by Robert Skoglund aka the humble Farmer
Coastal Journal contributor

You’ve heard me say many times that after flunking out of music school as a clarinet player in 1960, I got $10 for playing bass in a dance band at The Blue Goose every Saturday night which paid my way through undergraduate school. Five dollars paid for food for the week. Five dollars paid for a room for the week. Sometimes I’d get an extra thing down at the Allen A camp in New Hampshire with Tommy Bucci.

Later, when I was in graduate school at the University of Rochester, my band played homecoming dances and frat parties. The boys in Skogie’s Jazz Combo at Rochester were top drawer Eastman students who are famous today. I was always the weakest member in any group I ever played in, but I booked the gigs so it was my band. And when it wasn’t my band, I was tolerated, so I always got to play somewhere.

by Robert Skoglund aka the humble Farmer
Coastal Journal contributor 

The bad news is that when a Pepsi plant shut down 23 people lost their jobs.  We feel their pain and wish them well.

A few of the 90 letters to the blog editor complaining about the shutdown blamed Michelle Obama for telling us to eat healthy. Most writers said that “government control” was responsible for the plant’s demise.

The good news is that the plant’s closing could save lives, or at least cut down on diabetes here in Maine. Everyone knows that “diet” soda is paradoxically associated with an increased risk for metabolic syndrome (obesity). We read that any and all sweetened sodas are nothing but empty calories, full of processed sugar, caffeine and chemicals. Your friends in the medical community have told you that drinking sweetened soda every day will take a terrible toll on your health, your weight and your teeth.

by Orville Ranger
Coastal Journal contributor 

The other day i was sitting at my computer, reflecting on my wasted youth, and wondering what new offerings might be coming my way, when lo and behold, as they used to say, an intriguing message appeared on the screen under the following heading:

“Subject: 1 new woman may want to meet you!”

This raises several questions concerning the above declaration, which i hereby respond to, word by word, to wit:

Why only “1 new woman”?  Why not several?  Isn’t there supposed to be “safety in numbers” as grandmother might have suggested?

Is “new” referring to her age or her assumed position in the line of curious women interested in me, my elegibility, or whatever?