+

Rants December 26, 2010

+

1. A friend of mine went to Germany. After three weeks she discovered that although she had not yet learned to speak German, she had learned how to speak broken English.

+

2. On Christmas morning I sat down at the piano and said that I was going to sing a Christmas song. “Heartaches without number, Christmas Day alone, she ran off with all the meat and left me with the bone.” My wife Marsha said that that was not a Christmas song. But --- I very quickly pointed out that when it comes to country and western music no holiday transcends unmitigated disaster.

+

3. You might have read in a newspaper that in December it is time to share 14,000 miles of snowmobile trails with 100,000 friends, most of whom will hopefully be sober. We read that snowmobile speedometers are notoriously inaccurate and when it reads 100 you might only be going 95. Sledders are advised to pack a survival kit which should include food, drink, matches, a flashlight, a map and bandages. You should not be surprised to learn that seasoned Maine people can articulate vivid, unprintable sentiments when asked about Maine winter sports. Their opinions are shaped by experiences encountered in early life. When I was 15 I worked in a garage. The school bus needed a new rear end and I can remember lying on my back in a snow bank while taking out that rear end because the bus wouldn’t fit into the garage. I also remember standing watch on the bow of a buoy tender at 2 AM one January morning half way between Southwest Harbor and Moose Peak. Young people, outfitted by LL Bean, who cheerfully roar up hill and down dale on their snowmobiles, have never truly experienced Maine winters. Long before I start to drool, my wife will know when I should be declared non compose mentis because I will call my friend Lawyer Crandall and ask him to take me snowmobiling in Millinocket.

+

4. You have heard me talk about it. And even though it is really nothing to be proud of, I am not ashamed of it. Three times a week I stand in front of a television set and for an hour I jump up and down and wiggle my arms in time to music. When I say I am in front of a television set that is just what I mean. Even with two hearing aids, if I’m not right on top of the machine I’m not going to hear the skinny woman on the screen barking commands. And because I’m in the front row at this exercise class, I’m really not sure of what the 20 or so ladies are doing behind me. I do know that this exercise class is like most any other exercise class you are likely to see anywhere, because the tiny little bird like ladies who attend this exercise class religiously do not look anything like the people who really should be there. So --- you might well ask --- what motivates ladies to get out of a warm bed early, early in the morning and then show up at a building where they try to jump out of their skins for an hour? I’m going to tell you, because this morning, for the first time, I turned and looked over my shoulder --- and saw them passing around a small tin of chocolates.

+

5. Here’s a letter from a radio friend that says, “When I was in the Army a buddy gave me a Roman Coin that he picked up when he was invading the beach in North Africa. Our kids took it to school for Show 'N Tell and lost it! I had saved it for over thirty years and was a prized possession.” Would you put into the hands of a child anything you ever wanted to see again? Would you put into the hands of anyone anything you wanted to see again? Over a year ago I loaned out a French book to a classmate. Unfortunately, I don’t know where he lives. The only way I’m going to get that French phrase book back is to stand outside of the church where he preaches and follow him home.

+

6. When Maine’s governor elect LePage said he was hiring his young daughter right out of college at a starting salary of $41,000, I recalled that Newton and Einstein were also doing well by the time they were 22. And don’t you recall hearing that Edison sold his stock machine for $40,000 when he was 21. You know as well as I do that some young people are worth whatever you have to pay them. And if you've been around a bit you also know that no amount of age or experience or wealth seems to keep other people from being incredibly incompetent bumblers. Perhaps you've even worked for one and are all too familiar with the kind of person I’m talking about. If she's the LePage daughter who couldn’t afford Bates or Colby and went to college in Florida, at least she knows where not to spend Christmas vacation, and that's a good start right there. Why should we begrudge anyone earning $41,000 a year? Shouldn't you and I and every other American be getting at least that much? Forty grand is much less than you'd get for cleaning lavatories in many progressive countries. And over there they throw in health insurance and a good retirement. If nothing else, she has proven that young Maine people do not have to go to Europe to get a decent paying job. I wish her well.

+

7. Speaking of cats, why do we so seldom read about humans infected by toxoplasma gondii? If you enjoy petting and kissing your furry little animal, you probably don’t like to think that your pet could have eaten a diseased rodent and contacted a disease like toxoplasma gondii that can be passed along to you. Even worse than the sound of toxoplasma gondii is what it does to our cat lover friends. Toxoplasma gondii messes up the mind. There is a six fold increased risk of traffic accidents among infected males. And pregnant women should avoid coming in contact with cat litter boxes, because the protozoa can cross the placenta and cause stillbirth or other serious physical or psychomotor defects. I’m passing this along to you as a public service. Oh, right after I posted this comment on my Facebook page a man wrote back to me: “My son has this...one of the reasons I DON'T LIKE CATS!!!.”

+

8. A few years ago a friend gave me a crash course on how to pick up women. At the time he imparted this information I was married, but very astutely realized that many young men would pay to have it. So we sat down by a mike and spent an hour or so reviewing and recording the more salient points of picking up women wherever you might be. Like building a bomb or choreographing an elaborate ballet, it is an exact and almost infallible science. When I transcribed the whole business later, I had several pages of 12 point type. But --- by the time my friend came around later to help me polish the document I realized I had a dangerous, powerful tool in my hand. From what you’ve seen on TV you know that bad guys can already cause enough trouble without adding to their bag of tricks, so I’ve abandoned this branch of the social sciences. Because this information might be misused to hurt someone, I don’t feel it would be morally right for me to blab it around. So it was inevitable that my voluntarily suppressed pamphlet on how to pick up women came to mind when I heard that a man was arrested for selling a how-to pedophile book. You might have also heard that the lawman who arrested him keeps a Bible on his desk. Did you ask yourself which of the two books has caused the most death and destruction? Anyway, one day while thinking about my little how-to pick up women pamphlet, I asked a very smart woman if there were any special techniques women use to pick up men. She said, “You look them in the eye and snap your fingers as you point at the floor in front of you. When they walk over, you pat them on the head.”

+

9. Here’s a letter from radio friend David who says, “I heard a report this week that the high school graduation rate at Deer Isle-Stonington High School was 57 percent. Just goes to show you how bad off the fishing industry is these days ... if the fishing was good the graduation rate would be down to about 25 percent.”

+

10. Here’s an email I got from my college friend Tom. It contains a link that says, “Sixty million American peoples jobs, pensions and property are moving into the hands of the already rich.” What is all this nonsense about the rich getting richer? Why would any American who can read bother to open such a link? Although some Sumerian scribe first made note of the phenomenon 4,000 years ago, no matter where they were, long ages before that a few folks always ended up with most of the property. The laws of society have always been as inviolate as the laws of physics: wealth floats upward into the hands of the very rich just as sure as oil floats to the top in water. This is facilitated by the time-honored precedent of letting people earn just enough to keep them from sharpening their spears. You’re right --- throughout history in almost every land several clever, rapacious people emerge to run things like a poker game: sooner or later one throws down his cards and says, “The game is over. I’ve got it all.” But you and I are too smart to flop over and be sheared like sheep. In this land of the free there is no possible way we’d let any amount of money buy our votes, the media, private armies, the White House, both houses on Congress and the Supreme Court. Sixty million American people’s jobs, pensions and property moving into the hands of the already rich? Bah, humbug. It simply can’t happen here.

+

11. Here’s another email that I’ve got to tell you about. She starts out by telling me how Christmas exhausted her. She did this and she did that and she ran here and she ran there and so and so came to visit. The letter ends with the observation that she could have used a foot massage at the end of the day, and “Guess I must be getting old.” Let’s talk about what some people call “getting old.” Do you have friends who flop down in front of the TV with chips and beer and then blame old age when their feet hurt? No matter how tall you are, adding one pound a year will eventually make you uncomfortable. It will be difficult for you to do the simple everyday things you once took for granted. The bad news is that you can easily put on weight without the help of fast food restaurants. What do you think would happen to our friends who say they feel old if they were to eat two apples, drink two quarts of water and walk five miles every day? Oh yes, they’d soon cry and complain --- that they didn’t keep all the clothes they were wearing when they were 20.

+

12. You might have read about the man who was caught stealing Christmas toys that had been donated to the Salvation Army. If you saw the reader’s comment that said, “Whoever can do that is absolutely the lowest form of low life” you might have wondered when that reader last bought medicine or insurance. Corporate America steals from the poorest of the poor, but you seldom see the issue addressed in a newspaper. In a follow up of the story of the toy theft we read, "Online comments on Wednesday’s initial story ... were venomous." --- Blog readers probably mistook him for a liberal.

+

13. We read on our favorite blog that two intoxicated women were found by police lying on the sidewalk in front of the Cactus Club. What’s the big deal? Lying is no felony unless they were under oath.

+