Below is a rough draft of humble's rants for your Maine Private Radio show for June 26, 2016

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The following program is brought to you by The humble Farmer Bed & Breakfast in St. George, Maine. Your buddy humble here. Our specialty is dry Maine humor and old fashioned music. Thank you for listening.

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1. Did you know that my friend Winky got forced off the road by a car when he was out riding on his bicycle? The woman jumped out of her car, and when she saw him sitting in the ditch she said, “Are you comfortable?” And Winky said, “I make a good living.”

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2. Within the past two or three days I've been in the company of elderly friends who have lost touch with reality. One told me yesterday that he'd spent the last three nights sleeping in the grange hall because he'd been locked in and couldn't get out. Another one told me that the room we were in was once a laboratory. What's the word for this? Dementia? I'm not going to look it up because that is not the purpose of this rant. I've thought quite a bit about my two friends over the past day and think I have come up with the answer to an oft asked question. I'm concerned here with the thin boundary that separates the two worlds of fantasy and reality. How does an old man know if he has slipped over from the real world into the one of fantasy that exists only in his own mind? --- He finds himself agreeing with everyone.

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3. Have you ever turned on your radio and heard, "eee, eee, eee. Quirrrk, Quirrrk, Quirrrk, myaaap myaaap myaaap?" If you have, there's a good chance you were listening to a popular program where they play sounds you are likely to hear outdoors at night anywhere in Maine. If you really enjoy srrange noises in the night you don't want to miss next week's program, because we've invited the entire radio sound crew down to St. George Grange for our baked bean supper.

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4. There is talk about legislation that would force property owners to have their houses inspected for traces of lead paint before selling or renting them. Years ago a woman from away expressed her concern about possible lead paint in a house she had just bought here in St. George, Maine. She was afraid her children would eat it. My friend told her that he had raised several children in a house filled with lead paint, and had discovered that if he fed them properly they didn't spend all that much time gnawing on the door casings.

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5. You know that for 9 years I didn't eat cake, pie, cookies, ice cream or anything else along that line. As a result, I went from 175 down to around 140. Last September, thinking I was too skinny, I went off the sweets wagon and started to eat sweets again. Within 90 days I had a heart attack the day after eating a quart of ice cream. The good news is that since then I've gained about ten pounds. I thought I was 139. When I was weighed on a real scale yesterday, I was 157 with my shoes and all the metal I carry in my pocket. So I probably dress out at 150 pounds. I have my wife, Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, to thank for it. In an effort to put on some meaningful pounds, I've been eating her ginger cookies that are right coated in white sugar. I've been eating her rhubarb pie, which is slathered with white sugar and eat cake with frosting whenever I'm at a public gathering like a funeral or grange supper. I have yet to eat a donut because donuts are notorious killers. If you are skinny, like I was, and want to put on pounds quickly, you will be glad to hear that you can advance your program by eating cake, pie and cookies. No, you don't need to wolf sweets at every opportunity. If you just sneak a piece of cake or a cookie now and then, when no one is watching, you will quickly pack pounds and pounds of comforting pudgy pork right around your skinny bones. When you have to let your belt out another notch, remember that you heard about it here.

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6. The power structure in a society changes slowly and this is true on all levels. OK. Sometime it might build up over a period of years, much like tectonic plates locked in place, and then suddenly shake things up when it lets go. Perhaps you were as surprised as I was to find that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump each did as well as they did. A year ago I wouldn't have given either one of them a snowball's chance in the underworld of getting 5 or 10 percent of the vote. But time has proved me wrong, and now millions of young people (some of whom haven't even been to Norway or Finland to see an ideal lifestyle with their own eyes) are clamoring for the social benefits enjoyed by their northern European cousins. Good healthcare for all. Good education for all. No poverty. None of it free, but everyone paying their fair share as they go along. --- While an older segment of our population has moved further to the right and clamors for a man who will "make the trains run on time." Not that these people believe in the efficacy of public transportation. They are the xenophobic underbelly of the nationalistic beast and believe what they are told 24-7 on talk radio. And now my point to all this. One also sees changes of power on the other end of the social spectrum. I am speaking, of course, of the changes in the power structure in our homes. These changes are usually imperceptible. --- Except on those rare occasions when, like an earthquake, change suddenly confronts one, and then it's like being slammed up against a wall by a gorilla in a bad dream. I'm still shaken by recent events in our home and have yet to come to grips with the implications. Because yesterday my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, very timidly asked me if I planned to do a wash today.

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7. Have you noticed that many people read half of what you post on Facebook and then make some comment that indicates that they rushed off all half-cocked? The other day I post a very nicely written confession that when I die there is to be no "celebration" but an old fashioned funeral with gnashing of teeth and rending of garments backed up by anyone who could cut the changes to Have You Met Miss Jones or any Kern tune --- and some people didn't get it. Are older people any worse than eighth graders who sit in your class and say, "I don't get it." If they were to listen to what you said instead of what they are thinking, they would get it. "Yes, I heard what he said, but what I am saying is what I would have said if I were saying what he said."

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8. When I started making this radio program for you 38 years ago, I was afraid of making a mistake. Saying something wrong of giving you the impression that I was incompetent or confused. Now I realize that it is only these mistakes that give a radio commentator any credibility.

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9. No Things Considered. I noticed that my friend Winky always wore a new, shiny pair of shoes so I asked him why he was always buying new shoes. And Winky says “I don’t buy them. I get them from my brother.” And I says, “He must be rich. What does he do?” And Winky says, "He is a veterinarian.” And I says, “Where’s he work?” And Winky says, “He has two cat houses in Las Vegas.

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10. Here’s your gee whiz fact for today. When I Googled to see where I could go to buy a head cleaning cassette for my television camera, I found that I could get one at Abe’s of Maine. When I Googled to get directions to Abe’s of Maine, I discovered that Abe’s of Maine is located in New Jersey.

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