Check out our B&B web page.

+

This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for July 5, 2015.

+

The humble Farmer's TV show is now on YouTube. Google "Robert Karl Skoglund" and they should come up.

+

This program is brought to you by The humble Farmer Bed & Breakfast. If you’d like to visit us on the coast of Maine our website is thehumblefarmer.com/BaB

+

Rants July 5, 2015

+

This show is brought to you by The humble Farmer Bed & Breakfast in St. George, Mane. Any eight-year-old child will quickly show you how to find it on line.

+

1. Would you please consider a revolutionary new way to elect a President of the United States? The candidate goes out on the campaign trail where he or she shakes 79,314 hands, hugs 4,502 people and kisses 322 snotty faced kids under the age of five. Any person who survives this without being hospitalized would be considered strong enough to lead our country through anything.

+

2. Can you think outside of the box? When it comes do day to day thinking, I can't even remember what is in the box. The other day I forgot a doctor's appointment, although I did get to a funeral. But one night, an Epiphany. The grange hall is now locked. Someone unknown borrowed chairs and has still not had time to bring them back. It is sad when buildings have to be locked. I was lucky enough to find a key to the 100-year-old lock on the door. It is a long flat key. We need to have a couple more keys made. The problem in getting one made starts with finding a thin flat piece of steel so the locksmith can grind one out for us from our master key. I asked Fred Carey who knows about steel, where I could find a long flat piece of steel. But last night I realized that I can get a simple table knife down at the dump. Two or three will do. Long flat steel. As John Gould would have written, a table knife will be "just the thing."

+

3. Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a tiny village on the coast of Maine. Seventy or so years before when the man was a little boy he used to go into many of the houses in that village to visit the old people who lived there. He’d visit Captain Thomas and Henry and Frank and Phoebe and Percy and Lena and Harvey and Aunt Grace and Alex and Captain Freddy and Uncle Frank and Old Man Elo and Gram Elo and just about everybody else in between. But the world had changed and children didn’t come around to visit old people anymore and you never even saw children playing in the neighborhood because the world had changed. But one day when the old man walked out into the sunshine on his old granite back steps he saw a little dog. The dog was very frightened and quickly ran away when the old man came out on his back steps. And the old man thought to himself how nice it was to have someone from the neighborhood stop by so he went into the house and got --- well, it might have been a cookie. In any case it was something dogs like to eat, and the old man put that little scrap of goodie on the ground over where the dog had been standing. And within a few days the little dog was hanging out in that old man’s back lawn on a regular basis looking for good things to eat like dogs or skunks do. Well, if you’ve read many stories about old men and dogs who make friends you already know without being told that every day that dog was getting more and more comfortable with the old man and would come closer and closer to those old granite back steps. And the old man would talk a peculiar brand of Swedish to that dog and say things to that dog in five or six other languages because the dog understood every one of them just as well as he did English. Then, finally, one day the old man stepped out of the house and what do you suppose he saw right there on his old granite porch? --- Only one of his shoes because that rotten little dog had carried off the other one. If there is a moral to this story you are going to have to figure out what it is for yourself because I am not one to impose my opinions on others.

+

4. I read an article that said that "A real person who drank as much as [James] Bond, more than 60 grams of alcohol per day, would be in the highest risk group for malignancies, depression, hypertension and cirrhosis and could also suffer sexual dysfunction." If I were an unmarried man, I would volunteer for any study that would prove that, even though I never drink, I could put away 60 grams of alcohol and still frisk away an evening with Pussy Galore. There have been painted hussy Bond girls I would not be seen with at a dogfight. But two or three dozen of them were OK and a couple were exceptional. Do you know what I’m talking about here?

+

5. Have you ever gone into court just to see what they do in there? If you go in to court day after day and just sit quietly and listen, you might see different people, but they all tell the judge about the same story. You get the impression that the judge doesn't even have to listen because he never hears anything new. There is no one smart enough to say anything that might surprise a judge. Judges have heard it all before. At least that's what I thought until I asked my friend, Lawyer Crandall, if he ever said anything in court that surprised a judge. And Lawyer Crandall said, "Yes, Skog, I have. I once said, “Judge, my client is guilty.”

+

6. There was a time when I read newspaper articles on line. Although the newspaper articles were not that interesting in themselves, they were carefully chosen with the intent of pushing the reader’s buttons and therein lies their value. We often read on these pages that child molesters should be shot or put in jail for life. --- Probably because very few of the people writing the letters admitted to being child molesters. But we have yet to read in any letter on this newspaper’s blog that people who drink and drive --- and endanger entire families --- should be shot or put in jail for life. Can you figure out why?

+

7. Here’s an oldie but goodie. A group of friars fell behind in their payments for a new belfry they had erected. They held a meeting and decided that since they had a knowledge of gardens and flowers that they would open a florist shop. There was one other florist across town and he soon felt the competition. So he went to the friars and asked that they stop selling because of their unfair advantage that persuaded customers to purchase from servants of God. But the friars said no, they needed the money and were going to ignore him. The florist then hired Hugh MacTaggart, the toughest thug for miles around, to trash the friars' operation which he did. He told the friars that if they did not quit selling he would be coming back. Terrified the friars decided to quit, thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

+

8. The advertisement that came in my email said, “UNIVERSITY DEGREE PROGRAMS ---- Increase your personal prestige and money earning power through an advanced university degree. Eminent, non-accredited universities [there’s an oxymoron if you ever heard one] will award you a degree for only $200. Degree granted based on your present knowledge and experience. No further effort necessary on your part. Just a short phone call is all that is required for a BA, MA, MBA, or Ph.D. diploma in the field of your choice. For details, call,” such and such a number. I wonder if they accept counterfeit money.

+

9. I just read that although for an extra $6 some hotels welcome your pet, there are often size restrictions which limit pets to 25 pounds. I don’t understand this, because I have seen 10 pound dogs chew down doors and I have seen pigs that are housebroken. What do you think about that weight limit on pets? What do you think would happen if Union Fair had a rule that said that nothing weighing over 300 pounds would be allowed on the grounds unless it were wearing a halter? There would be much less crowding around the fried dough booths.

+

10. "Today, some 500 million Chicken Soup For the Soul books have been sold." I just looked this up. I looked it up because John Leeke told me he never heard of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I only mention this to prove that even very smart people don’t know everything. John says if he took time to read books, he wouldn't have time to write books.

+