I Can't Breathe --- but that was by Ring Lardner

I haven’t had time to breathe since we left our winter digs in Florida last April.

My friends are asking why I don't have the pictures from my last stage show up on my web page so they can see themselves.

Perhaps you are one of them.

I’m 70 years old. When I was 15 I thought I’d have everything done by the time I was an ancient 27, but I’m 70 and the number of things I still have to do seem to be increasing geometrically. Why should this be happening to me?

I just made 4 radio programs. Tomorrow I am reading to some children in Bath, I’m speaking to a national association of doctors Friday, and Saturday I go to Europe. I don’t get to come home from Europe but go directly from the plane to Philadelphia for another 3-day conference.

Oh, before I go I have to fill out an accident report because some tailgating woman rammed me in the rear end while I was stopped at a stop light and I have to get a Notary license so I can marry some young radio friends in October.

When I get home from Philadelphia I will face an undefeatable pile of email and papers on my desk.

By then my teeth will be green because I understand that we are no longer allowed to travel with toothpaste.

Please also take into consideration that while I’m doing all these things --- even at the age of 70 I'm still expected to make my wife happy.

This morning after mowing the field for two hours so the cow friends will have something fresh and green to eat next month, I noticed that the bees are dying so I’m working on that while going through piles of paper and unopened mail to see if there are any lost bills I have to pay before going away.

I seldom have time to eat dinner so I end up eating dinner at 5 or 6 in the evening when any honest Maine man should be sitting down to supper.

Because I’ve been on Public Radio for 28 years, radio friends are often good enough to stop by to visit. We have a Bed & Breakfast so people stop in to ask about that, too. I never know who is driving in the yard, but because they might want to buy one of my CDs or rent our back room, I’m always nice.

A car stopped in this morning. I heard the driveway bell ding when they drove in over the rubber hose.

Grabbed a waffle and went out to see who it was. Finally, a chance to eat breakfast.

Big white suburban thing. I had no idea of who it was.

Right then, had I known what I knew five minutes later, I would have been able to deliver one of the great lines of a lifetime. You know how you always think of these great lines afterwards when it’s too late. But I didn’t deliver the line --- because I didn’t think of it until afterwards --- and I will have to live with it for the rest of my life.

Last winter at a Florida yard sale I bought my wife Marsha a book of Andy’s paintings of Helga. $4. A few days ago Marsha left the book with Helga so she and Andy could sign it and they were dropping it off.

When Helga handed me the book, what an opportunity to have said, “Oh, excuse me Helga. I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”

Yes, too bad. Andy would have appreciated it.

Look Sexy Naked and the Little Engine That Could

Sometimes I laugh long and hard. If you are fortunate, you have never been near me when I laughed long and hard because it is not pleasant. It starts out as a startling scream and dies away resembling the braying of a mule.

I was asked to read The Little Engine That Could to a crowd of very small children. Why, you ask, would anyone approach The humble Farmer to read the story about the Little Engine That Could to a crowd of 5 year old children? The answer is simple, if you think about it. I was told by management that when they asked Tim Sample to read it he sent them a bill for several thousand dollars.

But when they asked me to do it I was foolish enough to do it for free for the kids. Why not? There is no pain involved. It’s not as if they asked me to live with a five year old kid for two days. Anyway, the only reason they asked me was because no one else would do it.

There is a reward for doing things for others and I was more than amply rewarded --- before I even went to Bath to read the story. Because, the day before the reading, I went on line to locate this famous bedtime story and download it so I could read it for myself ahead of time. Give it a dry run, as it were.

On the page where I downloaded The Little Engine that Could there were three advertisements up on the top. The ad on the right said Choo Choo Trains and told where you could find them on ebay. The ad in the middle was for Puffed Borax, whatever that might be. I have no idea. And the ad on the left top of the page where I found this famous bedtime story said, “Look Sexy Naked.”

Salvatore Quasimodo, Streptococcus Bacilli and Other Things

While reading in my Encyclopedia Britannica about Salvatore Quasimodo, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959, I also learned that Fascism is a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, extreme nationalism, anti-liberalism, militarism and authoritarianism. Unfortunately, Fascism is much like streptococcus bacilli: most of us don’t even know it when we see it and even specialists in the field might quibble over a comprehensive definition.

Because I have recently not only been forced to take off my shoes before boarding a plane but have been patted down to strip me of my toothpaste and bag balm --- arguably meaningless symbolic gestures implemented to acclimate a population to mindless obedience --- I read further, hoping to learn to identify Fascism and thereby determine if it could be gaining a foothold in this land of the free and the home of the brave. This is what I read.

Around 1921 an Italian Prime Minister named Giolitti permitted the usual government influence on elections by corruption. This gave Mussolini and his fledgling fascists a slight edge and they immediately attacked Giolitti for his support of the League of Nations (a world government organization) and for his belief in the methods of parliamentary democracy. Gradually building up a nationwide party organization containing extreme undesirables, the Fascists nearly always had more money than their opponents and moved with greater ruthlessness, although, at every step, Mussolini claimed to be the defender of law and order.

The industrialists were naturally in sympathy with a movement that stood for lower wages and fat, padded contracts. Although the economy had improved it was to their advantage to create the impression that without Fascism, economic breakdown was right around the corner, caused by Socialist incompetence.

The uneducated were naturally receptive to Fascist propaganda and disorderly elements on every level of society welcomed the violence and its attendant opportunity to plunder. Even then, it was not the strength of the Fascists that assured their success but the disorganization and silence of their opponents in the intellectual community. Owners of small Italian businesses discovered only much later that handing over power to people who claimed to be protecting their country with murder and openly proclaimed their contempt of parliamentary institutions would cost them and their country dear.

For years there was no overt establishment of dictatorship. Only gradually were old ways and old institutions changed and nothing was done abruptly that might alarm people or make them realize that a revolution had taken place. The wealthy were courted by cutting their taxes. For permission to become rich and corrupt the gerarchi supported their leader’s irresponsible decisions. The inefficiency and graft of his department heads were accepted as inevitable.

When an Italian was killed by bandits in the Balkans, Mussolini and other indignant, patriotic profit-seeking Italians had their long-hoped-for excuse to go to war. To his credit, until they strung him up by the heels, Mussolini’s self confidence never waned and he continued to have a pathetic trust in his own powers of intuition, even after plunging his country into that disastrous war for which he was obviously so unprepared.

As you know, the Encyclopedia Britannica is a fat volume, there is much more in there about the rise of Fascism in Italy, but a continuation and refining of my studies would be no more than an unproductive, academic exercise. Because --- in reading the few paragraphs above, you can see that my premise was shaky: Nothing that I have written there could suggest a parallel between the rise of Fascism in Italy in the 1920s and what is happening in our country today.

You may sleep well tonight. It simply couldn’t happen here.

The humble Farmer

Maine Public Radio And The humble Farmer Program

For various and sundry reasons, my MPBN radio program crashes during broadcast about once every three months. I have changed the type of CDs on which I send them the program, changed the type of envelope and container the program is mailed in, and have finally gotten them to accept my program electronically on MP3 files, which I email directly to their computer. But even then, my program crashes.

My show is also run in Miami and in New Mexico, as far as I know, without a problem.

Here are a few responses to the many I got when I asked my radio friends what I should do --- other than wring my hands and cry.

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Hello humble, Yes, I was listening when your program crashed. As I've written before, I don't believe such behavior is specifically directed at you. Instead I feel it is the general incompetence of the radio staff that is to blame. You may have enemies but the greatest enemy of public broadcasting in Maine is stupidity. Ted in Norway
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We stopped supporting public broadcasting some time ago when Bill Moyers crashed
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Yes, the quality of MBPN these past few years has been lousy. When I try to listen to Classical music during the week PM there is always some interruption or foul up. I told them to rehire the qualified technicians and use the $$$ from the top executive to pay them. Charles
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And this
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Just read the responses to your discussion of interruptions in your program on Maine Public Radio.

I must note that the same sort of generally unsatisfactory responses are noted here in Sunny Florida.

This is a recent complaint about lack of advertised captions on PBS programs; the EMail I sent last month was deleted without being read a week or so ago. I have on occasion complained to the Orlando PBS station, same subject, same response. Why should I bother to send them money if they have an attitude like that?

Bob in Palm Bay, Fla

Are You Going to Be OK? Robin Williams

My friend, The Boy, stopped in this morning to tell me that according to the morning news, unusual behavior evinced on an airplane will now probably get that passenger thrown off the plane and held for questioning.

The Boy came by to tell me this because he was with me a couple of months ago when I was removed from my seat by a stewardess and placed up front for observation.

Yes, you know me. I have no one to blame but myself. When I am in an airport, waiting to fly into or out of Portland, I stand by the place where people get on the plane. And two months ago there were around 15 people in a line who, while getting on a plane, shook hands with me and told me how much they enjoyed this program. One young couple was district attorneys who worked in Washington.

Because I welcomed this opportunity to say hi to all of my friends, I was the last one to board. If you were at the ticket counter watching all this, wouldn’t you think it peculiar if a stoop shouldered old man was shaking hands with every other person who boarded and babbling amicably with them? Is this not indicative of some alarming type of mental deviance? To make it worse, the aforementioned place of boarding was somewhere in the sunny south, but I was wearing my ancient shapeless jacket and a necktie, while many others were in t shirts and shorts. Over my shoulder, suspended from a strap, was a very shabby --- very shabby soft leather suitcase.

So you have the picture. Perhaps you have, upon entering airplanes, stood in line while some half-witted young dubber tries to jam 40 pounds of suitcase into an overhead 20 pound hole. And the stewardess gets on the pa system and asks people if they won’t please try to get to their seats.

If I were you, and if I didn’t want to draw attention to myself in an airplane for deviant behavior, I would stand with a 40 pound suitcase and try to jam it into a 20 pound hole --- which is considered normal. Because – as soon as I was abeam of my seat, I dropped into my aisle seat like a sack of grain as I kicked my shabby little leather bag under the seat ahead of me. You see, I had done exactly what these stressed out stewardesses had been trained to beg people to do. Please sit down quickly and get your luggage stowed so we can get out of here.

Wait. That was not my only sin. As soon as I dropped, I continued my conversation with the attractive young district attorney radio friend who was sitting with her family across the aisle from me.

So, in the eyes of a stewardess not only have I seated myself quicker than anyone she has ever encountered on an airplane in her entire career, I am also an elderly masher who is inflicting his attention upon a helpless young maiden. You see, the stewardess doesn’t know that this woman is a district attorney who told me that she and her husband have been enjoying my radio program for years. The stewardess doesn't know that this public servant has nerves of steel and that she deals with the old, the bad and the ugly from 9 to 5 every day and is, therefore, quite capable of looking out for herself.

You are aware of numerous psychological ploys employed by criminals when they want to distract attention from themselves and fasten it upon a hapless bystander. Teachers also have their own tested set of verbal patterns that enable them to intimidate even the innocent and thereby maintain control in the classroom. If you haven’t written textbooks on the topic yourself, you have seen the techniques used in the movies or used them in your own line of work so you know what I am talking about. On planes, the stewardess looks at the person she wishes to immediately place under her control and shouts, “Are you going to be ok?”

This is a very clever and most effective management tool, and the psychologists who worked it out must be commended. You see, the implication is that the person being addressed is having an epileptic fit or in some other manner has given a reason for alarm. Everyone in the immediate area is informed that there is a person in their midst who is not ok. There is no trial here by a jury of 15 radio friends in the back of the plane --- just pointing and shouting makes it so.

Were you to ask the questioner, “What am I doing that implies that I am not ok,” you would probably not get an answer. They don't want to get into that because the answer would have to be, “Well, you are the first person I have ever seen on an airplane who sat down quickly and got himself and his luggage out of my way.”

If you have ever witnessed another unique method of crowd control that should be brought to our attention, I’m humble@humblefarmer.com and we’d like to hear about it.

You better hope you never fly on a plane with Robin Williams, because that plane would never get out of the loading dock.

Rants for August 18, 2006 Radio Show

1. Confucius say, Man who commutes with horse unhappy when Emperor’s family and friends are in hay business
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2. Another sophisticated terrorist plot foiled. And, as a result, now “For the Protection of the People and the State,” we cannot take a bottle of water onto airplanes. Can you doubt but what you will see emergency legislation enacted soon? But let’s look at the positive side. Who is going to benefit by this threat? First, no food or drinks can be brought on board an airplane. The folks hawking nutrients on airplanes are going to profit. Second, when dictators can’t discover a plot against the state and the people to serve as an excuse to consolidate power, they always invent one. Plots are welcomed by would-be dictators as opportunities to quickly enact legislation “For the Protection of the People and the State” that would be laughed down in Plot-free times. And Third, the author of the most recent book saying that World War Three is part of God’s Plan, and that The End of The World --- Armageddon --- is upon us, is going to make a lot of money. His great-grandchildren will have summer estates on the coast of Maine and winter estates on the Costa Del Sol. Now, let’s ask ourselves --- how sophisticated were these would-be terrorists? They were stupid enough to get caught. Do the really slick professional evil terrorists who are killing and incapacitating Americans, raising our health insurance rates, and making our lives miserable in general get caught? Every year more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. That’s like 1100 Americans dying in plane crashes every day. If Al Qaeda wanted to get serious about killing Americans, they’d send operatives here who would quietly join Rotary and sell cigarettes.
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3. When I was a little kid, there was an evil comic book scientist named Sivana who wanted to take over the world. It was impossible to keep Sivana in jail, because he was so smart he was able to concoct explosives out of his food and blow out the cell wall. Let us fast forward sixty years. This recent airport procedure where guards strip us of our toothpaste and bag balm, which I cannot live without, has produced unexpected consequences. One woman who was interviewed said that before being permitted to board a plane she had to throw her whole face away. From this we could assume that when she got home her husband and children didn’t recognize her and forced her to produce identification before they’d let her in the house. This is not a joking matter. You and I have seen women with enough goo on their faces to produce a bomb capable of taking out the Great Pyramid of Giza. But now that women can’t travel with it, they will have to find another way to disfigure themselves. You probably know that I have always considered any kind of alteration to a woman’s person grounds for divorce. A good looking woman doesn’t need cosmetics and it detracts from the appearance of a plain one. Do you remember hearing that when they scraped the makeup off Tammy Faye Baker, they found Jimmy Hoffa?
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4. My wife took the G wagon down to Falmouth for service and stayed overnight with her daughter so I spent the evening home alone. I’d been out putting up pasture fence for the boy cows and I was too tired to write or copy CDs on my computer. No matter what I do, I’m too tired to do anything in the evening. I knew if I went to bed at 8, I’d be up at 2 and would be up all night. I clicked through the channels on TV. Would you be surprised to hear that there was nothing on? I like Mr. Bean and Colombo and Cops and Jerry Springer, which you have heard me say is no more than a modern version of one of Shakespeare’s comedies, and Archie Bunker and Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances, but there was nothing on. I was alone and I would have settled for anything. Even the history channel was barren. It was one of those nights when I would have even welcomed Return of The Mummy or any of those programs where there is always canned laughter in the background although nobody has said anything funny. So --- while I was eating my supper of beans and hotdogs, which I would take over anything you could serve up in any restaurant in the world, except a hot turkey sandwich at Moody’s Diner or the Crabmeat Rolls at Perry’s Gas Station in Stockton Springs, I watched the First Week in the Life of a Baby Hippopotamus. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com What kind of a country do we live in when a 70 year old man is reduced to learning about the social life of a baby hippopotamus when he eats his supper?
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5. Dear Humble, I was able to listen to your program last week when you mentioned your affliction: Stopping at Stop signs. I too have that recessive gene and don't care about the excuses of those who have trouble with its very uncomplicated definition. Unlike you, I've never been hit, except by a cousin who was playing a joke on us. In those days a bumper had chrome and an air bag was paper and you would blow it up and pop it with your fist. Most who won't stop at stop signs also tend to drive too close to the bumper ahead and or be on their cell-phone, drinking their coffee and counting cars going the other direction or something else so they don't have to gray prematurely by worrying about the traffic congestion. If I can't see their front bumper, I try to give them a four way flasher warning that they are too close. Most take the hint for a few miles anyway. Perhaps they should try a new driving safety tactic. If driving with children or if alone, imagine that they have their children (grandchildren) onboard and pretend that Michael Jackson is in the car ahead to keep a substantial distance. Larry Lewiston P.S. (I've written before. I work with Aaron Dries.) Thank you, Larry. I mention Aaron’s last name here because Aaron and his parents were listening to this program many years ago. Would you be surprised to learn that even that didn’t keep Aaron from marrying my wife’s oldest daughter.
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6. This morning while I was answering my voluminous email from you --- thank you for writing --- I used the words patently and endemic. It was kind of a spooky thing because to the best of my knowledge, I had never used the word “patently” before. And “endemic” is not one of my words. So I’m wondering where they came from. They simply appeared on the screen while I was typing you a letter. You know how the brain works, so perhaps you’ll explain this to me. I wasn’t even sure of what endemic and patently meant, but had I typed them on the page. My question to you is, where did I get them? You certainly don’t hear words like that on the morning news. When you go to college, which I did until I was 34 years of age, being a very slow learner, you are in contact with professors who constantly employ their favorite multi syllabic words, so you gradually accumulate more and more of them. Or you will have a textbook where the author uses the same word over and over. Gleason managed to cram “fortuitous” into one of his textbooks at least four times so I always remembered fortuitous. And then there are words like “litany” which I recently discovered that I had been bandying about for years --- like Archie Bunker and Mrs. Malaprop --- without any idea of what it meant. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com and I would really deprecate your comments.
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7. Where did this foolishness about wondering who you are come from? When I was a kid you never saw people wandering about trying to find themselves. If you were lucky, you were out of high school before you got married and had children, and married couples 23 years old with four children didn’t have time to wonder who they were. Only the children of the very rich went to college. Then, years later, some of us discovered that you could make $3500 a year teaching school and thereby catapult yourself into the upper class. You could earn the $50 a semester college tuition in the summer and by working all day Saturday you could earn the $5 for your off campus room and the $5 it cost you for food every week. You could graduate from Gorham Normal School and buy a house with what you’d earn teaching school in Maine your first year. It took me a while to figure out this road to riches so I was out of high school for 12 years before I even got an undergraduate degree. And although I probably took psychology 101 two or three times, all I remember now is references to the normal distribution curve --- I think that’s the old name for the bell curve --- and Terman and Stanford Binet and IQ. There were no chapters on how to find out who I am. Forty years ago people didn’t realize that they needed to run around wondering who they were. But nowadays if your wife asks you why you don’t get a job, you can tell her that you are trying to find out who you are. If you really don’t know who you are ask your wife. She will probably tell you that either you are a very lazy man or you need thyroid pills.
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8. The Common Ground Fair is almost upon us and the Common Ground Fair is the happening of the year. Don’t miss it. If you don’t have transportation, write to me, humble@humblefarmer.com, and we’ll see if we can find someone in your neighborhood willing give you a ride up and back. Buy them four gallons of gas, and they’ll be calling you. You don’t want to miss the Common Ground Fair. It is the greatest fair going anywhere, and as soon as they ban smoking on the grounds ---- No, I’m not going to say a word about it. All this was brought to mind by a postcard I just got from my many friends at MOFGA, the perpetuators of the Common Ground Fair, and the postcard said that it is time to renew my Mofga membership. I see that if you are an individual it costs $35. I have never thought of myself as an individual. In every application form I have ever filled out I have written: I am a conformist, an agnostic and a conscientious hedonist. I saw no category for conformists on the card, but way down at the bottom --- in very small print that you can’t see without your glasses, is a category for Elder. Now why they should have a category for young men who proselytize and not a category for those of us who are conformists? I called Mofga and guess what? In this case Elder is an euphemism for old people. I’m 70 and do you think I give a fiddlers fanfare if they call me an old man if it gets me a $15 discount? How do you feel about that? If Elder got me $15 off, for $20 I’d sign up for Eldest.
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9. It finally happened. This morning my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, said, “You’re combing your hair up from the side like a bald man.” I want to stress that this is not true. I am genetically disposed to have a reasonable amount of hair and I am combing my hair just the way I did when I was 15 years old. I mean the part is in the same place as it was when I was 15. When I was 15 we combed our hair up in front. We didn’t slick it back on the sides, like the Elvis crowd, so all our hairs, except in that front part that we combed back into a little mound, pointed directly at the ground. Then, when I was 24 I flunked out of music school and went to Sweden. And while in Sweden a girl told me I should not have my hair heaped up in front, but should comb it across the front and deposit it there, lifeless and flat. And even though that girl is probably a skrak-odler by now, I’ve continued to wear my hair that way for over 45 years. But now, if you’ll think about it, and I’m just realizing this --- there is no reason a bald spot would conveniently appear in the middle of your part. It would appear to the top side of the part. So, then --- if you continue to comb your hair the way you did when you were 15, even a disinterested party would have to think that you were combing from the side to cover a bald spot. You can see that there is an answer. Today I started parting my hair one inch further up toward the top of my head. If I am lucky, I will live long enough to part it in the center.
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10. This scrap from David Bright who says he saw it in the Bangor paper. Q106.5 is looking for a full-time NEWS REPORTER & ANCHOR. Must be self-motivator willing to learn ....... David says, “Somehow I have a hard time picturing a self-motivated anchor.”

Dr. Jeremy Tuttle sends French Chocolate

My friends Jeremy and Sally Tuttle sent me an email that says, “There is some French chocolate for you and Marsha in the mail.”

I have not had a cookie or a donut or ice cream or a piece of pie or a blueberry muffin for two years. I dearly love these things but if I were to eat them, it wouldn’t be long before I wouldn’t be able to tie my shoes.

I haven’t eaten chocolate for years. I have no idea of what chocolate would do to my system --- it has been so long since I’ve had any --- but it still makes my jaws ache to think about it. The down side of eating a piece of chocolate or a nice piece of fudge is not pleasant to consider. Yes, chocolate tastes good going down, but it soon plunges me into a state of feeling rotten in general. The symptoms are vague and difficult to describe but they are extremely unpleasant.

I don’t know if this is a common thing. But 30 plus years ago, back when I was an old bach living all alone in my house, I used to write on the walls and on the doors. Way back, and I’m talking way back before I even started writing for newspapers which would have been 1972 or so, when I’d think of something I’d write it on the doors or on the walls. Remember that I had no outlet for all the things that were going through my head and this was before I wrote for newspapers or did radio or television, so I’d write things on the wall. And I remember, for years, on top of the cellar door, in thick black magic marker, it said, “2 am. Still up with stomach pains from drinking one cup of chocolate. Never learn.”

I think I got into this by telling you that my friends Jeremy and Sally Tuttle sent me an email that says, “There is some French chocolate for you and Marsha in the mail.” Sending me and Marsha some French chocolate in the mail would be like me sending Sally and Jeremy a jock strap.

For the Protection of the People and the State

Another sophisticated terrorist plot foiled. And, as a result, now “For the Protection of the People and the State,” we cannot take a bottle of water onto airplanes. Can you doubt but what you will see emergency legislation enacted soon? But let’s look at the positive side. Who is going to benefit by this threat?

First, no food or drinks can be brought on board an airplane. The folks hawking nutrients on airplanes are going to profit.

Second, when Hitler couldn’t discover a plot against the state and the people to give him an excuse to consolidate his power, he invented one. Plots are welcomed by would-be dictators as opportunities to quickly enact legislation “For the Protection of the People and the State” that would be laughed down in Plot-free times.

And Third, the author of the most recent book saying that World War Three is part of God’s Plan, and that The End of The World is upon us, is going to make a lot of money. His great-grandchildren will have summer estates on the coast of Maine and winter estates on the Costa Del Sol.

Now, let’s ask ourselves --- how sophisticated were these would-be terrorists? They were stupid enough to get caught. Do the really slick professional evil terrorists who are killing and incapacitating Americans, raising our health insurance rates, and making our lives miserable in general get caught? Every year more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. That’s like 1100 Americans dying in plane crashes every day. If Al Qaeda wanted to get serious about killing Americans, they’d send operatives here who would quietly join Rotary and sell cigarettes.

Wisdom of Confucius

Confucius say,

"Man who commutes with horse not likely to be happy when Emperor’s family and friends are in hay business."