At the ripe old age of 34, I was still going to school full time. For reasons beyond my control I dropped out and, for the next 20 years, lived the life of an academic hermit. Because I lived alone, whenever something would come to mind that I thought was worth remembering, I wrote it on a door casing or on the walls.
One enigmatic line, written in black Magic Marker over the cellar door, said, “Never trade labor for fish with Maurice.”
This wall scribbling overflowed into the personal column of the Maine Times and eventually into over 50 newspapers in several states and Canada.
Editors didn’t come to me. I admit it. I drove a dump truck from here to Oklahoma and Wisconsin and pounded on editors’ doors. I spoke at newspaper conventions. I enjoyed the marketing aspect and the interactions with people.
Although I have avoided fishing since my grandfather Skoglund took me smelting in 1942 – you stand with a pole in your hand and watch the tide come in over the slippery rocks – selling your speaking or writing services is no more than fishing: You put out your bait and hope that someone bites.
In perhaps the 1970s equivalent of a tweet, I sandwiched my shorter observations on life in between old-fashioned songs on my MPBN radio show. When a really astute comment could be squeezed into three sentences, it would sometimes get published in USA Today. (Nota bene: You might have discovered that the short letters you’ve written to your favorite editor are more likely to get published than the windy ones.)
But what do you do when one newspaper column and a dozen rants for a radio show don’t begin to handle the curious material that cries out for embellished recycling at every turn?
Years ago there would be nothing I could do with it, but now I can post it on Facebook. On Facebook your comments and photos are evaluated, or winnowed, by friends of your choosing, which lets you know when you have something worthy of elaboration and publication.
I would not be surprised if you don’t use Facebook. And I would not be surprised if you have never heard of it. Or if you have heard of it but still don’t know what it is, because although I have heard of Twitter, I still don’t know what it is or how it works, what it is supposed to do or how you plug into it.
We read that Facebook is used by 214 million Americans. Only 20 million of them are over 65 because we old folks are set in our ways and, as Holman Day put it, ‘twould take a keg of powder to shake us off our nest.
Facebook is no more than a public diary. Facebook is illustrated. You can paste pictures of anything that interests you and comment on it. Cats. Food. Grandchildren. People who think they are good-looking post a lot of close-up pictures of themselves.
This morning I peeked at the page of a woman who documented the rapid ripening and utilization of her peach crop. We start off looking at mouth-watering pans of peach-pecan cobbler bread. She quickly moves on to peach and whipped cream crêpes and a plain peach cobbler. Remember that Facebook displays these goodies in living color.
Then, before we can catch our breath, she mentions bags of frozen peaches in the freezer, peaches in the closet and peaches that are dropping on the ground outside. She begs friends to come in and cart off a bag of peaches, but there is no help in sight because on Facebook there is no way to determine where you live.
Finally, overwhelmed by an overabundance of peaches and having nowhere else to turn, she makes several gallons of peach vodka and collapses, glass in hand on the chopping block behind the woodshed, sated with the warm internal glow that comes only after work well done.
Did you know that you can freeze peaches whole, like blueberries on a baking sheet, and, when they are frozen solid, store them in plastic bags? I learned this a week after my last peach had been eaten by the cow friend, but, thanks to Facebook, next year you and I will be ready.
The humble Farmer can be heard Friday nights at 7 on WHPW (97.3 FM) and visited at his website:
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