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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for March 29, 2015.

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1. What do you do when missionaries of any persuasion knock at your door? I treat them just like I do all of my friends and eagerly invite them in and lecture on the benefits of solar energy until they beg to leave. When I mentioned this to my friend Peg, she said, “I simply tell them I've already been saved, and close the door. I used to tell them I was an atheist, but that only encouraged them.” You know, I should try that because nobody comes to see me anymore.

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2. Long time radio friend Dr. Olga says the ability to text with a cell phone enables one to deal with criminals out of context. She says, “I text with my son even when he is in the room sometimes as it eliminates the tone of voice problems we sometimes have.”

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3. Do you remember your first computer? When I heard that a computer would quickly print addresses on 5,000 envelopes, I got one. It was a state of the art labor-saving piece of equipment that stored data on cassette tapes. Each tape contained the data for 200 or so envelopes. You’d print 200 envelopes and change the tape. While printing it would emit an occasional tone to indicate that all was well. It is probably a museum piece now and I am awaiting offers.

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4. Not long after I got my first computer, Sam Pennington, who published the Antique Digest in Waldoboro, was good enough to let me get my first look at the Internet over his shoulder in his office. It was nothing but columns of numbers. I don’t know why I felt I needed it, but I signed up for Internet service with the only company then available which might have been in Waterville. Do you remember the first time you ever saw the Internet? I’d like to hear about it. I’m the humble farmer at gmail dot com.

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5. One morning Marsha and I drove 27 or so miles to hear Peter Tufts Richardson speak. He is a scholar who exudes erudition and knows more about religion than anyone I know. I looked forward to his presentation. I spoke to the man at the keyboard at stand-and-greet and told him he had a nice touch. He was probably surprised that anyone could tell the difference between a piano player and someone who caressed the keys. Stan Walsh could do it. Come to find out we have a few people in common as he is a Berkley man who came out afterwards to my car and we talked music until he had to rush in to play the 11 o'clock service. He couldn't tear himself away. He knows the man who first told me how to hold up a bass in 1957 and the man who used to tune my piano. Years ago I had to quit playing because of all the smoke in the rooms. I remember when they banned smoking at the Samoset. I was so eager to start playing there again. But when I got there after the smoking ban went it, they had lit candles on each one of the tables. If I had lit up a cigarette in church this morning, I might have been asked to put it out. But before Peter got to speak they started lighting candles, so I had to leave. I live on cough drops under normal conditions, but that church service would have finished me had I stayed. I married a couple one time but couldn't attend their reception because of all the stinking candles on the tables. When a drunk dies with cirrhosis of the liver, all his buddies get together in a small room and drink beer in his memory. When a Unitarian dies with lung disease, all of his buddies get together in a small room and light a candle in his memory.

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6. Yes. I recycle. From time to time you hear me repeat something that you heard me say weeks or years ago and that is what you are going to hear now. The dirtiest hotels in the world. That was what the junk email said. Of course I had to Google The dirtiest hotels in the world so I could see where they were. Number one is in San Francisco. Let me read you a sample of the reviews: “First and foremost no one should ever walk into a hotel only to find prostitutes walking around the inside.” Think about this. What reason would anyone have to complain about a prostitute who was on her feet?

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7. You have seen movies where the hero and the girl struggle up out of an ash filled volcanic crater. As they reach the summit, they gaze into each other’s eyes and, unable to control themselves, snap together like the waist band in a new pair of pajamas. You have seen movies where, after crawling through a million gallons of spilled crude oil, the hero and the girl meld into one glorious black glob. To bring it closer to home, perhaps you have welcomed your spouse in a similar manner when he comes home from 12 hours of baiting lobster traps. But --- today when I walked up to my loving wife, held out my arms, and said, “Can I have a hug?” she looked me up and down and said, “Are you clean?” Should I assume from this that the honeymoon is over?

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8. My watch stopped working when the battery died. I mentioned to a friend that it was too much bother to get a new battery and that I’d lived without a watch for several years. He said that he doesn’t need watch batteries because his life is meaningless. Isn’t it refreshing to have at least one friend who has figured out why we’re all here?

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9. Michael Moore made a movie on capitalism. He has not much good to say about capitalism and pointed out a few of its many flaws. But you and I can certainly see the positive side of capitalism: with the possible exception of disease and religion, can you think of anything that has done more to curb the world’s population?

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10. What kind of a world do we live in when I can get over a dozen email advertisements for Viagra in one morning? You and I know that if you go on line to look for airline tickets, for the next week you get emails that promote plane tickets. Because I have never bought Viagra or investigated one of their sites, can you imagine the amount of email that is sent to the people who have? It is true that I wrote about Viagra when they were trying to get it subsidized under medicare and they probably picked up on that. Because smokers are about the only men who need Viagra, I did not think that those of us who do not smoke should have to pay for the shortcomings of men who do. At the time I encouraged all non smoking males to write to the legislature to let them know where we stand. And then there is this new influx of sad emails we get from passionate women in Russia. How long do you think a Russian woman who says her passions include cleaning house would have to stand in line?

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11. Little public service announcement here. Beware of the clothing donation scam. Our friend David just received a call from a charity asking him to donate some of his clothes to the starving people throughout the world. He told them to buzz off! Anybody who fits into your average American’s clothing isn't starving!

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12. Dr. Rich Komp, who travels to some very remote rural places on this planet to teach people how to build photo voltaic solar panels, says he visited one place that had a very practical religion. They had a big religious ceremony just before they first activated the solar panels that they’d built, and everyone brought gifts for the gods and piled them all around the unit. After the ceremony, the people picked up all the gifts that the gods hadn’t accepted and took them home.

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