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Peace is bad for Business.

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January 20, 2008 Rants

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1. The mark of a master in any field is his ability to work seeming miracles. Years ago my brother would bring his 32 Chevy in to Russ Thomas who could take a skip out of the engine by simply lifting the hood and resting the palms of his hands on the right front fender. This morning I was able to get the necessary state sales tax information out of my computer’s Quicken by simply threatening the program with an email to my computer and tax guru friend, Richard Bird.

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2. You should look forward to getting older because as you get older, life gets simpler. Today I called a man in Farmington who said I called him last week and asked him the same question. It is true that you might do the same thing two or three times but it doesn’t worry you because you don’t realize you’ve already done it. And when you get old you have reached the age of impunity: nobody knows or cares if you’ve done anything or not. You probably know that I learned the word “impunity” when I first read about poor old Rip Van Winkle. I quote: “Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench.” When you read Rip Van Winkle, did you see an aged man coming down from the mountains to rejoin his neighbors? Or did you ever do the math? The way I read it, after poor old Rip Van Winkle woke up from his 20-year nap and came back to town to retire as one of town elders, he was 43 years old.

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3. Do you see strange things and wonder about them? Do you know enough to keep your mouth shut when you do? We’ve talked about some curious dining customs, but let’s chew it over some more. In some of the better households, guests have been seen standing quietly behind their chairs --- looking much like tin soldiers ---until the hostess is seated. My wife is so busy tending out on everyone at the table, she might not sit down until most of us have finished. If good manners is doing what makes your host and hostess comfortable, when you come to our house you will enter the dining room, sit down quickly and thereby get out of the way so we can get on with the matter at hand. There are among us a few people who really enjoy doing things to annoy their friends. One of the one or two things in this whole world you might do to make me ugly is to come to my house for supper and then show me that you have good manners by standing behind your chair.

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4. While we are talking about the strange and curious things people do when invited to a friend’s house for dinner, we should mention clearing the table at the end of the meal. If you have ever made a study of this as I have, you will notice that men and women alike are likely to leap to their feet and bring their empty plates, along with everything else into the pantry. Of course there is no room for all these things or this struggling mass of humanity in the pantry. There is only room for one person in the pantry. You might compare their arrival with the effect of a diverted river on the Agean Stables. A home is not a restaurant where there are huge empty stainless steel racks where you can pile all this clutter beside the dish washer. There is only one counter, and that is already piled high with all the pots and pans that were used to prepare the meal. Can’t you see, my friend, that if you want to help, you’ll stay rooted to your chair or go outdoors or do anything except contribute to the chaos that already exists around the person who is trying to restore order in the kitchen?

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5. Table manners are changing in this country. It is getting so that if you want someone to feel comfortable when they come to your house for supper, you serve them in paper plates on a plastic tray with plastic forks and a paper cup. Without even thinking, they’ll get up when they’ve finished, dump the paper and plastic into a big barrel, throw their tray on a pile next to the barrel, and leave. The only thing that will remain the same as the good old days is the absence of a tip. Have you noticed lately that these people are likely to return, use your bathroom, and then leave without saying a word?

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6. I don’t know why the mention of food should bring up the topic of fast food restaurants. I guess it was talking about tips that made me think of this. You will remember a while back when I said that our dashboard GPS evinced signs of human intelligence when it refused to recognize McDonald’s as a place to get food. But back before Subways, I was a regular in fast food restaurants and this is why. It was quick. No matter if I was in Arkansas or Maine, I knew I was getting the same thing. And, perhaps most important of all, I didn’t have to leave a tip. Because I’m a member of the lower working classes I know how important it is to tip well in restaurants. And on those few few few rare occasions when I do go to restaurants, you might even say I over tip. I know that these service people count on tips and I know that too many people are cheap. It’s not fair to your waitress. I read Mickey Spillane in Dutch and when Mike Hammer would leave a bar, the bartender would look down at the change left by the glass and nod in thanks. About the time that was written, I was night bellman at the old Samoset Hotel in Rockland and I remember a man who once gave me a dollar to carry a piece of pie up to his room. A few coins left on a bar or a dollar bill back then would be like a $20 tip today.

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7. If you think your money isn’t going far today, wait two more years. From what I heard, the value of the dollar is dropping all over the world. No matter how many billions of dollars your health insurance and gas companies chalk up in profits every year, please do remember that those billions don’t go as far as they used to. I went in a store recently and slapped a fifty dollar bill on the counter. I can’t remember where I was, but I might have been paying for a tank of gas. The man said, “I just opened. Don’t you have anything smaller than a 50?” I just stood there in a daze for two or three seconds. And I finally shook my head and said, “Tell me what I can buy today with anything smaller than a 50.”

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8. Speaking of big bills, many, many years ago there was a man who would bebop into our village with a hundred dollar bill. He’d go into a store and select two or three small items and then plunk down that hundred dollar bill. Of course they could never change the bill, so he’d charge it and tell them that he’d pay it later which was like getting it for nothing. Let me back up here. I can remember when I was a kid my father used to ask, “What is bred in old Kentucky?” The answer was, “Five cents a loaf.” What I’m trying to impress you with here is that when bread was five cents a loaf, $100 was a lot of money. I was told that Ralph, who was famous for being clever, knew about this $100 bill scam and he knew this fellow was coming to buy something from him. So he went around to a dozen or more friends until he had scraped together $100 in small bills. And of course when the fellow pulled out his $100 bill Ralph changed it -- and that put an end to that foolishness.

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9. I can remember when I was a kid there was another story about a man who was a fourth cousin to me who went into the local store and carelessly threw a hundred dollar bill on the counter to pay for some small purchase. Unless you are awful old now, you probably can’t comprehend how much money $100 was. Even ten or so years after that when I went in the Coast Guard in 1955, $100 was a month’s pay. You worked 30 days for $100. So think about throwing your month’s pay on the counter. Funny I can remember this story about that $100 bill. I do remember that when he was told that they couldn’t change it, he looked down at it and laughed and said he forgot where he was --- he thought he was off at one of his legion times. I can’t remember your name but I can remember that he said he thought he was off at one of his legion times. What in the world did they do at legion times?

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10. The value we place on houses and woodland has changed. I can remember how my father laughed and sneered when my mother paid $150 for a 17 acre piece of land with road frontage. He referred to it as “Molly’s Folly.” Years later I borrowed $3500 and bought a furnished house that had been on the market for years. Back then many people thought you were foolish if you owned land because you had to pay taxes on it. Men who sold firewood or had sawmills were about the only people who would buy land. They’d cut all the wood off it and then the town would take it away from them because they wouldn’t pay their taxes. --- Some wood choppers paid their taxes on the land and years later sold it off in bits and pieces and did rather well. Some of the really smart ones kept it all and their grandchildren are still raising saw logs and selling lumber. I bought 200 to 250 acres here and there at town tax sales for $10 an acre. People would actually laugh out loud at those meetings when they’d open the sealed bids and discover that some fool was willing to pay $10 an acre for worthless land. Times have changed.

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11. David in Washington sent me an article that says, “Robbery suspect loses testicle in accidental shooting.” http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?s=7626767 The way I understand it, a man shot himself while holding up a store. It seems that when he got ready to leave, he shoved the pistol underneath his belt where it went off and blew a good part of him away. It is my understanding that he immediately discovered it improved the length of his stride. --- You are going to see more and more of these silly accidents as young people, who have never seen Tom Mix and Gene Autry movies, turn to crime. --- Because any old geezer who watched cowboy movies as a kid would know enough to strap on a holster before leaving home so he could safely put away the shooting iron after he’d held up the store. Can you imagine any Jack Palance fan stuffing a gun into his pants and shooting himself? No way. And what about this man who mutilated himself? What will happen to him? About the only thing left for him in this life is marathon biking.

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12. In Maine it is unlikely that a crook would ever stuff a gun under his belt. Think about this. From what I’ve been reading, and from all the statistics I’ve seen, many Maine men are now so obese there wouldn’t be any room in their pants for a gun. If they ever did manage to get a gun in there in fire it, would it be any more than instant liposuction?

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13. I don’t watch that much television, but my friend Julian was intrigued by the caveat emptor that is included in each televised Viagra ad. Right there in the ad, Julian says, men are warned about the dangers of Viagra. But they don’t come right out and tell you what these dangers are. Yes, they do say that if the pill is still working after four hours, go to a hospital. Good luck with that. Can you imagine your wife letting you out the door? Yes, the ad does warn you that you can sustain damage after four hours but can you guess what it is? --- You don’t have enough skin left to close your eyes. Julian says that when you go to the hospital they fit you with dark glasses so the sun won’t make you squint.

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