Below is a rough draft of humble's rants for your Maine Private Radio show for November 8, 2015.

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1. When I came out of the bathroom one morning, my wife Marsha said, “You were in there talking about what you were going to do today. I think you’re going crazy.” This was a surprise to me. I didn’t realize that I talked out loud to myself. But, as the day went on, I realized that when I was alone I talked out loud to myself all the time. Listening to myself for the first time, I was also somewhat shocked to hear myself employing lexical items that I never use with anyone but must have acquired 40 or so years ago while listening to the Nixon tapes. So --- because I don’t want people to think I’m crazy, I’m going to have to get a dog. People who talk to animals are considered normal.

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2. Here’s another junk email that got my attention. If you are a social commentator, you should be grateful for junk email because you will never run out of topics. This one says: “Your wife need your attention? Solve all your problems with IT.” I don’t know why IT needs to advertise. You and I have friends who no sooner left for work, when IT came in the back door.

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3. Thirty or so years ago I used to get post cards from a young radio friend. They were signed Coe. The other day Coe turned up on someone’s Facebook page so I wrote to ask him what he was doing now. I remember that 20 or so years ago he was in Ecuador. Coe writes: "Thanks for the note Humble. I joined the Foreign Service two years ago now and was sent to Africa. I got back this past fall from a stint at the US Embassy in Angola and now am in DC learning Arabic to head off to Iraq in May for a year doing consular work at the Embassy in Baghdad. Then I'll be off to somewhere else. Hope you had a good holiday and thanks for staying in touch. Coe" I was kind of distressed to hear what Coe had to say, weren’t you? What is happening to our country when American consuls are expected to speak the language of the country to which they are assigned?

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4. One of the disadvantages [grin] of communicating by email or Facebook or even talking on the radio [look of incredulity] when compared to face-to-face auditory communication [wrinkled brow], is the lack of [pained look on face] of visual cues. This does not happen when the commentator is on television. [smile] Because most of the innuendos in what we say [tongue in cheek], or fail to say [grin], is transmitted by our ocular prowess [look of pride], much of what we write is open to misinterpretation. [nod and grin] Especially by those who take each word at its face value. [grin at pun] This will necessitate [raised eyebrows] the rise of a new literary genre, in which facial expressions [head moving from side to side] are incorporated into the corpus. [grin] You can see [nodding] that by providing the reader or radio friend [that's you, grin] with these visual cues, misinterpretation of the bare [wink] written word becomes negligible. Although you and I [grin] have yet to see manifestations of this very necessary [pained expression] manner of expressing our desires [panting] you can be sure that it is forthcoming. --- If it doesn't slip on a lion bun and come fifth. [guffaw at reference to old joke]

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5. Are you amazed at what some people know? And what some people assume is common knowledge? I am. Radio friend Rich mentioned Johnny Depp in an email and I wrote back and asked him who Johnny Depp was. I know, I could have Googled Johnny Depp. Everyone turns up on Google. You can even find me if you Google. Well, when Rich got my email asking him who Johnny Depp was, he wrote back, “c’mon, humble… you haven’t been on mars all these past 15 years. Actually it’s the tim burton version of A-I-W, starring johnny depp as the mad hatter.” Well, I finally figured out what A-I-W means because he mentioned the mad hatter, but now I’m up against a stone wall with Tim Burton. My question to you is: have you ever heard of Johnny Depp or Tim Burton? And why would I have ever heard of them if they’ve never had an extra-marital affair worthy of being exposed on the evening news?

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6. I’ve been talking with you on the radio for over 35 years. I started April 6 in 1978. And in all that time I’ve learned one very important thing. You want to be pretty careful of what you say on the radio. You never know when somebody might be listening.

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7. Please pay close attention because I’m going to read you a letter from our good friend David Bright, who writes: “Dear humble, This morning I listened to your talk about how the health benefits of old men looking at women's breasts was only a myth. In fact, I believe I can provide solid documentation that old men looking at women's breasts can sometimes be harmful. Several years ago I attended my high school reunion. Having graduated in 1966, it's safe to say that many of us at the reunion didn't look the same as we did back in those heady days when we were growing up as children of the '60s. When we arrived, we were all given name tags which not only had our names on them, but also a picture of each of us taken from our high school year book. So as happens at these things, I spent the rest of the night walking up to people, glancing down at their name tags, figuring out who they were and then introducing them to my wife and engaging in brief conversations. At the end of the night as we were leaving, my wife said to me "why every time we walked up to a woman did you glance down at her chest?" "Oh, that's simple," I said, "that was the only way I was able to recognize any of them." My wife hit me.”

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8. The date on the article was February 10, 1918. The article had to do with WWI draft dodgers in Arizona. When the sheriff and his posse showed up at the ranch house, the draft dodgers shot the sheriff --- and the posse. You can see why the company commander really wanted those boys in his army.

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9. When my friend Winky applied to join the police force, he was asked, 'What would you do if you had to arrest your wife?' Winky said, 'Call for backup.'

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