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Rants November 22, 2009

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1. And it came to pass that I cut down a couple of huge cherry trees that had died on the stump and I used my chainsaw to peel off all the soft rotted bark and wood on the outside. And I got to thinking that you could compare me with a half rotted cherry tree. Once you get it cleaned up it will get you through a cold night.

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2. The Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine has come and gone and it was to my way of thinking one of the best fairs ever because I got to talk with you and so many other friends. This year I spoke with not dozens but hundreds of radio friends. My most unforgettable moment? I was talking with 6 or 8 friends when another couple showed up. Nice looking young girl around 25 – 30 and her friend. She looked at me and said, “Hot.” And of course being deaf I leaned toward her and said, “What.” And she said, “Hot. You are hot. I have listened to that sexy voice for years but I had no idea that you were such a…” and she licked her lips and kind of moaned and squirmed with her entire body. And I said, “What do you do?” And the fellow with her said, “She doesn’t have a job yet. They just let her out yesterday.”

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3. What do you do? That is the question I asked you at the Common Ground Fair. One beautiful young girl told me that she was an actress. I almost laughed in her face. I said, “How in the world can you make a living in Maine as an actress?” She said, “My husband is a doctor.”

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4. I was telling my friend Dan about the Common Ground Fair. Everybody goes to the Common Ground Fair and everyone enjoys watching the little border collie dogs that herd the sheep. Dan said, “Ugh. Don’t ever get a border collie.” He said that he was once with a bunch of dog walkers out in the woods and without noticing what had happened the border collies had herded all their owners together. They were all so close they were touching --- shoulder to shoulder and chest to chest. I hope you lonely young people in big cities are listening.

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5. I heard it on the noon news. “As more and more of our college graduates move out of state, business owners in Maine are wondering what they can do to keep their work force.” Here’s a simple answer that no business owner in Maine has ever considered. Pay --- them ---- a --- living --- wage.

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6. (prx) All I know about this is what I heard. You know that I never gossip about my friends and neighbors but I can’t wait to tell you about this. Well ---it seems as someone got blind drunk and then staggered off, bare butt naked, and tried to start a fire on the floor of a nearby woodshed. Upon hearing this I quickly whipped out the little notebook you’ve seen me carry on my right pant leg. I wrote down the following salient points. Please listen closely. The property owner heard the commotion outside and dialed 911. By this time, the drunk’s friends had found him and put out the fire. Meanwhile the drunk had run off into the woods, still bare butt naked. Later, a fireman reported seeing him out on the main road so the property owner once again called 911, this time to alert the sheriff. And what do you think the dispatcher said when she was told that a naked man was staggering down the road? “Can you give me a description?”

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7. People from away don’t understand how we do things here in Maine. You probably know that I have 150 or so rhubarb plants. I used to give away a lot of rhubarb. But my friends didn’t want to take it when I said it was free, so I started snapping a rubber band around a handful of it and putting it on a chrome plated farm stand out by the road. You get it by the bunch, because if I ever put it out by the pound, even though it might be 8 grams over, (a lot of my neighbors think in terms of grams) --- even though it might be 2 grams over, there would come a day when someone would howl that it was one gram short. But a bunch is a bunch. One day, a man from away was watching me snap it off, cut off the huge leaf, and put the stalk on the five by five inch top of an ancient blue spring scale that I carry down to the rhubarb patch. Every once in a while I’d snatch it up, snap a rubber band around it and throw the bunch aside. The man watching said, “That scale don’t work.” Of course it works. When I can’t get no more on the top of the scale and it starts to fall off, you’ve got a bunch.

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8. You’ve heard me tell about the very determined vacuum cleaner salesman who knocked on a door down Harpswell way. The woman who answered said that she didn’t have time to look at any vacuum cleaners, but the salesman stuck his hand in through the door and emptied a small can of desiccated cow manure on her carpet. He said that if his machine didn’t pick up every molecule of that cow manure, he would eat what was left. And the woman said, “I’m glad to hear it. Central Maine shut off my power yesterday.”

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9. You might remember that I like beans and spaghetti and could happily eat them every day until the day I die. You’ve heard me say it over and over again. Now, please hear this letter from Brent: Dear humble, I do find you unusually paradoxical since your erudition, intelligence and academic history come across loud and clear on your show. You have a voracious passion and understanding of the social and cultural happenings around you, which are most often associated with sophistication and depth of knowledge/wisdom.....Whereas your culinary interests seem very basic and working class, that harken to your youth, years of bachelorhood, addiction to your desk top, poverty, an artist caught up in the thrall of his muses??? --- Thank you Brent. My discriminating taste when it comes to meals also applies to women, and is not regretted when I look around and see friends who were obviously hooked by their first entre.

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10. Speaking of what I eat. Over the past 31 years you’ve had a chance to learn a lot about me. You even know what I like to eat. You know that there are culinary thrills that I’m saving for my 80s and 90s. There are some foods that I plan to taste for the first time on my 80th birthday. Pea soup and things like that. Liver. Tripe. Up at the CGF. Asked for question Woman said, h, when are you going to start eating potato salad?

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11. (prx) Who hasn’t heard of Oil of Olay? There is no question in my mind, that if a woman uses Oil of Olay between the ages of 30 and 50, at the age of 50 she will have the same complexion she had at 30 --- as long as she doesn’t smoke and has never exposed her skin to the sun. I present to you this evidence that women who use Oil of Olay do so with the understanding that it is not a panacea and that eventually more drastic steps will be necessary. Please listen closely. A woman who was in a remarkable state of preservation recently sat at our breakfast table. One wondered why this woman was traveling with a man old enough to be her father, until it was revealed, with fanfare, that she was 55 years old. I was not surprised that anyone 55 could look so much younger, and to prove my point I brought up the web page that contains pictures of my Radio Friends and showed her a picture that was taken of me when I was 55. I looked like a little kid. I told her that she would soon discover, as I did, that there comes a day when crow’s feet do come home to roost. I told her that I didn’t know exactly when it happened, but on one quiet, unannounced day within the past 15 years I suddenly looked my age. And that woman smiled at me and said, “Well, that’s why they made paper bags.”

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12. Speaking of paper bags and dry, dry humor --- oblique commentary --- I spoke in Denver last week. Here’s a story I got on the site --- I made up some of it --- of course half of all stories are true. I made up and told this story that nobody seemed to get. I thought it was clever --- you know dry. I still think it is a good story. The man who hired me, Dr. Mark, told me he had a lot of pets. Cats, dogs. And I kind of looked down my nose and said, in Maine I only have pets that I can eat. And he said, “My you are provincial, aren’t you?”

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13. Last night I was shocked --- no, I was horrified when I looked into the wash basin and saw half a dozen hairs in there about three inches long. --- I’d just finished washing my feet.

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