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The week of April 7 marked 35 years that humble has made this radio program for you. --- Around 1820 shows. He was a kid of 42 when he started driving to Orono every week to make this program.

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Rants April 14, 2013

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1. You know that you are getting up there in years when you have never heard of most of the people who are very, very famous.

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2. We are sorry to read that a young man just shot himself in the hand but we are not surprised. We are grateful, however, for our friends with guns. For the next few months they will fill to overflowing the newspaper space that in the winter is used to tell us about snowmobiles going through the ice. Does it remind you of Bubba telling Forest Gump about all the wonderful ways you can cook shrimp? "You can shoot yourself in the knee, you can shoot yourself in the foot, you can shoot yourself in the toe..." The most revealing part of this article was the letter below it that --- well, here’s what it said: “The liberal dumming down of America continues! Why do we need NRA firearm safety courses in school? This is why.” Have you heard that big box stores plan to arm employees to make shopping a safer experience for customers? Is it true that the girl scouts in Wisconsin want their members to carry side arms while they are out selling cookies? Another letter beneath this article said, “When i was a corrections officer in Connecticut a man a trained retired gunsmith was working on a friends gun trying to get it unjammed when it went off went through his ceiling and killed his girlfriend who was sleeping upstairs in her apartment.. She died instantly and now he is serving a life sentence.. I guess these things happen …” End of quote. What happened to the good old days when you could write things like this and sell it to the newspapers as satire?

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3. You might guess that I’m speaking from experience here. The secret of keeping a woman happy is not insisting that she stop scraping paint and climb down off the ladder even though it is mealtime. You might guess that I’m speaking from experience here. The secret of a happy marriage is freedom in the truest Tea Party sense of the word --- the Alpha partner does what she jolly well pleases and if you don't want to get trampled stand back and get out of her way.

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4. While eating a very late breakfast I chanced upon the Maury show. If you were to watch a few minutes of Maury your first impression might be that its purpose is to reinforce in the minds of viewers the stereotype of a certain class of uneducated, shiftless people. And quite frankly, I would not want the people I saw screaming at each other on that show living next door to me or even in my town. Be that as it may, next week my wife and I plan to discontinue our cable television and return to the tv company all the little black boxes and switches that facilitate their offerings of cultural enrichment. It is my understanding that we can buy a television screen that we can hook to the Internet. I’ll be able to watch Yale lectures on philosophy. I understand that this screen will have its own antenna which will enable my wife to watch her morning weather report on the local TV channel. Why she cannot completely discontinue the television aspect of our day and get her weather from the Internet still escapes me. You probably know all about this and could tell me what to do. The purchase of a new $200 Internet adaptable television set is a significant investment in our home, so I’d like to get it right the first time. If I find out how to do this, I’ll pass that information along to you next week as a public service.

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5. We read that "Longtime homeowners fear there may be little they can do to stop Popham Beach erosion" Outside of building a dike, wouldn’t you say that they are right? You have read that recent projections suggest a possible sea level rise over the 21st century of between 22 and 79 inches. You can Google up all kinds of information about the rising sea level and sooner or later you will be able to find some scientific facts that agree with what you want to believe. You will probably discover that although experts differ on the amount of rise, they all agree that sea level is rising and that places like New Orleans and Key West probably won’t even be here in a couple of centuries.

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6. For over 20 years I have written and broadcast tens of thousands of words, describing in detail, how to survive being married to a person who must control everything. It can be done if one is wimpy enough, and, outside of not being allowed to contribute to our economic well-being since 1994, I see absolutely nothing bad about having passed my golden years in an environment resembling that of a laboratory animal’s. For example: although I had my shower before she did this morning for the first time in months, she had to mention that I had not yet had my breakfast and that I’d better get at the income tax because tomorrow I had to buy new back tires for the car. These controlling people are never satisfied. They are compulsive organizers and planners. They can and will tell you what they and you are going to do every day for the next week. As the years pass, you forget how to hang a wash, do dishes or make a bed. And after being relieved of the onerous burden of thinking for a few years, your ability to do simple household tasks or make a decision atrophies and becomes as useful as your appendix. You see, most discontent in households is the fault of those who are unable or unwilling to simply say nothing or respond with a smile and, “Yes dear.” In case you tuned in late, may I explain? The key to a happy marriage is compatibility. I am compatible with my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, because she is happy running the whole show and I am happy to let her do it. You have seen marriages between two laid-back people and you know they do not work. Their house is falling down around their ears, there are old lawnmowers and inoperative snowmobiles surrounded by weeds in their front yard and a percentage of their children board with grandma. You have also seen marriages between to people who promise each other that they will “share” in the division of labor in their home. Aren’t they the ones who are divorced after two or three years because of irreconcilable differences? --- The differences being that neither one will accept the responsibility of saying nothing or “Yes dear.” If with these few words I have helped you understand some of the marriages you’ve puzzled about for years, you have made me happy. To give controlling people their due, they do make excellent care-givers for those who are senile and elderly. And those who marry them at a young age won’t even realize that they are senile and elderly when they actually do get there.

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7. I've been married for over 20 years and I do not argue with my wife. If I don't say anything, she very often changes her mind, which, to my mind, makes her a very reasonable woman. In other words, she really doesn't care which way the matter is decided as long as she is the one who has done the deciding. I don't remember of seeing my mother and father argue so I never learned the basics. And in later years I could never see that anyone came out the better for an unpleasant discussion. But there are people who love to stand and try to bring people around to their side of an issue. They see it as a challenge. Not my thing. Not that I don't talk about things concerning the human condition that interest me, but from 35 years of speaking my mind on the radio and years of writing for newspapers, I simply unload it. Here, for your consideration, is what I think, for what it's worth. But I see bickering every day in my favorite newspaper blog where people chew back and forth. And from my reading I believe I've figured out something you were aware of a long time ago, and that is which of any two parties has put forth the most forceful presentation. It is the one who doesn't feel that he or she has to have the last word.

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8. A little nasty commentary here on the level of literacy in Maine. Perhaps you have read that your favorite newspaper deletes some posts that readers post on the newspaper’s blog page and that this has upset a few contributors. Editors at the newspaper are blamed. But in this day and age would it be far-fetched to believe that the posts were automatically deleted by an ignorant machine that could make no sense out of the syntax and orthography?

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9. A word about the economic possibilities of Zumba. A reader writes: “Ever hear of the book "Platon Place" or the Book "Inn At The Crossroads" about Newport Maine. If they write a book it will be a best seller like these other two were back in the 50's. People just love to read dirt about their neighbors and try to figure out who's who.” To my way of thinking, that comment was pretty close to the mark. If you don't think people would buy a book about the famous Kennebunk Zumba case, try to find one television program you want to watch when you have 500 channels to choose from. I saw Peyton Place when I was going to school in Rochester, New York, and I cried when I saw some of my neighbors in the film and the railroad tracks in South Thomaston and the pond in Rockport and the Boston bus in Camden that headed toward Bangor instead of Boston when it pulled out. Don’t expect to see anything like that in The Zumba movie

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