Maine Reality TV --- The humble Farmer's TV show on YouTube.

+

In February, 2017, I paid ASCAP $200. or so for the right to run this radio show for you on the Internet. Although we are not starving, if you would show your appreciation by donating a small contribution to my PayPal account, you would earn an inedible spot on The humble Farmer's wall of fame.

+

Rants January 29, 2017 The last time my friend Winky went in for a physical the doctor asked him to hold his hands out in front of him. And Winky’s hands were shaking a leaf in a northeast gale. And the doctor said, "My word, Winky, how much do you drink?" And Winky said, "Not much. I spill most of it."

+

2. Did you see the AARP article on grandchildren scam calls from abroad? What would you do if you got a phone call and a young person's voice, barely audible, said, "Hi. I'm in jail in Mexico and I need help"? If you have never thought about this, perhaps I can help. I have given this quite a bit of thought and, should I get such a call, I have already prepared five very clever questions that would immediately unmask a fraudulent caller. --- Even with a very bad connection. My first question would be, “Did you know that I could never afford to have children?”

+

3. My friend Winky went to business college where he flunked accounting and bookkeeping. But somehow he got through school and showed up at his 15th reunion in his private jet. Of course, his old friends wanted to know how he made so much money, and he said, "I've got a little factory where I make can openers that only cost me a dollar to make, but I sell them for ten dollars. And you can't fail when you've got a business that brings you a steady nine percent profit.”

+

4. My friend Winky has two sons. One became a doctor and one became a lawyer. You can believe that when Winky got hit by a car it just about tore the family apart. His doctor son wanted to cure him, but his son who's a lawyer wanted him to limp so he could sue for damages.

+

5. Have you noticed that gmail has been diddled again? A whole raft of my email addresses has been eaten by this change. I wrote this on my Facebook page --- the fact that gmail had eaten some of my email addresses. A friend wrote: “I don't think it was gmail. Everything's probably still there and you just can't find it.” I’m going to try to not get excited as I point out to you if you can't find something it might as well not be there. Is this true or am I missing something here? If you can't find some matches to start a fire, does it change the fact that you froze to death because you didn’t know that one of your enemies had hidden your matches in one of your boots in the closet?

+

6. One evening when Winky was reading the newspaper he said to his wife, "Here's a man up in Rangeley who was shot for a moose." And Winky's wife said, "Any man who can be mistaken for a moose is better off dead."

+

7. Did you hear about the frugal equestrian who didn't change a bit in 60 years?

+

8. Here’s an email from David who used to listen to me on what used to be called Maine Public Radio. David writes: “I left Maine about 20 years ago and was addicted to The humble Farmer. A friend of mine shared something you posted yesterday, and I said" I know who Robert Skoglund is! " Isn’t that nice. I’m 81 years old so I’m glad to hear people say “I know who Robert Skoglund is.” It won’t be long before people will be saying, "I know who Robert Skoglund was.”

+

9. A professor named Clay Shirky says: “For the last hundred years the big organizational question has been whether any given task was best taken on by the state, directing the effort in a planned way, or by businesses competing in a market.” The question could be easily answered by anyone who visits several countries, looks around, and discovers which countries boast the most people with health insurance, the fewest people in jail and the fewest number of people who are getting food stamps. Can you understand why this should be a big organizational question when Clay Shirky or anyone else with the price of a plane ticket could go to Norway or Finland and see the answer with their own eyes?

+

10. Listen to this story about a man named Saul Alinsky who was a master organizer. “In one of his puckish moods Saul talked the president of a university into letting him anonymously take an examination being administered to candidates for a doctorate in community organization. ‘Three of the questions were on the philosophy of and motivations of Saul Alinsky,’ writes Saul. ‘I answered two of them incorrectly.’” And, you’ve probably heard this. “To prove how hard it is for new writers to break in, Jerzy Kosinski uses a pen name to submit his bestseller Steps to 13 literary agents and 14 publishers. All of them reject it, including Random House, who had published it.”

+

11. Did you see the picture of the giraffe and the sick zoo keeper? The caption said, “A terminally ill zoo worker got a goodbye kiss from a giraffe.” Here's an example of how things can be misconstrued. Any animal sniffs or bites objects to see if it is good to eat. Or just to find out what it is. One day years ago when Marsha's car broke down on the road, a dozen or so cows with long horns came over to the fence to see what was going on. Had I stuck my hand out to the cow, you know what would have happened. The caption could have read, "Sympathetic cow kisses hand of man with broken-down car" --- in possibly the most heartwarming human-cow interaction ever.

+