Check out our B&B web page.

+

This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for December 8, 2013

+

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.

+

Rants December 8, 2013

+

1. In every program I make for you I feel obligated to tell you something that will make your life happier and easier. Now is one of those times, so please listen carefully. Never talk politics with someone who is cutting your hair.

+

2. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman personifies the Type A individual. She is a pessimist and she tells it like she sees it. The other day I strutted up to her, stuck out my chest and said, “I have big plans.” She said, “You’re going to take a nap?”

+

3. Do you enjoy shopping in the midcoast area? Or do the people with whom you have to do business seem annoyed when they see you coming? Are they tired, impolite, indifferent or just plain rude? Do you often simply walk out quietly and spend your dollars elsewhere? It’s sad but true that many people who own businesses in our area do not understand that they will increase their profits when they train their staff in customer service. If you as a customer have received great service from a local business lately, please send us a letter telling us about the business that we may compliment them next week. Today we’d like to salute a former friend and neighbor who had a better grasp on customer service than anyone we ever knew. Sadie Marcus had a furniture store in front of the Farnsworth Museum. You never saw a store with so much stuff in it. You couldn’t drive a snake in that store with a hammer. When anybody asked her why she kept her store crammed full she always said her father told her you couldn’t sell anything out of an empty wagon. Every time I’d go in that store, Sadie would ask, “Who’s your father?” You better believe Sadie didn’t have anything against two party checks. Even if you were flat broke she’d insist that you take a lamp, or whatever you wanted, and pay for it later. She never looked puzzled when you told her what you wanted. She never admitted that she didn’t have it. If she didn’t have a widge backed gismo, she’d grab you right by the sleeve and drag you right over to something that she promised was even better and at a better price. Everybody liked Sadie. You’ve got to admire a woman who quietly rolls up her sleeves and becomes very wealthy. Up until the day she died she never realized that the business community discriminates against women. Oh, once the fire commissioner did take her to court for having such a cluttered store. He was quite a short fellow who got lost one day behind a stack of Sadie’s mattresses. When he finally found his way out, he got to wondering what would have happened if the place burned down while he was lost in there. Within a week, Sadie was in court listening quietly as the commissioner tried to describe her store to the judge. When Sadie finally got on the stand she jabbed her finger at the fire commissioner and said, “That’s what happens when a small man gets to wear brass buttons.” When everyone stopped laughing, the judge moved the court into Sadie’s store to check things out firsthand. He smiled and shook his head as he walked sideways to squeeze through the narrow aisles. At last he pointed at a lamp which was way over on top of a stack of rugs and bureaus and said, “Sadie, let’s be reasonable. If I wanted to buy that lamp over there, how in the world would you ever get it down for me?” Sadie tapped a table with her finger and said, “You put $20 right here judge and I’ll show you.”

+

4. I have an email from a friend who says, “Hi humble, I watched your pieces on Blip this evening. You should think about trying to find a way to record the shows you have planned, then you can release a "live show" CD.” Thank you for that suggestion. It is practically impossible to record a live show. Live shows necessitate professional camera men and lighting experts. We are all accustomed to watching television shows filmed with professional lighters and professional camera people and anything else filmed by the rest of us looks bad. If you don’t believe it, watch my television show.

+

5. 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 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.

+

6. 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?

+

7. 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.

+

8. 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 down 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.”

+

9. For years there were messages over my cellar door and on my cellar door. Back in the days when I was single, whenever I wanted to remember anything, I took a pencil and wrote it on the wall. When it was really important, I wrote it over the cellar door in magic marker. One of the magic marker messages said, “Never exchange labor for fish with Maurice.” Another one said, “3 AM. Awake because of one cup of cocoa. Never learn.” And, if you are like me and can’t drink cocoa, you might remember that it is not just by chance that the words cocoa and cocaine share many of the same letters. Do you have notes on your doors and walls? A big note on my script board where I make my radio program says, “Disconnect Phone.” You can be sure that as soon as I start to record, the telephone will ring. I’m telling you about this because one morning I made one of the biggest mistakes anyone in this world could make. I’m telling you about it so you won’t make the same mistake. I downloaded a new Explorer program for my computer. I don’t even know why I did it. Fool that I am, I didn’t realize that my toolbar with all those sites I visit every day would disappear. I can’t find anything. I can’t do anything. I’m stopped dead in my tracks. If you don’t remember another thing you hear me say this year, please remember this. Don’t ever, ever download a new improved program into your computer. You will lose everything that gets you through your day and you will find yourself in the position of a caveman, sitting in front of a computer screen for the first time with no idea of what he’s looking at or what to do.

+

10. Here’s a letter that says, Mr. Skoglund, You're no Mark Twain, but I like what you had to say about education…. I can't agree more that young adults should be given more opportunities to study abroad. This would enrich this country's next generation and prevent them from becoming simple cogs for "the machine". William B in Miami Thank you William. I am also no H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, or Jack Benny, but it is nice to be mentioned with them in the same breath. I’m the humble farmer at gmail dot com and if you can think of anyone else I’m not like, I’d like to hear from you.

+

11. Have you seen this new combat thing on TV? I think they call it absolute fighting. It can get pretty messy because you can do whatever it takes to completely destroy your opponent. No holds are barred. You know, my friend Lawyer Crandall could be a world champion --- he’s been handling divorce cases for years.

+

12. The other morning when I woke up, I realized that there are two kinds of people in the world. When one type gets up in the morning, a large area in the bed where they have spent the night is toasty and warm. The other type of person quickly moves into this warm spot.

+

13. From watching me on television, you might get the impression that I’m quite a natty dresser. I spare no expense to look good for you. But my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, is from Connecticut, where they have a different standard. And one day she asked me why I always wore such ratty clothes. I said, “Clothes don’t amount to nothing. It’s the body underneath that counts.” And she said, “Don’t make it any worse than it already is.”

+