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Rants April 26, 2009 1. Six Washington County men were recently arrested in a burglary case. In the same paper we read that six men were arrested for crimes in the Rockland area. What has happened to the rugged individualism that we used to boast of here in Maine? Are corporate executives the only people left with the courage to go out and steal on their own?

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2. The email said, “Erase years with anti-wrinkle solution.” Wouldn’t you guess that this ad was written by a young person? Ask old people if they’d rather have their wrinkles removed or have a new liver to replace the one they’ve been using as a sieve for alcohol for 40 years, and see what many of them say. Ask old people if, given a choice, they’d have their wrinkles removed or to be able to sleep 9 hours every night without getting up once. Ask old people if they’d rather have their wrinkles removed or have new joints that didn’t feel as if they were being stuck with an ice pick every time it rains. Why do so many people have to be 70 years old before they can get their priorities in order?

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3. A friend of mine who lives in Nevada wrote to tell me that Nevada is the most dangerous state in the nation. Would you guess that is because gambling casinos are a magnet for any kind of crime you can think of? I Googled to check out my friends figures and discovered that only Vermont and North Dakota can beat Maine when it comes to being an ideal place to live. Please let me repeat that because I want you to remember it the next time you hear someone whining and crying that Maine has an environment that is unfriendly to business. Only two states top Maine when it comes to being an ideal place to live.

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4. Would you like to hear about the dirtiest, most rotten April fool prank to be played in recent years? Someone created a huge for sale sign with a diagram of an 8-house development on it and stuck it up in a huge field, right next to the driveway of some back-to-the-land organic farmers. I can identify with the sickening feeling one gets in the stomach when such signs appear, because 20 years ago while walking in my forest primeval, I saw a survey line cut right through one side of it. My neighbor had surveyed his land and discovered that he owned several acres of land that I’d been paying taxes on for almost 20 years. Because it was no April Fool joke, I ended up borrowing $100,000 to buy the development to preserve it for future generations. Which is why we don’t winter in southern Italy.

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5. I’m not saying this to brag, but I have a new pair of sneakers. If you are a man who has a wife, you might also have new pants or shoes or shirts that you didn’t buy and probably don’t need. You can buy shirts for a dime now at lawnsales, and my favorite pair of shoes only cost $2. But my wife bought me some new sneakers, even though my old ones are just about starting to be comfortable. A rich man who knows anything at all, will buy 6 or 8 or anything when he buys it to make sure when he wears anything out he’ll have exactly the same thing on hand to replace it. These new sneakers are just like the comfortable old ones I have except --- like all new sneakers, they are not comfortable. You might remember my telling you about --- I think it was my friend Julian --- who bought a shirt that was so stiff he threw it out in the driveway and drove over it for two or three weeks to soften to the point where it wouldn’t bruise his skin when he put it on. And a couple of years ago I heard of a man who was looking for an old washing machine so he could throw half a dozen stones in with his shirts and pants until they were fit to wear. You’ve heard that college students are presently preparing for jobs that don’t even exist today and won’t exist for another 5 or 10 years. One of those jobs might be wearing new shoes, shirts and pants for a year --- breaking them in for wealthy people who like their comfort and can afford to pay for it.

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6. Did you laugh out loud the other morning when you heard stock market guru, Jim Cramer, say with belated conviction, “The worst is over”? Back around November 5th you might recall that billions of people all over the world said the same thing.

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7. In years gone by I spent time at the Penobscot Language School on Gay Street in Rockland. As I recall, every Monday from noon until one, there was a little dinner gathering where people ate soup or sandwiches and carried on their conversations in Spanish. From one until two people ate soup or sandwiches and carried on their conversations in German. If you've ever heard Germans talking German, you know that they don't communicate very well. I mean they talk very fast and tend to mumble so you really can't understand much of anything they're saying, unless they happen to be ordering a beer or are complaining about the quality of American kogelschreibers. Americans, however, speak the kind of German that everybody can understand.

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8. It was a tough winter for those who drink while driving snowmobiles and authorities are looking for common characteristics found in men who crack up. Here's one they might want to investigate. My friend John told me that he once saw a guy standing up on a snowmobile, rocking it back and forth, as it shot across an icy pond at 70 miles an hour. It flipped, and the man and his wife were thrown on the ice. When the man stopped spinning, he immediately got up and rushed over to make sure that the snowmobile was OK.

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9. Have you ever been to a stage show? A friend of mine, who just came back from Atlantic City, says that he wanted to sit up close, and was very sorry that he did. He says that up close you can see holes in the girls' stockings. A lot of the dancers were much older than he first thought they were. The illusion of youthful perfection and its attendant happiness was gone. He says it's an awful lot like marriage.

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10. When I went into the Maine State Automobile Registration office to get a paper for a friend, I was surprised to see a large crowd of people waiting there. There was a sign that said, "Take a number." Then you wait for them to get around to you. This is a result of downsizing. You've heard about it. Downsizing means getting rid of useless bureaucrats to save the taxpayers money. As an abstract concept, most people feel good when they hear about less government. But in the real world we have less governmented ourselves to the extent that when you call Augusta to try to find out about something, you very often get an answering machine which refers you to yet another answering machine. So it is now virtually impossible to find out about anything, and when you go in to register a car you take a number and wait. Perhaps you're not old enough to remember when it was fashionable to laugh at the long waiting lines they had in Russia. We always saw pictures of unhappy people standing in these long lines, and underneath it would say, "This is what it's like to live under Communism." The next time you have to stand and wait, remember that it is this less-government downsizing that has advanced our country to the kind of society that the Russian communists were complaining about 30 years ago.

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11. Do you remember hearing me tell about the day in April when the almost perfect woman and I went down to Boston to watch Alison, her oldest, run the Boston Marathon? If you’re standing by the finish line nothing happens for the first couple of hours, but it gets quite exciting when the first runner comes in. He's wearing white pants and he's got the longest, skinniest arms and legs you've ever seen. People scream and holler and jump up and down. And then you wait two more hours. And at last here comes Alison and you jump up and down and scream, "Alison, Alison," and other people start screaming, "Alison, Alison," and she does that Boston Marathon in four hours. Of course, the best part is the next day when you get back to Maine where you can brag to all your friends, that your wife’s kid can run twice as long as that skinny guy with the white pants.

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12. Can you remember things that people said to you 15, 30 or even 60 years ago? I can. Why do we remember these seemingly unimportant and insignificant words and phrases for years? I can remember things that Paul Anderson and Ralph Cline and Mr. Frieder and Bruno Peterson and Alvin Hawkins said over 45 years ago, but most afternoons I can’t remember what my wife told me to do that morning. One day I was coming home from Bangor when the lights in the car behind started blinking. I stopped and jumped out, as did the young man who was flagging me. I said, "You've been drinking." My first impression, kind of struck me in the face. I had to mention it to him. He said, "Only a beer. I saw your name on the back of your truck and had to talk to you. You know, I saw you up at Union Fair in your model T truck 10 or so years ago and you told me that you never learn anything after you're in the seventh grade. I've never forgotten it, and you know, I belive it." Now I know that I never said any such thing, but that is what this young man remembered. What I'm sure I said, because I've said it often, is, "Read everything you can when you're in the sixth grade, because that's when you can remember everything. Your mind is like glue. It's impossible to forget what you read when you're in the sixth grade at school. Every year after that, learning becomes more difficult." That young man didn't remember what I said, he only remembered what he thought I said. So that means that I probably don't really remember what Paul Anderson or Alvin Hawkins said 55 years ago either, which is probably a good thing.

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13. Did you know that obsessive-compulsive urges are now being treated by a computer that you can call on the telephone? It says things like, "If you have to dust the inside of your mailbox before going to work, press one. If not, press two." I understand that the computer is doing good work, but that it is not appreciated by human therapists who are losing millions of dollars to this ignorant machine. I was surprised to read that around 5 million Americans have this obsessive-compulsive behavior. That means that they have certain ritual behaviors they have to perform to relieve their anxiety. These rituals, like vacuuming floors and dusting, can occupy several hours a day and can interfere with normal life. You have a normal life today if you spend eight or ten hours in front of the TV watching soap operas and talk shows. Some women have to wash the dishes before they can go to work in the morning. I call it the Edith Holmstrom-Lonnie Kinney syndrome. No way in the world could they force themselves to leave those dishes there for their husband to wash when he gets up two hours later. Can you imagine what it's like to be married to such a neurotic-compulsive woman? It takes some men twenty years to find one. And then there are the neurotic men whose lives are controlled by compulsions and habits. I heard of one who won't let anyone step on his living room carpet while wearing shoes, for fear of crushing the carpet's delicate fibers. One day a man came to that house to do some kind of home inspection. He was told, right at the door, that he was welcome to come in and inspect to his heart's content, but that he'd have to take his shoes off before stepping on the living room rug. The fellow said, “I’d really like to take my shoes off, but this one is glued to my wooden leg.”

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