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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for April 26, 2015.

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1. I happened to be standing in the kitchen and I said to my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, “Let’s fight and argue to see what it’s like.” What do you think she said? “I don’t have time.”

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2. From time to time I come across a story that will make you laugh. Here’s one that came our way on the morning news. Are you ready? At a Senate hearing, the managers of a coal mine in West Virginia said that they did not put profits ahead of safety.

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3. You might have read that when a woman wears a leather dress, a man's heart beats quicker, his throat gets dry, he gets weak in the knees, and he begins to think irrationally. They say it is because she smells like a new truck.

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4. Do you have words you like to say because it is fun to have them roll off your tongue? Every time I'd go through Munkedal, I'd stop by the snickerfabrik and have my picture taken. In 1960 I thought Munkedals Snickerfabrik was a funny word. Kugelschreiber is a fun word that impressed me when I took a night course in German in 1963. I also like slobberbroek and wolkenkrabbers. And then there are fun sentences to say like, svettiga sotiga smederna slungade släggan mot stängerna, nöpo med tängerna,formade järnet till harv och plog. What words do you think are fun to say?

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5. You don’t need to feel bad for me, but because I don’t have any grandchildren and not being able to create exotic plates of food and not having a motorcycle, there is nothing left for me to paste on Facebook but pictures of my rhubarb patch. It is my understanding that there is some talk going on behind my back that some of my friends are getting tired of looking at pictures of rhubarb. Do you have any suggestions of how I might pep up my Facebook page without going to Paris for pictures of the Eifel Tower? I’m thf at g mail dot com.

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6. Years ago some of my friends refused to take my rhubarb unless they paid me for it. So I gave up, got a chrome plated farm stand at the dump and put rhubarb on it with a can that said $2 Bunch. A bunch is about two pounds. Then, a year or two ago, my cousin Elliott asked if he could put eggs out there. He's got thirty or so chickens and enjoys chickens but can't eat three dozen eggs every day so he figured if he could get enough to pay for his grain by selling a few eggs on my lawn it would be a good thing. This year Marsha destroyed the sign I made that said Egg on it. Although she added an s, making it say eggs, she forgot the apostrophe. But --- this spring Elliott's cousin Jane, who must be 85 now if she's a day, and has hundreds of these daffodil flowers growing all over her property --- well, she asked me if she could sell flowers on my front lawn, too. If you want to give the flowers to an old, sick person there is no charge for them. So every day I go down to Jane's and get a green bag of flowers. I don't know the name of them. My lawn is an excellent place to sell stuff because there is a wide driveway so you can get off the road. And you can see my house and stand for almost half a mile in both directions. Should you ask me if you could sell refurbished bicycles or used clothing from my front lawn, however, please don't be upset if I turn you down. It has not escaped my attention that Sam Walton started out with a similar small operation and I don't like where this is going.

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7. Have you ever looked up something on line, read several pages, and still not know any more than you did when you started? I wondered if my rhubarb plants could get too much water. I know they fail in early June if not irrigated daily. My new trickle hose enclosed in pipes between the plants should do the job with a lot less water and less watering of nearby grass and weeds. But I wondered if they could be watered too much. Here’s what I read when I looked it up on line: “Watering: How often to irrigate rhubarb depends on soil type, sun exposure and outdoor temperatures.” --- Which tells us nothing. Then, hear this, “Reduce irrigation frequency to once every 1 to 2 weeks after year 3, especially when mulch is applied around the plant. Irrigate so that water penetrates the soil 12 to 18 inches deep. [are you going to dig a hole 18 inches deep to see if there is any water down there?] Additional water may be needed during harvest in dry years. That doesn't tell us much, either. I guess I'll play it by ear. You know, it really doesn’t pay to know too much. I studied blueberry management for years and asked a lot of experts how to raise blueberries. When I came here in 1970 the place was covered with blueberries. But when I started to take care of them, they all died.

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8. Long time radio friend Pegg says: "When someone fails to return a call from me, I assume they're dead.” Did you hear that? Being aware of the many potholes in the road on the way to glory, I am aware that email and telephone messages get lost. If you don’t hear back from friends it does not mean that they are dead. Even hard copy mail can be lost, as is evinced by a thing that used to be called The Dead Letter Office. Didn't Bartelby work in the Dead Letter Office? So I give people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps their machine was down that day. Perhaps their kid messed with the machine and lost your message. The girl at the stomach doctor office told me just last week that she didn't get my PA's call requesting an appointment. Her machine was not working for two days. So, when Pegg says, "When someone fails to return a call from me, I assume they're dead" there are other more pleasant and much more feasible options. --- Perhaps they hate your guts?

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9. Have you heard of the free cell phones that George W. Bush was good enough to give to old people? Marsha found out about them when she went to buy more minutes for her track phone. The man at the store said he could do even better: he’d give her a free phone. Well the other day Marsha's free cell phone went off while we were out in the kitchen holding hands by the sink. The phone was playing some kind of rooty-toot music I'd never heard before. Marsha finally figured out that it was her cell phone so I went over and looked at it and it was all lit up and jumping right up and down on her desk where she keeps it plugged in. We still don't know who called because I haven't had time to go on line and learn how to answer the thing. Why do they make these new telephones so complicated? When I was a boy when the phone rang, you simply picked it up and said, “Who is it?”

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