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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for June 8, 2014

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1. I look at my trees in blossom but I see not one bee. The bees have gone. But the bees have been replaced by ticks. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the lack of bees and the infestation of ticks. It is obviously the fault of daylight saving time.

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2. Did you hear that hear that an American soldier who is a prisoner is being exchanged for some foreign prisoners who are locked up at Guantanamo? They call these people who are locked up in Guantanamo terrorists or insurgents. I know nothing about this prisoner exchange other than what I read in a headline. But I do know that if Peru invaded St. George --- and dropped a bomb on my house that killed my wife --- I would break out my single shot 22 and become a "terrorist" or an “insurgent” and I and would hide in the woods and shoot at the foreign folks driving their military vehicles across the rhubarb in my back yard. What would it take to make you change from a law-abiding citizen into a wild-eyed terrorist/insurgent?

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3. There is a small wastebasket beneath the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Because in 1970 I asked my father to put a bathroom in a former closet, the bathroom is small in this 1811 house and there is no room on the wall for a rack for the toilet paper. Although, now thinking of it, it could be attached to the door. But, at present, the toilet paper lives on top of the water tank of the toilet. Yesterday Marsha asked me if I knew that I had thrown the roll of toilet paper into the wastebasket. Either I have reached the age where I am unaware of some of my actions, or Marsha is weaving a web of fantasy that will pave the way for my eventual premature commitment. Stay tuned. Thank you for listening.

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4. We have an elderly friend who is forgetful. One morning she called to ask if Marsha remembered that she was going to take her to the store, even though Marsha’s car was already parked in our friend’s driveway. Another day our friend spent quite a bit of time looking for a flag that she had just rolled up and put in the corner while complaining that she couldn’t understand who kept taking her things. As unfortunate as this sounds, the problem is even more acute along some sections of the Maine coast where women in their early 30s walk into a local tavern and immediately forget that they already have husbands.

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5. One morning I was in a building and the sound system was playing a song, “I’m going to yump dumpy dumpy deedle all night long.” I’m deaf so the only words I heard were, “I’m going to yump dumpy dumpy deedle all night long.” Hearing these lyrics, you might well ask why there are so many songs written for children and so few songs written for old folks. Because even though I couldn’t understand all of the words to this song, I do know that the only thing a 78-year-old man wants to yump dumpy dumpy deedle do all night long --- is sleep.

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6. You’ve heard me say that I haven’t been able to go to the movies for years. 25 or so years ago I went to the movies with Julian and his wife Peggy and every time some character would say something important, they’d bring up that background music so neither Julian nor I could hear what was said. We’d both ask Peggy and she’d repeat it first on one side and then on the other, and I’d very likely laugh and look up just in time to see someone being strangled. Why do they put that background music in movies so you can’t hear what people are saying? Now you might have noticed that some producers are putting background music behind the stories they tell on the radio. If I want to hear people telling a story that I can’t understand because of the music in the background, I’ll listen to La Bohème.

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7. Google is a wonderful thing. How else would I have learned that some scientists have discovered how to make teeth fillings out of the same polyethylene fibers used in bullet proof vests? If you are old enough, you can remember seeing superman catch bullets in his teeth and spitting them back at the bad guys. Now, with her enhanced technological prowess, your average great-grandmother will be required to have her jaws licensed as a lethal weapon.

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8. You might not guess it, but I'm really nothing but a party animal. The other night I said to my wife, "Let's go out and have some fun tonight." She said, "Good idea. Leave the light on if you get home before I do."

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9. Not too long ago a Rockland High School senior drove a Camden freshman girl home from a dance. On the doorstep she leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, “Please don’t tell anyone that you brought me home.” He said, "Don't worry, I'm just as ashamed of it as you are."

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10. The John Birch Society has a sign near my house in St. George, Maine. I have been told that John Birchers are anti-Communist. This means that they don’t buy anything that comes from China, because they know that every cent those rotten Chinese commies get is another nail in the coffin of American democracy. And when you think about it, now is a good safe time to be anti-Communist because you don't see all that many of them around. Communists are almost as scarce as Maine people who will admit that years and years ago they were suckered into voting to enter a School Administrative District.

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11. Years and years ago a most unpleasant man moved here from Boston. After putting up with his foolishness for two or three years, one of the local boys thought he'd encourage this guy to move back to Boston. So late one night this kid came up behind the man as he got out of his car, stuck a gun in his ribs, and robbed him of three dollars and fourteen cents. The next day that man moved back to Boston. We were all glad to see him go, but not one of us was pleased with the way the kid had gone about it. And the next time I saw him I chewed him out for scaring the man to death. He said, "Scared? Don't you know nothing about city people? They aren't afraid of holdup men. When that Boston man felt my gun in his ribs, he got just plain homesick."

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12. Years and years ago, long before the Internet, I wrote a humor column which appeared in over fifty newspapers. I used to go around and see Julian Rubenstein and lawyer Crandall and Ed Coffin and Jimmy Parker and Richard Warner and listen to what they had to say and write it down in the little notebook that you still see me carrying in a pocket on my right pantleg. You should please understand that I wrote fiction. That means I made up wild, improbable stories about people who didn't exist. You have to be very careful to get your facts straight when you write fiction, because otherwise the people you are writing about will call up and complain.

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13. A Friendship man, who was trying to chop down the door to his ex wife’s house with an axe, cut himself and had to have 20 stitches taken. Although he was unavailable for comment, his wife said, “He never could do nothing right.”

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