. July 29, 2005 I had a great time at the WERU fair in Blue Hill, thanks to you, and was pleased to meet so many friends there. I really enjoy meeting you. You can always recognize lawyers or people with PhDs in sociology because at fairs they always dress a bit shabbier than the rest of us --- doing their best to fit in. So because I got a chance to talk with you, Blue Hill was a pleasurable as well as valuable learning experience for me. As I was leaving the fair I was greeted by a handsome young man, I believe his name is Ken. And Ken was dragging a huge cart through the fairgrounds. Ken said that he last saw me at the Common Ground Fair, and that I said something there that embarrassed him tremendously. You know that I would never intentionally say or do anything to embarrass or offend you, although I must admit that if you do want to press me to the limit --- if you really want to yank my strings, you can light up a cigarette in my dooryard or else ask me for something without giving me your mailing address that tells me where to send it. Graaa. Please put your mailing address on each and every email. Anyway, Ken said that I shook his hand at the Common Ground Fair --- but when I shook hands with the girl who was with him, I looked at him and said, “How in the world can you sleep with a girl who has such icy cold hands?” And he said that embarrassed him tremendously --- because he wasn’t able to answer my question until the next morning.

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11. Public service announcement here. "A bystander may be able to spot someone having a stroke by giving the person a simple, quick test to see if they can smile, raise both arms and keep them up, and speak a simple sentence coherently. The test, which takes less than one minute, has helped healthcare professionals accurately identify stroke patients. If bystanders can relay results of this test to an emergency dispatcher, it could speed treatment to stroke patients. Time is crucial in treating stroke." My father had a stroke, so I know that people who have had a stroke are very much like those who are having a heart attack. The first thing they want to do is take a bath, shave and put on their best clothes before even thinking about calling 911. You might remember the man we recently talked about who had a heart attack but wouldn’t go to the hospital until he first drove his dog to the boarding kennel. Please listen closely. Time is crucial in treating stroke. If they get you in time, you might live to shave and put on clean clothes another day. 1. *Ask the individual to SMILE. 2. *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS. 3. *Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE. If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher. After discovering that a group of non medical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions. They presented their conclusions at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting last February. Widespread use of this test could result in prompt diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent brain damage. 050513 I mentioned all this to my friend John, who said that this test for stroke isn't new at all. He said that almost 30 years ago he saw a man on TV being tested. The man was entering a helicopter at the time. He turned around just before going on board and did the test. He 1. raised his arms in the air; 2. smiled; and 3. spoke a simple sentence: "I am not a crook!

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12. Are we born incompetent or is it thrust upon us? After 15 years of being married to Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, I now wonder how I survived my 20 years between 34 and 54 as a bachelor. I might now be compared to an appendage that has atrophied from lack of use because I no longer know how to do anything. What do you suppose would happen to me if I ran through a load of wash and hung it on the line? There is no way on this green earth that I would do it right. If you’re married to a Type A woman you know what happens when you try to help by making the bed. Yes. She tears it apart and makes it right, with the corners tucked in and the sheet folded down at the top --- even though Martha Stewart couldn’t tell the difference when the bedspread is on. You finally give up because she says it is easier for her to do it the first time than it is to tear your work apart and then do it over again. Mow the lawn and she mows it again the same evening with the blade set down to the dirt. Help her with the dishes? Only if you do want trouble in your marriage. You might have heard some of our young so-called experts bleating the mantra, “You have to work at a marriage. Marriage takes a lot of work and effort.” This is not true. I never worked at our marriage and I never will. For 15 years I have simply stood back and got out of the way. 050624

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13. Here’s a letter from long time radio listener Kevin Barnard in Ogunquit, who has also been a good personal friend now for almost 20 years. Kevin made most of those beautiful redwood signs all inlaid with gold leaf that you see down in Ogunquit. Kevin just wrote me this about his handsome brother Mark, who had more than a few girlfriends: “Mark has been down to one woman for some time now. I had to pick him up at the York Hospital yesterday.” Good luck Mark. I’m married to one like that myself. 051105

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