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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 July 14, 2013

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1. Is there anything more exhausting for a three year old child than spending a rare weekend with a loving and indulgent grandmother? Here’s the poor little kid, all tucked in, as Mimi reads a bedtime story. And every time the little eyes close there a loving tug on the child’s sleeve and a “Wake up. Don’t you want to hear what happened to Peter Rabbit?”

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2. What a thing Hunter S. Thompson was. One of my friends, who is a very clever writer in Portland, says a lot of good things about me on her web page. Listen to what she says. “Do you know the Humble Farmer? … He's on [the radio] and he's brilliant. No description of mine will do his show justice, but I'll give it a go…. It's as if Hunter S. Thompson has taken over the airwaves for an hour every week.” Yes, I’m like you. I wondered who this Hunter S. Thompson was, too, so I Googled him. My word. You’ll have to Google Hunter S. Thompson yourself. All I’m going to say is that when Hunter S. Thompson ran for sheriff, his opponent had a crew cut. And, of course, Hunter S. Thompson did what you or I would do if we were running for sheriff against a man who sported a crew cut. Hunter S. Thompson shaved his head so he could refer to him as, “My long haired opponent.”

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3. This might not be for you if you have never read a science fiction book, but I’m going to throw it in here anyway because I think Mel Brooks would like it. If you were writing science fiction that entailed space travel, would you have the courage to create a planet called Scarsdale and name your protagonist Peter Smith? If you could ever get your tale published, imagine the reaction Peter Smith from Scarsdale would have on an experienced reader of science fiction who is familiar with the space travel formula. The space ship touches down, the hatch releases blue vapors as it slowly slides open, and then, the slowly emerging figure moves down the ramp, arms outstretched. Of course, at this point the reader expects the visitor to say, “My name is Zar-El and I come from Kalgar.

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4. . I was out in my barn very purposefully sawing a half inch stick in two with a very dull handsaw when a car drove in the yard. A woman got out of the car and went inside to do woman business and the man, whom I had never seen before, walked over to see what I was doing in the barn. He watched for a few seconds and I was just about to compliment him for being strong enough to simply stand and watch without helping, when both of his hands shot out. We have talked about this before. It takes a unique individual --- it takes a powerful man who is secure within himself ---- to stand back and watch a neighbor engaged in some intricate operation without feeling obligated to elbow him aside and show him that you can do it better. Does this happen on all levels of society? Does Dr. Jones look over a colleague’s shoulder in the operating room and say, “Perhaps you should remove all of those little metal clamps before sewing up the chest cavity.” I don’t know. I’m the humble farmer at gmail dot com and you can tell me about the last time it happened to you. Please don’t confuse this with that other situation where you are standing in your friend’s kitchen and ask for a drink of water and they say, “You’ve got to let that water run a while before it gets cold.”

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5. There are times when I would go along with an educated guess and there are times when an educated guess is probably no more than hooey. Can we possibly know what men were thinking 30,000 years ago when they painted wooly mammoths on cave walls? What do you think? One authority writes, “The probability is that the leading cave artists were great men who gave themselves airs.” Would you not suspect that this was written by a person who was at one time snubbed by an artist? I live in a town that is infested with artists, and from what I’ve heard and seen artists are no snobbier than house painters or plumbers. And --- should an artist produce his or her impression of me on canvas, there is no way you can get me to believe that they have captured my soul. The most impressive painting an artist ever did of me was one in which he left me out. The name of that painting is The Bell Rope. A rope that was used to pull the church bell had more personality than I did. After he’d done the pencil sketches he said he’d got to thinking about it and realized that the final picture was better without me. Did you know that anthropologists no longer think that cave painters believed their pictures brought them luck in the hunt? It seems that superstition was introduced thousands of years later when it was used quite effectively to squeeze money out of people. Now --- you and I have read in many places that artists often have affairs with their models. But do not professors have affairs with their students and do not people who work in stores or offices hold hands behind the water cooler? And even if you are not an artist, how many times have you invited some innocent and unsuspecting young thing into your home, ostensibly to view your art collection? OK. I think I’ve done a pretty good job defending my artist friends. They are really no more devious than you or I. But just so you can come to your own conclusion, what do you suppose could have been on this Spanish painter’s mind some 15,000 years ago?: Here’s a quote from an art critic: “Some of these works are photographed but the camera gives a poor idea of their nature and quality. Some are difficult to see anyway: the best part of Altamira has to be studied lying down.”

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6. Listen closely, and you will learn how not to grill meat. When I asked my computer guru what he liked, he said porterhouse steak. Marsha went to the market, and when she came home, after ensuring a comfortable retirement for two ranchers in Montana, I went into my storage shed and dug out a gas grill. It had rusted out and broke in two when I picked it up so I threw it aside and dug out another gas grill. Two small school desks were on top of it so I brought one of them into the house for the grandchildren. Do you find surprises in your storage shed if you only look in there once a year? Carpenter ants had invaded our fir tree friend, John Longwood, and there was a 10 inch pile of fine sawdust between his legs. Anyway, I dragged the grill up to the driveway, hooked up a gas bottle and touched her off. Bad plan. First you take it all apart and clean out generations of little smiling mouse skulls and everything else that has collected and been left behind. And even after taking the grill apart, washing it out and putting it back together --- well, be prepared for a unique experience when you warm up those little volcanic rocks in your grill after they have soaked in mouse urine for 12 years. Then, leaving nothing to chance, I emailed my friend Nick Diller in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to find out how to use a grill. Griller Diller, as he is called, is one of the world’s leading experts on grilling everything but hardened criminals, and he sent me 123 pages of his book, asking for nothing in return but a Norbert Twichell T shirt. Yes. Griller Diller sent me comprehensive directions on how to use a grill, but --- nowhere did I read that the dripping juice would catch on fire --- so I followed the directions and stood there like a nummy and watched the meat burn to a crisp.

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7. Have you ever seen a ghost? Have you ever seen a stone statue cry? I have seen something that fits in the same category and I am going to tell you about it now. This is not something I would say in a room crowded with strangers, because it would immediately destroy my credibility. But I can tell you what I saw out on the highway yesterday because you have listened to me for years and you know, that however improbable my story, it is the truth. Listen to this. Yesterday, out on the highway, I saw a Volvo station wagon with no canoe or ski racks.

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8. Even I have heard of the book called, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. We are told that it is a Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, and I do not have a relationship. We are married. We are living proof that two people can live together and get everything that we want without waging war. Because women are the weaker sex it is up to the man of the house to create and nurture this peaceful environment. Yesterday, for example, before Marsha came home I went outside and coiled up the water hose and put it on the well curb and coiled up the driveway bell hose and put that on the doorstep. I took out her lawnmower and filled it with gas and had it standing at the ready by the door. And when she came home at four o’clock she didn’t even come in the house for her earplugs. She had a grateful smile on her face and she had that lawnmower going when I went out there and begged her to stop long enough to protect her ears. Any man willing to follow my example can live in a happy home, free from unkind words and strife. All you have to do is never find fault with anything she does, agree with her no matter what she says, and get used to not being able to do anything right. Why engage in this senseless battle of the sexes when it is so much easier to sign an unconditional surrender?

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9. Have you ever seen men whom you might think have nothing going for them who are married to attractive, intelligent, industrious women? If you asked whatever got them together in the first place, she might say, “He makes me laugh.” Unfortunately for many men, they run out of material. Movies, books and plays have been written about wives who are still able to evoke a painful smile the 38th time they hear their husband tell one of his shopworn stories. My hat goes off to any woman who can laugh at her husband’s old jokes, and any husband who can come up with quality new material has my admiration. You know that I am not one to boast or brag, but I have the ability to make my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, laugh any time, any place. And I am not talking here about a chuckle but a wholesome, honest laugh that would make Jack Benny proud. To employ the vernacular --- I can crack her up. You know I have no secrets from you and you know that I am now going to tell you how I do it. Any man is welcome to follow my example, as long as he uses his own wife and chalks up a mental thanks to me each time. Ready to write this down? I gently seize Marsha by the shoulders, I gaze deeply and lovingly into her eyes, and then, having captured her attention as it were, I say with a deep and mellifluous voice, “My dear, please remember that I am the boss in this house.”

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