Marsha and humble September 30, 2007




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Below is a rough outline of the rants from The humble Farmer radio show week of May 26, 2013. The week of April 7 marked 35 years or 1820 radio shows I've made just for you. Can you send me just one penny for each one of them? Thank you for supporting your Maine Private Radio.


Perhaps it would be more fun for both of us if you'd make your contribution by spending a night here in The humble Farmer Bed & Breakfast. Surprise your significant other with a visit to humble's B&B. Check it out on our B&B web page.




Thank you for stopping by.

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The week of April 7 marked 35 years that humble has made this radio program for you. --- Around 1820 shows. He was a kid of 42 when he started driving to Orono every week to make this program.

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Rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for May 26, 2013

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Rants May 26, 2013

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1. It’s the talk of the town in Mattawamkeag, Maine. Two selectmen might have violated state law when they met with a state trooper who interviewed them as part of an investigation. Did you know that for two selectmen to talk things over constitutes an illegal meeting? In these rapidly changing times they might not even be called selectmen any more. Would the lightning bolt of justice continually crackle over two selectmen who were married and simply whispering in bed? Imagine if you will the following tableau: "I’m done Chief, I've booked these two selectmen." "Ok, Pete. Put them in two non-contiguous cells so we won't be written up for creating an illegal meeting." + 2. Long, long time radio friend Eden says, “"When I call the front desk at my kids elementary school, I can instantly hear their irritation if I begin with "hi, how are you?" They want me to get to the point and hang up with no dilly-dallying!" What Eden says is true. I answer the phone with, "Robert Skoglund, what can I do for you?" If they say, "How are you?" they get silence because they haven't answered my initial question. Unless it is my doctor who really wants to know how I am. In other words, you called me and we are at an impasse unless you tell me why you called and what I can do for you. I want them to say, "Hi, this is Arnold next door and I think you'd like to know that you forgot to take in your 1935 home made wheelbarrow last night and if you don't get it under cover, it is likely to get weathered." When my brother wants to tease me, and he’s calling to give me a number or something I need to write down, he always says, “Got a pencil?” just because he knows it annoys me. No, I don’t have a pencil but I’m going to type it into my computer as soon as you start talking. Snarl. Snarl.

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3. You’re not being nice to my wife. She jumps up and looks like the cross-eyed dog on one of those old Booth cartoons because I scream every time I see the LOL you wrote on my Facebook page. I have mastered RSVP and ASAP but LOL is a new one that is going to take some time to get into harness. Other peeves --- yes, I have other peeves --- include "I have something here I'd like to share with you today" when they mean "I'm going to tell you something." "Have a nice day." "Have a good un." "How are you?" (I'm stuck with "how are you?" in several languages but there is no excuse for not saying something a bit more creative in your native tongue.) Why does the girl behind the counter in the bank say, "How are you?" when what she should be saying is "Will you please limp over here so I may help you." I don't go into the bank to discuss the condition of my health, but when anyone says, "How are you?" I say, "sick, tired, old, feeble minded, weak, hungry," and so on until I'm out of breath. Because I have been married for over 20 years I know my place and do not move from my station behind the rope until the clerk finally says, "May I help you?" LOL

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4. We read in the newspaper that a young girl was killed when she agreed to meet with the accused “for the purposes of obtaining some marijuana.” Dozens and dozens of people wrote to the paper, praying for the girl’s family and providing a horrendous catalog of punishments that should be handed out to the killer. But I didn’t see one person who dared to mention in their comments that she “agreed to meet with this subject for the purposes of obtaining some marijuana.” Let’s put the shoe on another foot and see how it fits. If a bad guy attacked Hillary Clinton when she stepped out back of the White House to buy some weed from him, do you think that those same readers would pray for her soul or say that she brought it on herself?

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5. You’ve heard a lot of hate talk about wind generators. Some of us have seen quite large wind generators in Dutch farmyards. I don't know, but I would assume that the thing generates all the power for the farm with the excess being sold back to the power company. Perhaps they tolerate the noise that we hear so much talk about because of the cash it brings in, much as I tolerate the smell of cow manure because it makes my radishes happy. An even better system than the wind generator, to my way of thinking, is going solar. My friend has told me many times about his former partner in Canada who has covered his many huge warehouses with solar panels. --- Here my friend waves his arms --- "hundreds and hundreds of feet. Big" The way I understand it, the government made it well worth his while and, like a power company, he is now selling electricity and making money with the thing. Capitalism at its finest. Why shouldn’t we each and every one of us be making our own electricity with solar panels and selling what we have left over?

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6. If Democrats are now much further to the right than the Republicans of 1933 --- and Republicans are now much further to the right than they were in 1933, the Republicans must now subscribe to what political philosophy of 1933? We read in the Encyclopedia Britannica that back around 1933 there was a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combined elements of corporatism, extreme nationalism, anti-liberalism, militarism and authoritarianism. They gave tax breaks to the rich and discriminated against gays. They nearly always had more money than their opponents and moved with greater ruthlessness, although, at every step, they claimed to be the defender of law and order. The industrialists were naturally in sympathy with this political party that stood for lower wages, no unions and fat, padded contracts. If all of these things sound like the Republican party of today, perhaps we should now call Democrats Republicans and call Republicans something else.

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7. Are wives annoying? Yes, they can be. A woman riding in a car will turn to her husband, and say, “If I’d known you were going to stop here, I would have used the bathroom there before we started for home.” If that’s the only unreasonable thing your wife does all day you were smart enough to marry well. But you know men who, for reasons best known to themselves, are drawn to women who present a challenge. I wondered why a man who had been married to a very difficult woman for 40 years, upon her demise immediately married one who was obviously pretty far off center. One day wife #2 is as nice as pie to her neighbors and the next day, without warning or any apparent reason, she will get in their face and scream. One must assume that the same pattern must be repeated in the privacy of their own home. I don’t know about you, but I could not live with a refugee from Carl Jung's couch. I asked a mutual friend how this fellow could bring himself to marry a woman who was very likely to get him into some kind of trouble. And she said that after what he’d been through he should have known better to marry anyone at all. A fairly intelligent, educated man will marry a woman who is smarter than he is. Unfortunately, being intelligent doesn’t keep anyone from being two points west of bonkers, so I have been lucky on that score. Over 87 percent of my wives have been very smart and very reasonable. As long as I always reminded them to go before we got in the car.

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8. I missed out on a demonstration the other day because I didn’t know about it. Have you noticed that demonstrations are much like funerals of old friends in that very few people know about them --- which is why they don't turn out larger crowds? When I was in grad school everyone walked counterclockwise around the quad to protest the Viet Nam war. Just because I didn't believe in protesting, I walked into the crowd and stepped over the bodies of students that were blocking classrooms by lying in the corridors. Being a conservative Maine man, I didn't believe in protests. But had I known there was going to be a public protest last Saturday I would have been there because what we get to eat is a very important issue to me. Even if I'd been the only one there I would have dressed in nothing but a barrel and waved a sign. I might go to Rockland on the next sunny day and walk down Main Street with a sign that says: "Sorry no one told me about the protest because I would have been there." It is my belief that there are companies that are moving us into dangerous and unknown territory and that as a result of their experiments in 100 years mankind will be walking about with a new type of DNA. We read that scientists are preserving types of seeds in case they are needed in the future. Perhaps a handful of uncontaminated people should also be saved on a modern day Noah's Ark so there will be a human race in the Deep Future. I'm not a scientist. I know nothing of the chemistry involved, but when you start messing with something that can change the DNA of human beings you are on thin ice. I really hope I'm wrong.

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9. I don’t smile much but my wife smiles enough for both of us. Some people do not naturally smile. I wish I naturally smiled but I don’t. There was once a man in this village who was always smiling. I can't think of him but what I see his smiling face. Always grinning ear to ear. He'd steal the coat off a blind man's back. One time a woodpile out in the forest disappeared. That smiling man's tractor tracks were very clear in the mud. This happened 60 or so years ago and they were talking about it at the local store and one man said, "Hear you lost some wood." Other feller says, "Eyuh." "Didn't go far, did it?"

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Robert Karl Skoglund
785 River Road
St. George, ME 04860
(207) 226-7442
thehumblefarmer@gmail.com
www.TheHumbleFarmer.com

© 2013 Robert Karl Skoglund