Maine Reality TV --- The humble Farmer's TV show on YouTube.

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Rants June 4, 2017

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1. One bitter cold day in July I turned on the oil furnace and took the chill off the house. Do you run your furnace on July 24th? Being able to run your furnace in July and August is what makes Maine such a delightful place in which to live. When I mentioned the cold July weather on Facebook, my friend Sandra Dickson said that she thought about turning on their heat but was too cold to get out of bed to do it...

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2. One of Marsha’s childhood friends will be with us for three days. Her husband is with her. The other night Marsha asked Tom to please put our crib back into the packing box so she could store it. She bought it for her nephew’s twins that were with us here for two weeks. When I came into the room Marsha asked me to help Tom, who was struggling with the project. Do you think I elbowed Tom aside and said, "Lemme show you how to do that boy?" I guess not. You know that I've written about Lemme Show You Boys enough to know better than to step into their shoes. I said that if I were to show Tom how to get that crib back into the box he would hate me for the rest of his life. I turned on my heel and went to bed. No man wants to be shunted aside by a Lemme Show Ya boy. Unless, like my brother Jim, they fumble on purpose just so someone will push them aside and do the job for them --- while they sit in the shade and think to themselves, "Look at that Gol-durned fool."

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3. I just looked up The Poet at the Breakfast Table on Amazon. It advertises the book and says that the author was a judge on the Supreme Court. Who writes these things? Should we thank them for giving us an excuse to feel superior? Nothing cheers us more than being able to point out the stupid mistakes made by one of our neighbors. Some of my friends only read my Facebook page because it makes them feel superior.

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4. Someone told me that they just talked with a boyhood friend from 70 years ago. The friend had moved to Georgia and said that he'd started a church organization there that was now worth four million dollars. My friend and I were amused but not surprised to hear that at the end of the day a man who dedicated his life to preaching the Word measured his worth in the book value of the treasures he had laid up here on earth.

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5. What is the cutoff point for "like?" I didn't think anyone over 60 would throw in like every 6 words or so. If I were like still studying linguistics, I would like already know the answer. Some friends from Texas recently spent some like time with us and they throw that like in there as often as a teen ager. We have quite an eclectic crowd go through our B&B in the course of a summer. They come from several countries, I can't think of one that wasn't highly educated and well travelled, and this is the first like I've heard like in a long time. Is like a geographic thing? Prevalent in some areas of the country among adults and not in others? Is like a southern affectation? Are grade school teachers using like in the classroom? I thought like came in fairly recently so people drawing social security shouldn't have it in their idiolects. One of our Texas friends was a cigarette smoker. Does smoking have anything to do with the way one talks?

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6. Tim White replies to my Facebook post. I mentioned that I was going to replace the 3 inch pvc pipes in the overhead in my office with glass ones so I’d know what was going on upstairs. Tim says: I have been working beneath the toilet of the apartment upstairs for 28 years. The sound of a flush and the rush of the bowl contents speeding through the pipes sums up nicely the reality that replaced the glorious dreams of my youth. As an added bonus, I can clearly hear when someone is using the toilet above me, confirming my place in the socioeconomic hierarchy.

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7. Did you know that if you have an old truck you can update the headlights on it to LED lights? They are much more powerful than your regular sealed beams. My truck has 310,000 miles on it now and because I plan to keep it forever I thought it was worth the price of new LED headlights. Even though I’ll blind people coming the other way, at least I’ll be able to see who is about to hit me. Marsha followed me home from a wild party in Tenants Harbor one night and remarked on how well my LED headlights illuminated the road. Behind me I could see two little things that looked like fireflies. When you see me coming, please get out of my way. I’ve decided to live in the present century.

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8. I’m not going to get a portable phone. I want to make that perfectly clear right now. But --- If I were to get a portable phone, the first thing I'd do is attend lots of meetings. And every time my phone rang, everyone in the room would be reminded that I had moved up one rung on the socio-economic ladder.

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9. One afternoon Booking dot com's calendar started the week on the left with Monday. Booking dot com is an on line company that sends guests to our bed and breakfast. One day their calendar confused me. Sunday was the last day over on the right and the week started with Monday over on the left, and it messed me up. I was confusing Friday with Saturday with good reason called 81 years of habit. Now I see that it is back to being the normal calendar that you and I see every day. What's up with this? Am I so provincial that I have to ask you about these things? Have you ever seen a calendar that started with Monday on the left?

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10. One morning I looked out the window and saw two black SUV cars on my front lawn. If I'd known what my guests were driving I would have asked them to park out back because there are certain unsavory people out there in the world who might drive by and see those black SUV cars and think that our home might warrant closer attention.

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11. From time to time I come across a story that will make you laugh. Here’s one that came our way one morning on the news. Are you ready? At a Senate hearing, the managers of a coal mine in West Virginia said that they did not put profits ahead of safety.

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