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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for December 7, 2014

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Rants December 7, 2014

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1. Why do I forget something when walking from one room to another? "Scientists who study such matters say the problem is going through the doorway. When we go through a doorway our brains tend to "refresh", wiping out memories and intents of the previous few seconds or minutes." You have heard me talk about this many times. There is no end of Maine women who walk through the door of a bar on Saturday night and forget that they are married.

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2. After looking at a picture of my wife Marsha, my friend Jo wrote on my Facebook page, "You know, you are the LUCKIEST man on Earth, right?" This morning on the news we saw mud in California houses. Were the California people who built beneath a huge pile of dirt unlucky when it finally rained enough to soften the dirt and bring it down on top of them? A couple of nights ago two men tried to cross a body of water in a two-man kayak. We are told that they weren't wearing life jackets. One made it ashore alive. Was the man who is still missing just unlucky? And then there was the three-year-old who found his mother's gun and shot himself. Everyone knows that all adults should be armed to protect themselves. Was his mother just unlucky? After my first wonderful wife fell in love with a lobster catcher and ran off with him, I lived as a single man for over 19 years. What I am saying is that for 19 years I carefully considered my options. Do think that luck could be the result of prudent choices?

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3. I had to celebrate Clark Terry’s 94th birthday. If you have never heard of Clark Terry I will tell you that Clark Terry introduced The humble Farmer radio program for over 20 years. Pull your bear skins a little closer to the fire. If you couldn’t tell the difference between what Clark Terry was playing and what other people were playing, you don’t have any understanding of the thing people call jazz. Listening to Clark Terry play kind of spoils you because after Clark Terry you don’t want to listen to anyone else. I’ve never heard anyone else who even came close. It’s not chops or fingers but the brain. Clark Terry has enriched the lives of thousands of us. He always had time for everybody.

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4. We saw something on television yesterday that was so breathtakingly innovative and unbelievable that --- well, it made the national news. It showed people in China sleeping at their work stations. We were informed that it had been determined that people who were tired worked better after a short nap. Does one need to sport a two-way wrist radio to know that? The educational benefits in a nap was one of the most important things I learned as an undergraduate at Gorham State Normal School back around 1962. My philosophy professor, the great Jim Whitten, stood before our class and told us that if we saw children sleeping in our classes it was because they were tired and needed it. I've always remembered that and I've mentioned it to classes many times. When a kid falls asleep at his desk you don’t know but what he had been up all night nursing his sick grandmother or even tending out on a sow delivering a litter of pigs.

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5. One of the great things about riding a bicycle up and down a private tarred driveway between the orange groves, is listening to my little bird friends. It is my understanding that there are people who can identify a bird by its cheep, and I’m not doubting that. My brother has been into birds for over 70 years and he can probably identify the birds on his farm by their cheep. If you can identify birds by their cheeping, I wish you’d been riding beside me on your bicycle for the past month because you would have enjoyed a veritable feast. Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep. I only mention this because when I rode out on my bicycle this morning the little cardinals and friendly sparrows were strangely absent. I shouldn’t have greased the wheels.

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6. Robert in Brunswick quoted Thoreau when he said, “I make myself rich by making my needs few.” Thoreau was a fanatic. As I recall he threw out a rock on his windowsill and his floor mat because they took up time and space and only collected dust. That might be true. But as we recall, he died as a result of counting the rings in a stump in December. Did you remember my telling you that when we took our test on Thoreau in a literature class at Gorham back around 1965, I walked about the classroom before the examination with a quart bottle of water I dipped out of Walden Pond and anointed all of those requesting it? I can't believe anyone would do anything as silly as that, can you? --- Anointing people about to take a test on Thoreau with water from Walden Pond. Well, perhaps it didn’t do any harm.

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7. I am constantly being bugged by Apria, the company that provides me with my sleep apnea mask. About three times a week I get a recording from Apria begging me to buy something. My friend Karen says: "Our problem is the reverse: our number was previously the number for Apria . . . for almost ten years we've been getting calls requesting oxygen and drugs and stuff." This reminds me of a John Gould story. John Gould says he was fixing something on top of the barn when his wife called him down to answer the phone. It was a man who wanted to buy a woodlot he had seen advertised in the paper. John didn't know anything about a woodlot, but by the time he hung up some man in Boston thought he had bought 175 acres of prime Maine forest for $4,000.

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8. My friend Winky tried to sell vacuum cleaners. He went up to a farm house down in Bremen and when the door opened he said he’d like to demonstrate the very latest in high-powered vacuum cleaners. The woman said to go away because she didn’t have any money for vacuum cleaners. But Winky jammed his foot in the door and asked if she wouldn’t please watch his demonstration, and he took a little can of desiccated horse manure out of his pocket and stuck his hand in the door and dumped it on the hall carpet. Winky said, "If this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of this horse manure from your carpet, I will eat what’s left." Woman said, “I’m glad to hear that because the power company shut off my power this morning.” (090614)

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Marsha and are not into fancy cars. I would imagine from the ads I see on TV, a lot of people must be making a monthly payment to have a newer car than their neighbor. Tim says, “Don't assume that the motive to buy a new car is primarily competitive consumerism. The way cars are built these days, and the way New England winters have always treated them, buying a new car is a strategic move akin to leaping from a rapidly fracturing ice floe to one that has not yet deteriorated.” Tim might well have added, that some men do the same thing with their wives.

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