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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for September 20, 2015.

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These radio shows are now humble's web page as well as on iTunes.

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The humble Farmer's TV show can be seen on YouTube. See humble working around his farm. Google "Robert Karl Skoglund" and they should come up.

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1. Do you know about being old? Let me tell you what it's like to be old. Being old is going into the supermarket and recognizing some haggard old woman slouching along behind a grocery cart. You go over to her and identify yourself. And you say, "I'd know you anywhere. You're Thelma Simmons. You were two years behind me in high school." And she says, "I ain't Thelma --- Thelma was my mother."

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2. Thank goodness we have whiskey. If it were not for whiskey, you would be unable to buy a present for the man who has everything. But why would a man who has everything want to muddle his mind with whiskey?

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3. Will you give me some advice? The place where I sit is sore. It's not that I sit too much, but that there is nothing but skin between the bone and the cushion in my chair. And they no longer make cushions soft enough to be comfortable for an emaciated old man. Some of my friends have a nice layer of thick padding upon which they rest their reary bones. When these friends sit, there is an inch or two --- or even more --- of comfortable fleshy padding between their bones and the cushion in their chair. The ones I envy could sit on a cold oak plank without any discomfort at all. Please tell me what I have to do to pack some meat back on my bones. After losing 35 pounds -- because for 9 years I ate no ice cream, cake, pie, cookies --- well I got so skinny that for over a month I've been wolfing these things down at every opportunity in hopes of fleshing out a bit. What is your secret for being able to sit comfortably in a chair? Please tell us as I might not be the only one who is considering raising his desk so he can stand while working at his computer. I’m thf at gmail dot com. Thank you for telling us your secret for putting on pounds.

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4. It has been a long time since we have talked about keeping a gun under your pillow so you can shoot robbers who might invade your home at night. It has been statistically proven that people who keep guns to shoot robbers are much more likely to shoot themselves or family members or a brother who broke down nearby with his automobile and was coming in your house at 2 A. M to ask for help. Statistics tell us that keeping a gun in your home so you can shoot robbers is not a very smart thing to do. Nevertheless, in spite of this, a very large number of your friends and neighbors and my friends and neighbors do keep loaded guns in their homes. Even I might have one but might feel foolish about admitting it to you. Without even trying, I can bring to mind three civilians I know very well who have shot people. The point is, that there are thousands of loaded guns in thousands of Maine homes. Everybody knows this. And, because of this, you are taking your life in your hands when you enter a home in my neighborhood, day or night, without knocking on the door. Even when no one appears to be home, a robber or anyone else is pushing it when they walk into an ostensibly empty house on the Maine coast. You and I know more than a couple of folks who have quietly sat in their homes for years, gun at hand, just waiting for the chance to legally blow someone away.

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5. Last month I was amused when I entered a church for a funeral and saw “Scent Free” written on a couple of pews in the back of the sanctuary. There are denominations where they burn candles as part of a service, so the air can get pretty heavy in there after an hour. But think about having scent free pews in a church. Isn’t that the same as having smoke-free seats in an airplane?

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6. How do you know if you have a stressful job? A job that you don’t enjoy because of a boss who micromanages or constantly finds fault with your work? Melissa, who was a bed and breakfast guest last summer, says --- Melissa said, “You know you have a stressful job if a weekend is a time of recovery and not a time to enjoy.”

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7. Some of our friends have been listening to The humble Farmer radio program for over 37 years now. Back when I started making this program for Maine Public Radio, I had to come up with new things to say every week. Thank goodness I no longer have to do that. My memory is now so bad I can tell the same stories week after week without even noticing it. The good news, is that half of our friends who are listening aren’t really listening, so they don’t realize I’m repeating myself either.

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8. Speaking of listening, it is my contention that husbands listen. Husbands hear and understand every word their wives say. Wives might accuse husbands of not listening, but this is because although husbands listen, they are not mind readers and wives are often niggardly with their verbs. A wife might say, “Coffee pot.” The husband immediately panics because, although he has heard his wife say coffee pot, he doesn’t know what she wants him to do with it. Is he supposed to wash it, pass it or pour it? The last time my wife looked at me and said “coffee pot,” I said, “Well, what do you want me to do with the coffee pot?” And she said, “My, that is tempting, isn’t it?”

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9. Did you attend your alumni banquet this past year? Because it took me 12 years to earn an undergraduate degree, everyone at our 50th alumni banquet was 8 or so years younger than I. The president of the university stood before our assembled body and thanked us for coming. He praised us for being dedicated alumni. If the truth were known, we were about the only ones from our class who were still breathing.

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10. You should be glad every time you listen to a speaker who was pulled in off the street. You know what I’m talking about if you have ever attended a convention where the headliner has taught at several universities in Europe. He or she has received every scholarship and award known to academia and you have to become intimate with every one of them before he or she is even allowed to mount the podium. I once went to hear a man who was so accomplished that they had an intermission half way through his introduction.

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11. I keep seeing something on my Facebook page that says "Three people on Facebook unfriended you." If it's only 3 I can't be writing enough of the things that need to be said.

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12. Has this ever happened to you? A good friend dies. Your eyes fill with tears. You take out your handkerchief and dry your eyes while thinking, "That's three of my favorite books I'll never see again."

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13. You might have to think a while before you can understand why young Maine men would climb a New Hampshire mountain in a blizzard in December. The ice is not yet thin enough to break beneath a snowmobile.

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14. Here’s something I read the other day. What do you make of it? It said: “I am the only one of my contemporaries I know who, in his old age, has not become bitter and disillusioned with mankind." It is signed: The humble Farmer, satirist

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