Check out our B&B web page.

+

This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for February 2, 2014

+

1. Ever since Facebook was invented, I have gone to Google which brings up my screen of open-me icons across the top of the page and then opened my Facebook page. I just discovered that I can pull the Facebook icon down to the bottom of my computer screen and open Facebook without first going to Google. My point is that the wheel was probably invented in many different parts of the world at different times.

+

2. One day my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, passed through this office/studio on her way home from the showers and said that she had been watching the famous girl who broke her leg skiing being interviewed on TV. The girl is very pretty and is Tiger Wood's acknowledged girlfriend. You might know who I mean. Marsha said that most of the interview with this girl consisted of, "err, ahh, mmm." Marsha said she wanted to shake the girl and beg her to spit it out. Marsha says she doesn't know how anyone with her linguistic skills could be one of the talking heads at the Olympic Games. Well, we all have things that we can and can't do. And we all have our idiosyncrasies that endear us to others. One of the most memorable high points of my teaching career was getting 5th grader Paul Strout to come up to the blackboard and do an imitation of me. Paul could have made a good living on stage as he is a natural observer of people. He had every one of my errs and ahhs and buts and favorite expressions and gestures down perfectly. Should this girl, who is one of the world's best skiers, be expected to excel in all other skills? Must she also be a great cook? Tiger Woods was probably not drawn into her net by her omelettes or apple pancakes. He's probably into muscle tone. I would cut the girl some slack. There is hope. You remember the movie called The King’s Speech where the king got help with his stuttering. So, before letting this girl with the broken leg on the air, the networks will certainly put her in the hands of a modern day Henry Higgins. She is very pretty and many men will probably not pay any attention to what she is saying anyway. Does this girl remind you of the 10-year-old violin virtuoso who could play every piece of literature written for his instrument? Next year his mother intends to teach him how to walk and feed himself.

+

3. My cough had been hanging in there for 35 days and I thought it was time to put an end to it before it put an end to me. I went into Pen Bay Medical Center and sat down on the other side of the desk from Judy, who checks people in. Big sign there on Judy’s computer: “Keep your germs to yourself. Cover your cough.” I told Judy I thought that was a good sign. And I told her that at shows I sometimes stood by the door and shook hands with two or three hundred people and the first thing I did afterwards was wash my hands. Think of all the germs that I spread, one hand to another. I got to wondering why we shake hands. The custom obviously evolved before people knew about germs and I told Judy that I think we should have another way of greeting our friends that wouldn’t spread germs. And Judy said, “Well, you know what my dog does.”

+

4. I really didn’t feel like I was wasting any time when I went to town for my annual checkup because it was a typical, cold, raw, wet day the coast of Maine and I couldn’t work outside. But the first thing the doctor did when he came in the room and saw me waiting in the chair was open the window wide. The wind and the cold rain blew into the room, but the doctor smiled and looked refreshed and relieved. And it wasn’t until then that I realized I was wearing the same shoes that I wear when I go out to check on the cows.

+

5. We read in the paper that Florida Congressman Trey Radel resigned less than a month after he returned to Capitol Hill from a stay in rehab that followed his arrest for cocaine possession. He was caught in a sting by an undercover agent. In a resignation letter addressed to the House Speaker, the freshman Republican said he could no longer "fully and effectively serve" as a member of Congress in light of his "personal struggles." But I’d like you to give this some very careful thought. Please remember that at home in Florida it is probably easier to continue to buy drugs without discovering that one of them is just another undercover agent.

+

6. You might have had old retired people tell you that they would never spend a winter in Florida. If you ask them why, you will discover that they have never spent a winter in Florida because they will tell you that they can’t stand the heat, the snakes the bugs and the alligators. Anyone who has spent a January in southern Florida knows that they wear their long underwear and a heavy jacket and perhaps even mittens on many days. The only problem with heat is getting enough of it. No, the real problem with southern Florida is the smoke. You don’t hear any talk about Florida air quality on the news because it would hurt the tourism business. And perhaps the air is no different from that in Ohio. So when someone tells you that they would never spend a winter in Florida because of the heat and bugs you know they’ve never been there. But if they say that they can’t stand Florida because of the smoke, you know they are speaking from experience. Gramp Wiley spent one winter in Florida, but he didn’t like it. Gramp said, “It’s not the heat but the humility.”

+

7. It is unfortunate that no young people listen to this program because I’m about to impart a significant bit of wisdom that they would ignore even if they were listening. My topic is: the danger of mating with an incompatible person. The divorce rate is high and although the reason for divorce is simple, it is difficult to explain. To begin with, there is a human race only because our bodies develop from the bottom up which means that the last organ to become functional is the one between our ears. You’ve heard me say it often: “I got married at the age of 54 and when you get married at 54 it is your BRAIN that makes the decision.” Tens of thousands of years ago it was all right if people 12 or 14 years old started families, because before they were 20 one of them had either been stepped on by a wooly mammoth or been eaten by a saber tooth tiger. So long before man and wife had time to discover they were incompatible, Mother Nature had already eliminated the need for endless unpleasant discussions that lead to divorce. Could we cut down on the divorce rate if we were to live together for two or three years before getting married? I used to think we might, but there is new evidence indicating that even 16 years of living together might not be long enough. One morning my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, said, “You are using my toothbrush.” I said, “Ever since time began I have used a red toothbrush.” I am glad that we are not planning to have children, because she said, “So have I.”

+

8. Think about what kind of community you'd like to live in if you were unemployed and looking for a job. Or think about what kind of community you'd like to live in if you sold cars or insurance or ice cream or anything else. Would you be better off economically in a community where everyone earned around $100,000 a year, or in a community where two people who each earned $5,000,000 a year were providing employment for all of the people in that community who were happy to have jobs that each paid $20,000 a year? In which community do you think there would be more money spent in restaurants, car dealerships, hardware stores and every other business? In which community do you think there would be less crime? In which community do you think more young people would go away to any kind of college? In which community would people have more of their original teeth? I'm just asking. What do you think? I’m the humble farmer at g mail dot com.

+

9. You might have read that a team of scientists has developed candy that has no sugar or fat but looks and tastes like candy. They are now working on chicken, potatoes, and gravy that contain absolutely no nutrition. Critics of the nutrition less food program are alarmed, claiming that entire well-fed populations could actually be in the process of being starved to death by their enemies.

+