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Rants March 6, 2010

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1. Your tip for the week comes from our good friend Robert in Brunswick who says, “Don't eat any sandwiches that have been sitting on the display shelf at the delicatessen for more than a week.” Men who are married don’t need that kind of advice.

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2. I just read that although for an extra $6 some hotels welcome your pet, there are often size restrictions which limit pets to 25 pounds. I don’t understand this, because I have seen 10 pound dogs chew down doors and I have seen pigs that are housebroken. What do you think about that weight limit on pets? What do you think would happen if Union Fair had a rule that said that nothing weighing over 300 pounds would be allowed on the grounds unless it were wearing a halter? There would be much less crowding around the fried dough booths.

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3. We have in Maine an agency called the Maine Film Office. When someone in Hollywood with 50 million dollars wants to film a Stephen King movie in Maine, our Maine Film Office will help them spend as much of that money as possible in Maine. And it came to pass that a movie producer called the Maine Film Office and asked where he could hear what a Maine accent sounded like. Much money was on the line, so arrangements were quickly made for the producer and a writer to quietly visit Tall Barney’s in Jonesport where lobstermen were known to drink coffee and talk. The visitors were told to show up early but to not sit in the center because that was “The Liar’s Table” where the lobstermen sat. The visitors should sit at a nearby table where they could order a coffee and hear what was going on. All went according to plan. The fishermen arrived on time and talked and the Hollywood people sat nearby and listened. But it was a somewhat shaken pair that checked in with the Maine Film Office later in the day because --- they couldn’t believe what they’d heard. For over two solid hours the only thing the lobstermen talked about was golf.

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4. While talking with my friend Julian about the fried dough stand at Union Fair, he said that people were required to buy two seats on an airplane if they couldn’t fit into one. While checking this out, I found The Council on Size & Weight Discrimination which encourages overweight people to make changes in their diet and activity. On a television program called The Biggest Loser, which is arguably the most valuable educational program on television today, dozens of overweight people have proven to the world that with exercise and a proper diet, pounds do fall away. May I testify that in spite of great pain and suffering and complaining to anyone who will listen, for around six years I have managed to abstain from ice cream, pie, donuts, cake, cookies, and almost everything else that makes life worth living. The Weight Discrimination people ask that we do not make fun of overweight people. But is there any topic so sacred or holy that it transcends humorous commentary? I can only think of one and that is the way I talk. In the 1980s and 1990s people who had listened to me on the radio for years and were meeting me for the first time would shake my hand and say with amazement, “What? You really do talk like that?” Yes I do. I don’t think it’s funny and I don’t want to hear about it no more.

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5. I’m one of those Chicken Little types who think that the earth only contains a finite quantity of coal and oil. I honestly believe that if you continually deplete anything that is finite, sooner or later you have none left. I can’t say, however, that I put up solar hot water heaters and solar electric panels just because I love the planet. And I didn’t put them up because within one more lifetime, this planet is going to run out of oil. I put them up because I’m as greedy as the next guy, and even though the experts told me that I’d never live long enough to get my investment back on my toys that collect energy from the sun, I know that someone will. Someday, these things will pay for themselves. So I tried to learn what I could about building homemade solar hot water heaters and homemade photo voltaic panels. Although these things are not expensive to make, it is an expensive process to learn because, in your ignorance, you buy many things that you do not need. And when you have finally gained an elementary understanding of how solar collectors do work, you end up tearing yours apart and building them again to your own specifications.

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6. Here’s a scattering of health tips I picked up Tuesday morning at a three hour first aid course. I pass them along to you as a public service. The nurse teaching the course had just returned from a week in Haiti. She said that nursing in Haiti was easier than working here because all the doctors and nurses working in Haiti had to do was take care of sick people. It was relatively easy because there were no insurance papers that they and their patients had to fill out and sign. The patients had never visited a doctor before so they had no medical records. They didn’t even have homes. Then the nurse told us that diabetes is on the rise among young people in this country. No matter how much exercise young people get nowadays, fast food is destroying their bodies. The message? Salads good. Fast food bad. Did you know that there is a difference between a sprain and a strain? There is, but don’t ask me to tell you the difference. People in southern Florida have fewer strokes than people in northern Florida. This is because the higher the temperature, the thinner the blood which means fewer strokes. Nurses have seen everything and hearing her tell about some of the things she had seen made me grit my teeth and close my eyes and shake my head. Take for instance, this last health tip I’m going to leave you with today: If someone has shut their finger in your car door, do not drive off.

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7. Did you know that one of the big killers in Florida is ladders? That’s what the nurse told us at the first aid class. Old people climb up on ladders and fall off. She talked about the importance of wearing life jackets when people go out in boats. In Maine people would do well to wear life jackets when they drive snowmobiles and cars on the ice.

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8. Some of us tend to make life more complicated than it needs to be. You know what I’m talking about because we both have friends who see simple and straight forward solutions to everything. For example, my neighbor Don, who comes from up in the County, said that it was a waste of taxpayer money to keep people on death row for 15 or 20 years. I told Don about a man who just got out of jail after serving 16 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Don said, “That’s what I mean. That wouldn’t have happened if they’d just shot him.”

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9. Did I tell you about the Italian tourist who had her pocketbook stolen while she was looking at the Liberty Bell?

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10. One of the most useful utensils in any Maine kitchen is the scanner. You can hear all the police news on your scanner. From time to time you’ll hear that a car has gone off the road, and many years ago John Parker told me that if you can get there before the police, you get to drink the beer the driver hid in the bushes. They have scanners in newspaper offices, too, which is why photographers and reporters are sometimes the first people on a crime or accident scene. A while back my reporter friend Art and his recently divorced editor were listening to the scanner in their newspaper office when some lady from Somerville reported an unwanted male in her home. The editor turned to Art, pushed back her chair, and said, "What’s the shortest route to Somerville?"

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11. The advertisement that came in my email said, “UNIVERSITY DEGREE PROGRAMS ---- Increase your personal prestige and money earning power through an advanced university degree. Eminent, non-accredited universities [there’s an oxymoron if you ever heard one] will award you a degree for only $200. Degree granted based on your present knowledge and experience. No further effort necessary on your part. Just a short phone call is all that is required for a BA, MA, MBA, or Ph.D. diploma in the field of your choice. For details, call,” such and such a number. I wonder if they accept counterfeit money.

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12. Not sent. I live 7 houses from where I was born and brought up on the coast of Maine. Maine is a good place to live. I'm proud to live in Maine. In Maine even crime distinguishes itself by being primitive and uncomplicated. In a recent court record, three different people were threatened or attacked with a pitchfork, a sword or a clam rake.

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13. Did I ever tell you about our trip to Israel? We had a free ticket to anyplace in the world so we went to Israel where Marsha’s niece teaches. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, and I no sooner drove our rental car out of the airport at Tel Aviv, when Marsha said, "Israel must really be a safe country. Look at that young girl out there hitchhiking all alone." I said, "My dear, that thing over her shoulder is a uzzi submachine gun."

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14. Have you heard about the man who has been trapped at Charles de Gaulle Airport since 1988? His passport got messed up so he can’t enter France and yet he is unable to leave it. It was written up in the newspaper because the reporter thought it was such a strange and unusual thing. But if you think about it for a minute, and compare this unfortunate fellow to a man who doesn’t get along with his wife, yet has six kids so they can’t afford a divorce, we could probably find several hundred similar cases right here in Maine.

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