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Rants January 22, 2012

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1. We heard on TV this morning that a man can start losing his mind at the age of 45. ---- Which might go a long way towards explaining why I got married at 52.

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2. If you've been watching the news lately, you know it's pretty easy to get rich. All you have to do is discover a disease nobody has ever heard of and then sell pills that will cure it.

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3. Speaking of incompetence and crime, here's a tip on how you can get along good with your neighbors and co-workers, even though you might be distressed or even outraged by some things you see every day. Smile, close your eyes, and whisper to yourself, "May I have strength to keep my mouth shut for only two more years and 3 months and 6 days when I'm out of here with my pension." Suppose you've just come out of a PTA meeting at one in the morning and you see your next door neighbor's kid letting the air out of the tires on the superintendent's car. Would you tell anyone what you saw? Would you complain? Would you be a squealer? Keep it to yourself if you ever want your neighbor --- or the superintendent --- to speak to you again. Because there's nothing on this green earth that people hate more than a squealer --- someone who rocks the boat --- a whistle blower. Did you see the policeman who ratted on his buddies? They called it breaking the blue wall of silence, or something like that. He blabbed around that some of his policeman friends were stealing drugs and then selling them back to the drug dealers. His boss wasn't too happy about what he'd done. There's even talk about putting that one honest cop who squealed in jail. And then we saw two teachers who were attacked and pounded by violent students. The administration begged the teachers to forget about it, but they wouldn't. They were sick and tired of it. One of the kids is still in jail. You can understand why the boss doesn't like whistle blowers. As long as no one complains, John Q. Public thinks that the boss is doing a good job. Suppose you were a teacher who was thinking about writing a letter to the newspaper saying that for three years many kids in your class had headaches and coughed all the time. Doctors thought it could be caused by mold in the carpets. The carpets should be taken out. Don't do it. The superintendent would probably go through the roof. What you are really saying is that he doesn't have a good grip on what's going on in the school. You see, if he can keep the public from knowing about it, the condition doesn't exist. Suppose the second hand cigarette smoke in your workplace makes you sick. Your co workers tell you that you're crazy because no one is allowed to smoke in the building. And then one day the smoke is so strong that you walk around this huge building to find out where it is coming from. And way over in a secluded corner you find a room where people smoke. And the ventilation fans circulate it throughout the entire building. For years you've asked the boss to take care of this. Is it now time to write a letter to the newspaper? Not if you want to keep your job. Because here in the land of the free and the brave, pointing out substandard or illegal conditions is saying that the boss doesn't have his hands on the wheel. Oh, he can't fire you for that. But you'd have to be pretty simple not to know that within a year or two he's going to find an excuse to put you out on the street. You might be aware of similar situations every day where you or your friends work. But you want to keep your job. So when you see your neighbor's kid letting the air out of somebody's tires, you might want to remember that ancient statue of the three monkeys. You didn't see it, you haven't heard a thing, and you're not going to say a word.

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4. Living on the coast of Maine can be a challenge. Let's take a specific example. What do you do if you live within sight of the famous Olsen house, and 75 yachts from New Jersey anchor beside your back yard? You might look out and think that it's a mighty pretty sight. But if you've seen yachts anchor there before, you know you could be looking at trouble, because most of those people on the yachts are environmentally oriented. That means that they would cut off a hand before they'd throw a can, bottle or scrap of paper overboard. But they've got to get rid of their trash somehow and you know how they do it. They lug it ashore and stack it neatly in your barn. The man who brought this to my attention said that he asked them why they were stacking their trash in his barn. And they said, "What do you do with your trash?" And he said, "I take it to the dump." And they said, "When you go there you can take ours, too." If you've driven through parts of Philadelphia and New Jersey, you probably thought that the people who lived there were responsible for all the ankle deep trash beside the road. But now I can't help but wonder if it isn't recycled yacht trash that some old Maine lobsterman has thrown out on his way to Florida.

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5. A woman, who lives just down the road a bit from here, ordered a bowl of fish chowder in a nearby restaurant, but when she got it she couldn't find the fish. So she made them take it back and put fish in it. Can it be that she had unrealistic expectations? Should she expect to find fish in a bowl of fish chowder? My neighbor says that it's more than a case of a careless cook. And I am inclined to agree that there are deep, dark social forces at work here. Think about it. How much fish do you have to hide among the potatoes in a chowder before you can call it fish chowder? And why should we expect Thomaston people who make fish chowder to have standards that exceed those of the people who make that canned chicken soup you get in stores? Perhaps you're familiar with canned chicken soup. My friend Julian says that there are chickens walking the earth this minute who could have survived most of the canned chicken soup you find on store shelves today, and when people discover that chickens have rights, you'll be lucky to find a bullion cube in there to flavor the noodles. It's obvious that fish also have rights. But, as that St. George woman said, "Why is it that so many of the fish rights people seem to be making chowder in my favorite restaurants?"

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6. Have you seen this new combat thing on TV? I think they call it absolute fighting. It can get pretty messy because you can do whatever it takes to completely destroy your opponent. No holds are barred. You know, my friend Lawyer Crandall could be a world champion --- he's been handling divorce cases for years.

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7. Every time you turn on the TV in the winter, there's a report of how terribly cold it is and it shows people who look like they're freezing to death walking down the street. But no matter how cold it gets, you only see one or two men wearing hats that cover their ears. That's because men of average intelligence are controlled by a thing called fashion. It's a habit that becomes so ingrained when they're little boys that they never outgrow it. Your average man would freeze his ears off before he'd wear a hat and risk comments or surprised looks from his friends. The only men you will see wearing hats that cover their ears in cold weather are those with IQs above 125 or below 75. Because if your IQ is below 75 or above 125 you don't notice what other men are wearing anyway, and you simply dress in a manner that makes your body comfortable. Do me a favor and notice the average fellows with the cold ears and chuckle to yourself the next time you see one in town.

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8. I was not surprised to read in an old Portland monthly magazine that Nathaniel Hawthorne's room at Bowdoin is still in use. They call it the Best Dorm Room in Maine. But can you imagine what would happen if a similar structure housed Maine high school students today? Your typical Maine school official, backed by his contractor friends, would declare it unsafe, unhealthy or too old to be functional. If that wouldn't shut it down, they'd board up the windows and put down carpets --- you know, to get a little mold growing in there. There's lots of ways to convince your average taxpayer to tear down a perfectly good school building if you know how to go about it.

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9. I received a letter from Nigeria. It is dated September 30th. The envelope it came in is postmarked July 30. Africa would appear to be one of the few places remaining in the world where they can mail a letter two months before they write it. The letter is from poorly paid civil servants who invite me to participate in an international business transaction. Can you imagine a man who has paid only $2900 of income taxes in his entire life being invited to participate in an international business deal? There are millions of people in the United States who would like to get in on this, and they chose me. It knocked me off my feet. These enterprising fellows are about to steal $30 million from their government and want me to call or fax them so that they can deposit the $30 million in my bank account. My share will come to $10 million. Now you can probably see that this is the chance of a lifetime. So it might surprise you to hear that I'm going to pass on it. I'm too old to start a new career in international business. I wouldn't even know how to spend $10 million. I'd be like the guy in Union, Maine who won the $6 million in the lottery. The minute he got that cash in his hands, he rushed over to the John Deere place and bought two gallons of green tractor paint.

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10. 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 trapped 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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11. No matter what you have heard on television about how big and roomy the new pickup trucks are, pickup trucks are getting smaller and smaller. One of my friends has one of these so-called big, new American pickup trucks with a snowplow on the front, so I know what I'm talking about. When I was in high school over 60 years ago I was driving the same white 1919 Model T pickup truck that you see me driving every summer. And I can distinctly remember that Roy Swanson and I could sit on either end of that seat, in complete comfort, and right there on that seat between us, there was still plenty of space for Mary Anne Pellicani and Carol Hawkins. If we scrunched up a little bit, and I've got to admit that then it would be crowded, we could make room for John Lantz and Patty Benner. You hear what I'm telling you about pickup trucks. One cold winter night my wife and I spent a leisurely evening visiting friends. When it came time to go home it was snowing wicked and the snow had piled up outside. And my friend said, "There's no way you can get home in this. I'll take you down in the big truck." So he jumped in behind the wheel. And his wife slid in beside him, and my wife slid in beside her. And you know, I had to ride home in the back of the truck.

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12. You may be forgiven if you’ve never heard of the Old Broad Bay Bund und Blatt. The Bund und Blatt is a newsletter about the German Colony established down in the Waldoboro area back around 1742. And many of us who are descended from those original Manks and Overlocks and Hoffseses and Creamers and Hilts and Genthners find it interesting reading. Among other interesting things in an old issue is the diary of Lt. William Farnsworth, who was down Machias way and "set out for home with 2 bottles of gin" on Christmas Eve in 1777. He only made 20 miles the first day because he "spraint" his knee. By January 4th he "could not go no further by reason of a wood A Head 11 miles Long." He ended up coming home by boat. Things don't seem to have changed much in Maine over the past 200 years. If you drive from Brunswick to Machias you'll have to admit that we still have so many trees that if you're more than 50 feet from the high water mark, it's usually impossible to see the ocean .

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