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

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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.

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Rants March 12, 2017

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1. You’ve heard of frugality. You’ve heard of people being tight and you’ve heard of people being stingy. I even wrote an article for Portland Magazine about some old Maine men who were rather close, and I illustrated it with Euler’s circles. You understand that being tight might overlap into being stingy, but they’re not quite exactly the same. I’m still driving a car that was built in 1919. I bought for $10 in 1951. Would you have to say that I was kind of careful? Do you think I'm expecting too much out of a vehicle?

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2. We read in a newspaper called the Working Waterfront that a man who visited Monhegan gave Monhegan a bad review. Although I can appreciate and evaluate a piece of writing or music, I can’t seem to see anything beautiful in a sunset over waves that pound away on rocky shores. So I’m indifferent to the mountains and prairies and oceans white with foam that many people find beautiful. Because of my shortcomings I see nothing breathtakingly beautiful about Monhegan. But I do like everything about Monhegan because it is unique. I like the people. I like going out there. If you’ve never been to Monhegan this bad review the man gave Monhegan probably means nothing to you but if you have spent any number of days and nights out there as I have, you might laugh when you hear this. The way I understand it, this visitor was annoyed because he was only allotted a short amount of electricity time to recharge his cell phone.

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3. Several years ago I was included on a program for some farmers in Indiana with Dr. Sharon Yoder --- an expert on the healing properties of humor. According to Dr. Yoder, many hospitals now have Humor Rooms which patients visit soon after their operations. Laughing at old time Laurel and Hardy movies activates some healing chemical in their bodies, and they go home three days earlier than anyone ever thought possible. The following week Dr. Hall was enthusiastically telling me about unbelievable doings at our own Pen Bay Medical Center. “We can’t believe it,” he exclaimed. “People are putting on their clothes and going home from the hospital three days earlier than we ever thought possible.” I said, You’ve got one of those new humor rooms.” “No, we doubled the room rates.”

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4. You might want to find out how popular you are so here's an infallible test: How do you know if people drop in to visit because they really like you? Do they leave without first asking if they can use your bathroom?

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5. You know you done good if only one person sends you a letter saying they like your radio show or your newspaper column. 10,000 others might like it, but don't take the time to tell you so. One would think that with email being so easy and inexpensive that a radio or newspaper person would get a lot more mail. But I got more mail from radio and newspaper friends 25 and 35 years ago back when it cost money ---than I do now. Back then people had to buy the stamp and walk to the mailbox. I can't explain it. Can you?

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6. You can learn a lot about people by reading what they write on your Facebook page. If you are careful, you will only have intelligent people writing on your page. And if you are lucky most of them will be relatively sane. What I mean is, they are probably not talk show radio hosts. Many years ago I was aware of lemme show ya boys. You’d be working on some piece of equipment in your barn and one of your lemme show ya boy neighbors would come in and look over your shoulder. And very soon, unable to control himself, he elbows you out of the way because he knows that he can attach the cummerbund to the electrode better than you can. On Facebook the lemme show ya boys have been replaced by the lemme tell ya boys. Let me explain. Suppose you mention that you are going to put new brushes in the generator in your car. Any lemme tell ya boy who reads your post will not be able to control himself. He’ll start out by telling you that you should make sure the engine isn’t running before you take out the three bolts that hold it on. You know --- just in case you didn’t know enough to shut off the engine before taking it apart. And then he’ll tell you each step that replacing the brushes in a generator entails --- as if he’s thinking out loud to himself. It doesn’t matter that you’ve had to do it several times since you bought the car in 1951. Every time you mention on your Facebook page that you’re about to do this or that, there he is, telling you how to do it. And you go to bed feeling good about yourself that night because you know that you’ve given a man who retired much too early something to do.

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7. Sometimes when I click on a link on a Facebook page it brings up a page. Sometimes when I click on what should be an identical link on someone else's Facebook page, it either brings up another page or does nothing. The machine is not consistent. If it would make up its mind and do one thing or the other I could live with it. Because it will only work half of the time, I'm going to have to live with it. Have you ever had trouble with your computer, brought in a guru to fix it, and had the smiling guru sit down, do exactly what you did, and then, with a startled expression, say, "This is strange. The computer shouldn't do that." Ever had that happen? What do you say to your smiling guru friend then? You can't very well say, "I know it shouldn't do that, you idiot. That's why I hired you to come in here and tell me what is wrong."

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8. A quote here: "After being rejected by Harvard Business School, Buffett enrolled at Columbia Business School of Columbia University " This is another one of those things that you read that makes you laugh. I couldn't get into Harvard grad school, either, so Warren Buffett and I have something in common. Guess what Warren Buffet and I don’t have in common?

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9. Do dogs have taste buds? Is there anything in red rubber that would appeal to the palate of a normal dog? We take care of a dog that is addicted to the taste of red rubber and it is more than an old Maine man can do than to extract a red rubber ball from this dog's jaws if he does not want to let it go. Tell me about the habits of dogs.

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10. An age is reflected in its literature. Edward Arlington Robinson, who 100 years ago was probably related to almost everybody where I live in St. George, Maine, wrote about whiskey. Gustaf Fröding wrote about poverty. Poets have written about bubbling brooks and whippoorwills and malleable young men who march off to die. My question to you is, how could any contemporary bard aspire for immortality when our present culture can be summarized in an essay about Viagra and plastic toys from China?

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11. The email said, “Defy your age. Miracle Anti-Aging Cures Now Available.” To begin with, the word cure obviously implies that aging is a disease. And if aging is a disease, babies are born sick. These ads to sell pills to cure aging are written by young people who don’t realize that most of us who are old don’t mind being old. Got that, kids? We don’t mind being old. We don’t mind looking old. The only thing that is a wicked pain is feeling old.

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12. It seems that no matter what your cause, nowadays you can support it with quotes by Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. Nowadays nobody would dare say anything bad about either one of them. Wow. Abraham Lincoln said that. These guys I’m listening to on the radio must be on the right side if they’re quoting Abraham Lincoln. And they have an American flag on the wall behind them. But --- if folks down my way had owned radios 200 years ago, they would have smashed them with a hammer had a radio commentator said anything good about Thomas Jefferson. The Embargo Act of 1807 shut down the shipping in Wiscasset. And can you imagine what the Emancipation Proclamation did to Maine shipping in 1862? You’ve heard me say that they had a torchlight celebration parade when Lincoln was assassinated. They touched off tar barrels. People who like to quote Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln should remember that in their day they were two of the most hated men on the coast of Maine.

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