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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for October 6, 2013

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Hello out there in radio land. Thank you for listening to The humble Farmer, your very own private radio show which I make just for you right here on Maine Private Radio, the one and only and exclusive home of No Things Considered.

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1. When I was a kid I noticed that old men talked to themselves. Lou Robinson would talk to his cow. Forrest Wall would sing. As a kid, I thought this strange. Now that I am closer to 80 than I am to 70 and hear myself talking out in the barn, I realize that what children hear is the very necessary articulated cogitation that keeps an old man from forgetting what he is doing.

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2. The email I got said, “Defy your age. Miracle Anti-Aging Cures Now Available.” To begin with, the word cure obviously implies that aging is a disease. And if aging is a disease, babies are born sick. These ads to sell pills to cure aging are written by young people who don’t realize that most of us who are old don’t mind being old. Got that, kids? We don’t mind being old. We don’t mind looking old. The only thing that annoys us is feeling old.

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3. You might have read that when a woman wears a leather dress, a man's heart beats quicker, his throat gets dry, he gets weak in the knees, and he begins to think irrationally. They say it is because she smells like a new truck.

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4. Back in the good old days privilege was inherited. The lord of the manor passed on the estate to his eldest son. Which is why so many of the oldest sons were killed in hunting accidents. But since the French Revolution the rich have had to buy privilege. One of my rich friends says it's annoying to have to stop at a 4 way intersection, and thinks it would be nice to be able to buy the right of way. Why, he asks, should a guy in a three piece suit in a BMW have to stop and wait for a rusted out hulk with the bumper dragging on the ground to get across the intersection? Back in the 17th century, you would have simply run right over them with your gilded carriage.

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5. One of my neighbors came up to me at the annual Blueberry Cove lobster feast fundraiser and told me how good I looked. Do you like to have people tell you how good you look? Is this not another way of saying that you don’t look any worse than you did the last time they saw you? Are they not implying that they are amazed? “Hi Robert. My, but you look good.” Is there any reason I should not look good? You probably know that I am probably in a remarkable state of preservation for a man pushing 80. I have always had the posture of a cave dweller and even 50 years ago had you dressed me in a wooly mammoth skin, and photographed me slouching along with a club over my shoulder --- you know, and dragging a woman by the hair, you could have sold pictures of the tableau to a museum for display purposes. I am genetically predisposed to slouch. So even when I was 20 I had the posture of a very old man, and I haven’t changed. And when you are not an attractive man when you are 20, you couldn’t get any worse by the time you’re 70, so relatively speaking, your friends probably think you look good. If you are ready to take notes, I will pass along to you the secret for not looking any worse at 70 than you did at 20. #1. I did not smoke, which, as every woman knows, causes wrinkles. #2. I avoid the sun and wear a long sleeved shirt and hat and long pants when I’m out in the sun. Every woman knows that sun on the face causes wrinkles. And finally, the most important anti-aging secret of all --- the reason I do not stagger about with a haggard drooping nether lip and eyes that stare vacantly off into space --- I could never afford to have children.

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6. One day I discovered a box on my gmail that I had never seen before. It says "Spam." While trying to delete the spam, I read this item in one of the boxes: "Significant improvement in both length and girth". You can understand that this really grabbed my attention and that I quickly opened it to see what I could learn as some of my rhubarb plants are getting kind of spindly.

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7. Anyone who lives in Maine knows that there are two basic schools of thought when it comes to putting on your sweater. You can either hang onto your shirt cuffs or you can let the sweater drag them way up over your elbows. Every morning when I put on my sweater I am faced with this ubiquitous metaphysical problem. Should I cast my lot with the cuff holders or should I join those who don’t mind their shirt cuffs pulled up above the elbow. The reason I have never taken a stand might suggest to an unbiased observer that one way is no better than the other. The difference between the two philosophies is so meaningless and insignificant, I'm surprised the two camps have never gone to war.

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8. From time to time, people get new email addresses and I lose contact with friends. While calling friends to get their new email addresses, I found this June 4, 2004 letter from Mt. Vernon, Maine. “Dear Humble, Would you please send me the particulars about the article in the New England Journal of Medicine about the health benefits of gazing at women’s breasts. My father is a coronary bypass survivor and would enjoy this medicine very much.” Seems as I remember calling this valuable health tip to your attention years ago and, as a public health service, I looked it up and will mention it again. “Ogling over women's breasts is good for a man's health and can add years to his life, medical experts have discovered. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, ‘Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out’ declared gerontologist Dr. Karen Weatherby…There's no question: Gazing at breasts makes men healthier.’ ‘Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half. We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years.’ Well. The interesting thing about this health tip is that it is a hoax, so I will not mention it again --- until some staunch elderly men can be found who are willing to advance the cause of good health and sound science by participating in such a study.

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9. A few weeks ago when I sent out my weekly Whine and Snivel email newsletter, a young woman wrote back immediately and asked to be removed from my mailing list. You know, I spent a lot of time getting out that newsletter and it really hurt my feelings to discover that only one person read it.

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10. Here’s the silliest email I’ve seen in a long time. It says that someone invented a breast implant that can store and play music. This implant is considered a major social breakthrough, because women have always complained that men stare at their breasts and do not listen to them. You don’t have to think about this too long before you realize that this is true. Women do not want men staring at their breasts --- which is why women wear low cut dresses and suspend on a gold chain, about 8 inches below the chin, a shiny piece of metal that would attract the attention of a crow at 200 yards. This flashy piece of metal is designed to divert the eye’s attention from the breasts and hold the eye’s attention directly between them. To make this possible, every year loving husbands give their aging wives two or three more gold links for the chain.

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