Marsha and humble September 30, 2007
Thank you for visiting.
Below is a rough outline of the rants from The humble Farmer
radio show week of March 23, 2008
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Rants March 23, 2008
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1. We have an elderly friend who is forgetful. One morning she called to ask if Marsha remembered that she was going to take her to the store, even though Marsha’s car was already parked in her driveway. Another day she spent quite a bit of time looking for a flag that she had just rolled up and put in the corner while complaining that she couldn’t understand who kept taking her things. As unfortunate as this sounds, the problem is even more acute along some sections of the Maine coast where women in their early 30s go into town for the evening and forget that they already have husbands.
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2. Would you dare run for office in this country today? Think what would happen to you if you did. People you had never heard of would be on the evening news, relating in intimate detail, what you did and said while on a date with them when you were 17 years old. Was your great uncle a drunk? Everyone will know. If you ever lived in an apartment building that was once inhabited by a drug dealer or a murderer, it will be headline news --- just as if you had something to do with it. This is the good news. --- The bad news -- is that if your opponents can’t find something or someone bad to link to your name, they will make something up.
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3. Bev in Belfast writes. Hi Just got around to the W&S and want to add that Wal-Mart does the insurance thing on their employees or did. I read an article some time ago that a wife was suing them because they worked her husband to death and collected big bucks when he died. I have no idea how it turned out but Google would probably have something on it.
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http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp
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Thank you for this, Bev. I Googled it and found out that it is called Dead Peasants or Dead Janitors insurance. Insurance companies have sold millions of these secret tax-free windfall policies to big companies. You might be worth big money dead and not even know anything about it. When you die, the money can go towards perks and retirement benefits for top management. I read that companies pay 8 billion in premiums each year for such coverage which makes up 20% of the life insurance sold each year. Companies expect to reap more than 9 billion in tax breaks from these policies over the next five years. Hundreds of companies have purchased this insurance on more than 6 million rank and file workers. Hello out there all you peasants. Aren’t you glad that if you die, even though it could impoverish your family, it will enable your boss to take his mistress to Aruba?
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4. I’m seeing more and more junk emails to my wife Marsha. Marsha, I want you to be part of my money making team. Marsha this, Marsha that. My wife Marsha is practically computer illiterate, although I’ve taught her how to put a new DVD into the computer and push a button to burn it. And although she is always hollering for help, she do really important things, like get into the email and look at new pictures of her grandchildren. But I have no idea of how her name got out there into junk mail internet land. She does get a dozen or so rich kid catalogues from companies from which she never buys anything. Land’s End – L. L. Bean. Would that do it? I’m humble at humblefarmer.com
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5. My question for today is: how will our generation of Americans be viewed by intelligent people 100, 200 and 1000 years from now? If some of the social habits of our ancestors seem strange to us when we read about them now, we can assume that future Americans (and present day Europeans, Asians and Africans) must also see us as being incapable of rational thought. Here is only one example out of dozens that you can think of. Nowadays, a man who cheats on his wife is not considered capable of governing. But a man who consistently lies to his constituents while killing 100,000 women and children knows that people stand and applaud when he enters a room.
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6. Two grandchildren live in Fort Kent, Maine. One end of Route 1 is in Key West. The other end of Route 1 is in Fort Kent, Maine. Key West and Fort Kent are as far as you can go in either direction. When I called Fort Kent on March 19, I was told that they were expecting a storm that would drop at least 19 and perhaps 20 plus inches of snow. They invented winter in Fort Kent. The pictures of the grandchildren that come from Fort Kent, Maine show them playing in snow which is so deep that the kids can sit on top of the top bar of their swing set. In many towns they cancel school if it is snowing. But if they cancelled school when it snows in Fort Kent, there would be no school in Fort Kent. So they put tire chains on the school bus and wind her. As of March 19, they have only cancelled school on two days this winter and they have 7 or 8 feet of snow on the level ground. On the other hand, I was told that Turner, Maine, has cancelled school on 12 days so far this winter. Please do the math and tell me, does this not indicate that they must have six times as much snow in Turner as they do in Fort Kent?
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7. At 8 o’clock this morning I still wasn’t ready to go to exercise class so I stayed home. I wasn’t ready because I didn’t get up until 7 and I didn’t get up until 7 because I didn’t wake up until 7. For months I’ve been waking up at 5:30 or 6 and I could sometimes ride my bike for 8 or 10 miles before going to exercise class at 8. But those good old days are gone. Because the same thing is probably happening to you I don’t need to tell you why I’m not getting up in the morning. The time on the wall clock has changed but the time on your body clock has stayed the same. How long does it take your body to acclimate itself to an hour time change? If I were to venture a guess, your body will be in complete agreement with the clock just about the day that they change the clock again.
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8. Tom Dennen went to Gorham Normal School with me forty years ago. Now he lives in South Africa and writes newspaper articles on economics. In one of his pieces he names the countries that have stopped using the dollar as their reserve currency or have dropped their currency's peg against the dollar. Among them are China, Japan, Russia, Switzerland and a whole raft of others. On top of that there is a list of even more countries that are thinking about abandoning the dollar as their reserve currency. I don’t know a thing about economics. But even a fifteen year old kid can remember back to the good old days when people all over the world loved Americans -- and American money. After we were attacked on 9-11 by some fanatics from Saudi Arabia, we had the sympathy of almost every person in the world. We were the injured party. But then, without fanfare, something very quietly happened to change all that. Now we are arguably the most disliked nation in the world and the value of our money is dropping. I am only one of many Americans who can’t figure out why bad things are suddenly happening to us. Can you tell me?
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9. Here is a letter from Mason who says, “I lived in Maine for 9 wonderful, soulful and eye opening years. I came from the south, no not Portland but Atlanta, and found myself and who I was, in Maine. You were a big part of that. On Friday nights, because my tv had given out and I didn't want to pay for the cable to be strung down our road to my house, I listened to you and then the late Ed Bradley and Jazz from Lincoln Center while I tied my Caddis flies for the upcoming summer. I have since moved away from Maine, but think about it daily and miss it with a broken heart. Today I went onto the Maine Public Radio site to see if I could still hear your show on Friday nights. It made me sad to see that your show was no longer in the line-up. You were the best show on there! The humor and jazz were the perfect ending to a work week. I will miss your show always and look back on it as part of my growing into who I am today. Mason”
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10. The other day a retired English professor in Ohio heard one of my rants on the Internet and gave it a five star review. He said that both the sound and the sense of this interstitial are well worth hearing -- and licensing. Of course, no one has decided to play it on the air. But I still agree with him --- I think that many of the stories I put together for you are well worth listening to. Did you know that Anne Frank’s diary was rejected by 15 publishers before a house finally took a chance and published it? I read that more than 30 million copies are presently in print. It is one of the best-selling books in history. Why is it so difficult to get published? Or aired on the radio and television? I read that a publisher turned down Pearl Buck’s novel “The Good Earth” because Americans were “not interested in anything on China.” Another passed on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” with the excuse that it was “impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.” Think of all the good things out there that people have written that have never been published. If you think about this for a day or so, can’t you bring yourself to believe that there might well be as many good unpublished manuscripts out there as there are published books?
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11. I don’t know anything about fishing but I have a friend who does. There is nothing he enjoys more than dropping a line in the water far, far up there in the great Maine woods. He says pulling in 20 or so little fishes is only part of it. --- Can’t go up there without having three or four moose or a dozen deer come out of the woods and watch him. One day his father mentioned that it wouldn’t hurt to drop a hook along side of the boy and show him how it should be done. And on that day, and on every other day that father went along, they caught nothing. They saw no moose, no deer. They didn’t even see a fox. When the kid went alone, he said it was like being in a zoo. So he could only wonder what his father was using for aftershave. One evening at dusk, they even rode 20 miles along a logging road --- and saw nothing. There is no question but this man repels wildlife. If you can bear witness to similar situation and thereby verify this story, I’m humble at humblefarmer.com and I’d like to hear from you.
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12. Have you ever seen anything on television that didn’t make sense? I think I just heard someone on the news say that some famous Washington lawyer got debarred because he lied to Congress. What a waste of talent. A lawyer who gets to testify at a Congressional hearing is probably one of the best lawyers in the business. You know he’s got to have contacts right up there at the top. If you needed an attorney, would you want one right out of law school who expects to pay off three years of tuition with his first case? Or --- wouldn’t you rather have a lawyer you could talk with about obstruction of justice who could stand up tall and, with shoulders thrown back, say: “Been there. Done that?” True --- you could tell me that he’s going to be so busy working out million dollar book deals with publishers that he wouldn’t be able to give you the time your case deserved. But you listen to me. Even if he can’t practice, this fellow would be worth his weight in gold as a consultant. You’ve got to admire a lawyer who can lie to Congress and serve less time than Paris Hilton.
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13. This morning I was in a building and the sound system was playing a song, “I’m going to yump dumpy dumpy deedle all night long.” I’m deaf so the only words I heard were, “I’m going to yump dumpy dumpy deedle all night long.” Hearing these lyrics, you might well ask why there are so many songs written for children and so few songs written for old folks. Because even though I couldn’t understand all of the words to this song, I do know that the only thing a 71-year-old man wants to yump dumpy dumpy deedle do all night long --- is sleep. 071209 recycled
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Thank you for reading my rants. And thank you for your contribution. Just a tiny amount from you helps with the mailing and office supplies.
Come have supper with us at the St. George farm.
Your buddy humble
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785 River Road
St. George, ME 04860
(207) 226-7442
humble@humblefarmer.com
www.TheHumbleFarmer.com
© 2008 Robert Karl Skoglund