The Countryman: Here’s to Herb Caen

Herb Caen (1916-1997) wrote a column in San Francisco for 59 years. Some columns were strings of snippets, none weighty enough to support an entire column. Caen called them “three-dot columns,” because he used ellipses to enter and leave each item. Here, in honor of Caen, is a three-dot column. Some items are attributed, others are original.

. . . Hard to remember in a hot July, but if it weren’t for winter and black flies, there would be 10 million people living in Maine. . . .

. . . If your business is open only between 9 and 5, your clientele is the unemployed. (Chris Krauss, Wilton). . . .

. . . What if Black Lives Matter had taken a little different name? If the movement’s name had been Black Lives Matter Too, its leaders would have been saying, “We’re all in this together.” Instead, the name lets opponents focus on the blackness and implied exclusivity of the movement rather than on its potential for humanity and inclusiveness. (See The Countryman, July 14, for a take on the effect of a single word.) . . .

. . . The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association is a wild success story of the back-to-the-land movement. But its name betrays a built-in conflict. Farmers and gardeners have little in common. Farmers grow things, mostly food, to sell. Gardeners grow for themselves and then give away any surplus. Every time a gardener gives away tomatoes or corn, she cuts into a farmer’s sales. MOFGA has plenty of other conflicts, such as vegetarians vs. people who eat food and purists vs. pragmatists. But the core conflict is right there in the name, farmers and gardeners. . . .

. . . The Maine Public Broadcasting Network boasts about reducing radio fund-raising by compressing its on-air begging into one day three or four times a year. But it doesn’t brag about having added more hawking on the days that aren’t “pledge drives.” We now get frequent reminders that the way to keep the “one-day” idea alive is to pledge online before the “one-day” drive. Or after. What part of “one-day” did they miss? . . .

. . . If Bernie Sanders wanted to attack the Democratic Party for rigging the nominating system, he should have been a Democrat, not an Independent. Then, he could have influenced the nominating process. (D.L. Hughely, political commentator). . . .

. . . Athletes have real power beyond their sport. Last fall, football players at the University of Missouri forced out Mizzou’s president, citing a negative racial climate that the administration had ignored. (Disclosure: I grew up across the street from the University of Missouri. It was all-white then. Comments from administrators last year suggested that Mizzou was stuck in the ’50s.) Now, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, professional basketball players, are using their fame to work for an end to violence. James said, “We all feel helpless and frustrated by the violence.” Melo and King James and others hosted a conference in Los Angeles to try to bridge the chasm between police and black folks. Sometimes, sports is more than what you see on the scoreboard. . . .

. . . Some people farm with money, some people farm for money. I farm for money.
(Gloria Varney, co-owner, Nezinscot Farm in Turner, about trust-fund and hobby farmers). . . .

. . . Ron White Department. White may be best known for saying, “You can’t fix stupid.” And sometimes the smartest people behave the stupidest. The Democratic National Committee worked behind the scenes to defeat Sanders. And the chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, did it via email. Smart enough to run the DNC but not smart enough to know that emails are forever? . . .

. . . Ron White Dept. No. 2. The character of Dr. Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, now in its 300th year of reruns, often reminds us that he has two PhDs. But many episodes focus on how stupid the theoretical physicist can be. Especially enjoyable is the episode in which Cooper can’t decipher a simple card trick by a couple of buddies. They cheated. Some people have only one PhD and still do a lot of stupid. . . .

. . . Columnist David Brooks has noted that for the first time in polling history, most Americans don’t trust the government. We few who have held out against cable and satellite television see evidence of that every day. Every time I have to get up to adjust the rabbit ears, I curse the Congress that auctioned much of the broadcast bandwidth to big corporations so they could rent it back to the people who originally owned it. We used to get Channels 5 and 7 (Bangor), 12 (Orono) and 6 and 8 (Portland). Now we get Channel 5 from Bangor and Channel 12 from Orono. Thank you, Congress. . . .

. . . Ron White Dept. No. 3. So far, 23 children have died of heat stroke this year when left locked in cars. The Associated Press reports that temperature in a car rises by 29 degrees in 20 minutes. That’s to 119 degrees if the ambient temperature is 90. How in God’s name can you create a baby and then lock her in a hot car to die? Work on your stupid, people. . . .

. . . They are “social media.” Twitter, Facebook, email, Instagram and the like. You can put anything out there you like. You’re not accountable and you don’t have to talk to anyone face to face or by phone. What’s social in that? And how social can you be in 140 characters? They are more like the anti-social media. . . .

. . . Ron White Dept. No. 4, or Debbie Wasserman Schultz Dept. No. 2. Instead of phoning DNC operatives, Wasserman Schultz sent emails. Nobody was clued in until Vladimir Putin allegedly passed them to Julian Assange, who posted them on WikiLeaks, keeping his vow to “get” Hillary Clinton. Stupid is hard to fix, but it’s easy to compound. . . .

Bob Neal lives in New Sharon. He collected three-dot items for a couple of months, had thought it would be a quicker, easier way to write a column. It isn’t. The exercise gives him a new respect for Herb Caen.