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June 8, 2008 Rants

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1. (080611 PRX) From time to time you see something on television that commands your attention. What would you do if you heard that at least 145 people in 16 states have been sickened by salmonella-tainted tomatoes, and then you looked up at the screen and saw a panic-stricken supermarket employee hauling cases of the deadly tomatoes out of the store on a handcart? I laughed. 145 people get sick and it is prime time national news and they throw the product out of the store? Suppose there was a product on store shelves that killed 400,000 Americans every year. Suppose that the product was responsible for one in every five deaths in the United States? Suppose that the product was sold by our friends who belong to the Chamber of Commerce, and Rotary, and who sit up front in church every Sunday. If there were such a product, what do you think our government should do about it? I bet they’d subsidize it.

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2. Yes, you might have recently heard that more and more women are drinking in the morning and in the afternoon and then driving with their children in the car. I didn’t have to listen to the reasons women drink during the day. You didn’t have to hear them, either, if you ever read that Ring Lardner story called, A Day in The Life of Conrad Green. Might I suggest you read A Day in the Life of Conrad Green. It was in print back around 1926.

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3. Here is a letter that says, Dear humble, I needed to buy a sympathy card recently for someone I truly detest who had a family member pass away. I considered not sending one at all, but was reminded of what my mother always says: "Don't lower yourself to their level". Ok, so off to buy a card. I went to my local dollar store where they sell cards for 2 for $1.00. I call these Markhall cards, with their slogan "When you care enough to spend the very least". The only problem with discount cards like this is the message, which is determined by the price tag on the back. Instead of "Get Well Soon", the cards say something like "Get Well Eventually", or "Get Well Someday". "Happy Birthday" becomes "Have an OK Birthday" or something similar." On the back where the price normally appears there is the following message "If you knew what a cheap so and so I am you would never speak to me again".

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4. Why would you send a sympathy card to someone who is not one of your favorite people when I don’t even send cards to people I really like? I’m not a fan of cards. I don’t believe in sending cards. Sixty years ago my grandmother had a card that she sent back and forth to some friend. My grandmother’s parents were born in Aberdeen so she was 100 percent Scotch. This card was called a Scottish greeting card and it circulated. Every year grammie would get the same card back from the friend that she’d sent it to the year before. And back when I still sent cards to people I used to take a card that someone had sent me and cross the name off the bottom and send that. Why not? Is there anything wrong with crossing the name off a card someone sent you and sending it to someone else? I don’t believe in cards. One card costs what --- a dollar or more now. Who can afford to spend a dollar for a card that someone will look at and then perhaps throw in the trash and not even the paper recycling bin? Be honest with me. On your birthday or Christmas --- wouldn’t you much rather open the envelope and find a dollar bill instead of a card?

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5. Because my wife Marsha won’t put down the latest Village Soup until she reads every word in it, I’m writing this without printed reference. But as I recall, she said that half of the people stopped by the police in Knox Country last week were cited for not wearing a seatbelt. Marsha guessed that the fines for not wearing a seatbelt were substantial --- and even more for the second offence. It was almost 40 years ago that Mr. Miller at the Rockland Plymouth garage handed me the keys to a new car so I could teach Rockland high school students how to drive. I couldn’t have been much of a teacher, because a couple of years ago I heard that one of my former students broke his neck in a crash because he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. His uncle, who was driving and wearing a seatbelt, came out of it unscathed. Back around 1970 one went to UMO for a week or two and took a course that entitled one to teach driver ed. In Orono we were shown statistics that proved you stand a better chance of surviving an accident if you are wearing a seatbelt. I was already a believer because --- well, let’s back up five years or so. My wife and I were heading north in our new Mike Cramer VW and were right abeam of Rockland’s Strand Theater when a car door opened in front of us. I hit the brakes. We stopped dead. At 10 miles an hour my wife’s head broke the windshield. Since then I have been a seat belt nut. A fanatic. I even buckle up before driving my truck down to the back field. Twenty years ago I produced television commercials for the Maine Seatbelt Coalition when we were trying to get people to buckle up. To be fair, in pushing this legislation I was only thinking about myself: why should my insurance rates be higher just because some macho super stud required expensive rehabilitation simply because he wasn’t strapped in his seat when his car flipped over? Perhaps you’ve also seen all the statistics on seatbelts and wonder why they aren’t installed on trains and busses. Especially school busses. You’re probably not old enough to remember that Greyhound bus that flipped down Damariscotta way a while back.

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6. Oh, and I even spoke, as a survivor, at the National Seatbelt Coalition in Washington, DC. A Belfast fire engine coming home from a fire ran a stop sign on Route 3, took me broadside, and flipped my Saab end for end three times. Only because I was strapped in, was I able to play for a dance that night with Henry Lunn at the Camden legion. The next time you stop by my place ask to see that piece of Swedish seatbelt steel that kept me from breaking my neck. The steel is as thick as your thumb but was bent right sideways when my body was yanked against it with who knows how many Gs. But --- in spite of all the facts and statistics --- and laws --- many of our neighbors continue to drive without seatbelts. Their names are printed and distributed for all to see. The top race car drivers wear seatbelts so risking one’s neck while breaking the law in Maine can’t be a macho thing. Perhaps you have already figured out why so many would rather pay a fine than snap on a seat belt. But wouldn’t you think there might be a less expensive way to develop name recognition?

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7. How often do you have a good laugh? I mean really roaring? I was really laughing the other day. Richard Sassaman sent me a tape of this program for January 6, 1993 and I laughed and laughed at the things the man was saying between Serge Chaloff and Bob Baird. You understand that I can’t very well remember telling, on January 6, 1993, about the gorilla who saved a zoo keeper by performing the Heimlich maneuver, so this was like listening to 60 minutes of great music and very funny commentary that I was really hearing for the first time. I was reading you excerpts from a paper called the Tabloid Tattler --- a paper so good that it could not possibly succeed. Years ago when I used to make this program --- way back when Maine Public Radio’s studios were still in Orono --- I used to make myself a little cassette tape to save. I never listened to any of them but I’ve got a couple of hundred of them in a cardboard box in my office. Do you have a box of old humble tapes under your bed? If I ever live long enough I’d like to burn my old cassettes onto CDs so I can play them when I need a laugh. In 1993 I was telling about Liz Taylor giving advice on how to be happy with your spouse. A parallel in the animal kingdom would be a fox giving a lecture on the merits of vegetarianism. 050211

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8. Scott writes: Hello humble, I hope you are doing well. It is usually considered bad form to send large attachment on e-mails. I suspect that many of the people on your e-mail list are using dial up Internet access or have limited e-mail inbox sizes. A 5 MB attachment will lead to very slow e-mail downloading and full inboxes. Scott in South Portland I’m sorry about that. The attachment I sent was such a good thing I thought most people would enjoy it. I forget that some people are still on dial up although I can remember what a horror dial up is. I suppose dial up is like the new tvs that we are supposed to get next year. All the old ones will not work. I saw a friend who has the new TV and it is fantastic. Too bad there isn’t anything on there to watch. Yes, I know, but I’m not talking about my television program because you can throw a blanket over the television screen and enjoy my television program just as much even if you don’t watch it. A year or two ago a friend was sending me so many big files that shut down my computer I had to get my guru to shut him off, so I know what you’re saying about annoying big files. Because I might send out a big file like this again, should I ask friends if they want to be taken out of my machine? I don’t want to shut down anyone’s system. I know how I growl and snarl when it happens to me. It isn’t often someone sends me something so good on video that it should be out there, but once every month or so it can happen. Within two days I happened to get two of them. So, Thanks for telling me about this. I would never have thought about it otherwise. I’m humble at humblefarmer.com

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9. Here is a very interesting letter from Frederic. Among other things, he says, “… a friend was driving me home after Christmas. He looked over his shoulder and noticed 5 movie theatres on the same street all closed and gone out of business, and asked about it. "Did I just see 5 movie theatres all closed?" "Yes." "Why?" "It`s because in the 60`s and 70`s and early 80`s when these theatres were losing some viewers to TV, they decided to show dirty movies to improve attendance. And when this lowered attendance badly they decided to show even dirtier movies than before wherefore all the rest of the viewers fled the viewing habit and all 5 movie houses went out of business with absolutely no people going. Gee! That`s just like big network- style TV, what the FCC and Hollywood wants and more. I never thought of that analogy, right here in town, right under my nose." And so it is that the Motion Picture Association of America, the FCC, some foreign companies who want to steal more shows and movies, Congress, Hollywood, and some other associations want forever to take away Rural TV`s education, mom and pop TV stations` operations, and the least germ of decency to the viewers, replaced by the hungry greed of their greasy fist racket.” Well --- isn’t that an interesting letter? You heard me say years ago that when Marsha’s father, my buddy Bill, lived with us, he subscribed to a television package that gave him 70 or 80 channels. But when he died Marsha cut it back to the fewest number channels she could get, --- 15 or 20 --- just so she could get the morning news and weather, because 80 times nothing is exactly the same as 15 times nothing. No, it won’t take the big guys long to shut down our rural television --- our local cable stations. Local cable will go the way of what used to be public radio. All it takes to have corporate America to shut down any station, is to have someone on there saying something intelligent that people want to hear from time to time.

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10. I recently Googled suicide doors because I once had a 39 Plymouth. And when you Google anything, there is another commercial side bar that automatically opens up on the side. This time it said, “Suicide Doors. Huge selection. Great deals on everything. eBay.com” --- Yes. You know me. You know I had to Google “backhouse” to see how the privy market is holding up. I was educated again because the pop up ad on the side bar said, “Sexy Backhouse Singles. View photos, personals and hot profiles.

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11. Here’s a letter that says, Hi, Humble, we were in Paris last year and the deGaulle airport is terrible. We were in long lines waiting to get through customs and "friends" of officials were pushed ahead. Since I am fluent in French, I chastised one of the officials and told them they were very inefficient. I did not get pulled out of line as I did in Boston for stating that the search they conduct is unconstitutional. There was no smoking in the airport that I was aware of (I am very sensitive to cigarette smoke) Aurevoir, Suzanne That is a very nice letter from Suzanne. But, those of us who have had dealings with Parisians certainly suspect that Suzanne’s French was probably more painful to their ears than hearing someone say that they were inefficient.

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12. I didn’t start to learn French until I was around 65 years old and at present I can read French on perhaps a sixth grade level. In other words, I can read, with a startling amount of comprehension, Harlequin Romances and the French subtitles we get on three television channels. Of course I can’t understand spoken French --- unless it is on a tape or CD or, even easier, an American speaking French. Because no one can understand a French person speaking French. But --- I started to learn French after accidentally getting off a train in a small town in France, being trapped there overnight, and almost starving to death. Right then, when I came home, I started to learn French. Knowing what a cheerful, friendly person I am, it might surprise you to hear that I was studying French just to be spiteful. I was learning to speak French just to be nasty. I was resolved to learn some French just so --- the next time I was in France --- the French would have to listen to me talk French with a Maine accent.

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