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 March 5, 2017

+

1. Did you hear that last July a man suffered the first reported injury from using fireworks in Maine since the new fireworks law took effect? We read that the man tried using a blow torch to dry off a firework that had gotten wet. He received 17 stitches in his face after it blew up. Unfortunately, he was still able to vote.

+

2. You hear a lot about togetherness. Families should do things together. One day one of my wife’s kids drove from Maine to Vermont with dog, kid and husband. Can you think of anything that will bond a little family quicker than riding 200 miles on icy roads in a Volvo with a large wet dog? At my age, such outings, although they sound delicious, are beyond me. In other seasons one might bundle up the little family, sit for hours on a hard bench in 30 degree temperatures, and pass a hot thermos from lip to lip while watching a football game through lightly falling sleet and snow. --- Not my thing. Then there are the eagerly awaited four days in Orlando, where one finds unidentifiable items behind the bed, the smell of chemicals in the corridor, questionable bedding and a shower that doesn’t work. --- Been there done that. So what can an old man, with a glint in his eye, and his beautiful adventurous young trophy wife do to continue this essential, never ending bonding process? It might surprise you to hear, that every morning, the first thing my wife and I do when we wake up is take our pills together.

+

3. Yesterday my buddy BB pointed out quite graphically, by measuring 81 feet, that’s my age, down the driveway from the garage, and then putting two Clorox bottles three feet apart at the end to indicate my probable years left, --- my friend pointed out that I didn't have much time left and asked me what I wanted to do with the remaining time. Not having time to think about it, I shot back that I'm looking forward to paying off the mortgage on my home this fall. But after thinking about it for a day I realize that there is one more exciting thing I want to do --- just so I can say I did it --- and so my friends can remember that I did it and talk about it long after I'm gone. Before I die, I'd like to be able to pay at least a thousand dollars in income tax --- just so I'd know what it feels like to be smart enough to earn big money.

+

4. Louie Chatey, who is one of my former students from Hampton, Connecticut, sends me a newspaper clipping from 1965. . By using the blow-it-up feature on my picture program, I see that a Robert F. Skoglund is mentioned as a new teacher in Hampton. It also mentions the 1965 power outage. Is it possible that I seem to remember sitting in the dooryard in my 1964 VW, running the engine to get warm? Do you remember when the power in New England shut down in 1965? The good news is that should the Russians hack into our power grid and shut it down, there are a few people in Washington who will be told of it in time to stock up on bottled water.

+

5. Like newlyweds talking about their imaginary vine-covered cottage somewhere over the next hill, as a senile old man with great B&B expectations, I am talking with Marsha Skoglund about the car I'm going to buy for her next year. It will be relatively new with only 150,000 miles or so on it and will cost no more than $8,000. Her nice little Rav 4 has 264,750 miles on it and it probably won't go much more than 300,000 before something breaks or needs repair, so she's going to need new wheels within the next two or three years and I like to think ahead. I asked her about this new kind of car they make now called a Prius. She knows about the Prius, and I think she said it was so low that she would be unable to get up out of it. She needs a car like her present Rav-4 that has a higher seat. She said that she thinks they are going to soon make a car that looks like her Rav 4 that is electric. Perhaps they already have one. If you are young you probably know about the newer cars. It is interesting that I don't know much about the cars they've made for the past 40 or 50 years, but I can come very close to telling you the make and year of cars from the 1930s, 40s, and early 50s. After I got out of high school all cars seemed to look alike. Nowadays you can't tell a Mercedes from a VW.

+

6. Last night I was telling Marsha Skoglund about the trouble I was having with acronyms that everyone seems to be addicted to nowadays. And it occurred to me that typing LW is easier than typing out last week on a cell phone. We are told that years ago people had difficulty understanding the dialect spoken in a village 20 miles away. Nowadays people have difficulty understanding emails from anyone 20 years away from their age group.

+

7. The other day my wife Marsha served our honored guest pickled beets that came from a store. I ate one and told her to throw the rest away. We have 20 or 30 quarts of pickled beets on the shelf in the cellar. We only bring four or so quarts to Florida with us and they're all gone. Marsha made them using recipes from pickled beet-making-gurus and there is nothing better. Why are the pickled beets that come from the store inedible while the ones we make that look exactly the same are exotic delicacies? Could the five pounds of granulated sugar that my wife pours into every pot and pan make that much difference?

+

8. We read that an Aroostook County man described by a federal prosecutor as “one of the most prolific drug smugglers in Maine” for nearly four decades was sentenced to eight years in prison on drug and money laundering charges. Anyone who smuggles drugs for 40 years is a fool, because you can obviously retire with what you can earn at it in a year.

+

9. If I ever get around to it, we are going to discuss the eating habits of an old Maine man. When I was a boy one heard from doting mothers that fat girls with pimples could be very nice. I’m sure that girls heard from their mothers the same thing about fat boys with pimples. But irreguardless of the content, it is the packaging that sells to the uninitiated. My friend Dave in Washington, Maine will tell you that eating some of the nicest looking mushrooms in the world might kill you. And we all know some knock-down-dead good looking people who are bi-polar and because they will not eat their medicine anyone around them gets a taste of living hell. So a mature man/woman eventually learns, hopefully by the disastrous experiences of his or her friends, that mother was right and the decorative properties of most everything are too often superficial. When I sit down at any table I have great expectations of ingesting something palatable. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, never disappoints me. Each culinary delight she places before me --- be it B&M baked beans, spaghetti with meatless Ragu spaghetti sauce right out of the bottle or a chicken that was roasted at Hannaford’s is always better than the very same thing that she gave me yesterday. My wife is one of those excellent cooks who cooks to please and does not need to stick an apple in the roasted pig’s mouth to flaunt her culinary prowess. I am about to eat one of my favorite dishes which I have just warmed up in the micro. It is stuffing with broccoli and chicken and because I can never remember the name of it whenever my wife asks what I want for supper that night I often say, “That stuff that looks like regurgitated dog food.”

+

10. You don’t have to read the newspapers very long before you learn that there are many good reasons why the rich should not pay taxes on anything. Guess who owns the newspapers.

+

11. Never keep a pet that you can't eat. Remember that one? You’ve heard me say it over and over. Never keep a pet you can’t eat. I was speaking with a man from Korea who said he had two pet cats. I said, "I never keep a pet I can't eat." And the man from Korea said, "My, you are provincial."

+

12. Baseball has probably killed and disabled more Americans than any other sport in history. You’re right, as usual. It’s not playing baseball that has killed and disabled millions of Americans but watching it from the couch with a can of beer in each hand.

+