~ MAINE HUMOR ~

PHONE CALL TO HEAVEN An author decided to write a book about churches around the country. Since he lived in San Francisco, he figured he'd start locally, and work his way east from there. He went to the largest church in San Francisco and began his research. As he walks through door, he spots a golden telephone on the wall and is intrigued with a sign which reads "$10,000 a minute." Seeking out the pastor, he asks about the phone and the sign. The pastor answers that this golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to Heaven, and if he is willing to pay the price, he can talk directly to God. He thanks the pastor and continues on his way. As he continues to visit churches in Seattle, Boise, Dallas, Chicago, Milwaukee, Washington, DC, New York, Boston, and on around the United States, he finds more phones, with the same sign, and the same answer from each pastor. Finally, he arrives in Maine. Upon entering a church in Howland, lo and behold, he sees the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign reads "Calls 25 cents." Fascinated, he requests to talk to the pastor. "Reverend, I have been in cities all across the country and in each church I found this golden telephone, and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to God, but, in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute. Your sign reads 25 cents a call. Why?" The pastor, smiling benignly, replies, "Oh, my son, that's very easy to explain. You see, you're in Maine now and, of course, it's a local call.

Official Maine Temperature Conversion Chart
60 above	New Yorkers try to turn on the heat. People in Maine plant gardens and go fishing.
50 above	Californians shiver uncontrollably. People in Maine sunbathe while fishing.
40 above	Italian & English cars won't start. People in Maine drive with the windows down on the way to go fishing.
32 above	Distilled water freezes. While out fishing, Mainers notice that the water in Moosehead Lake is getting a little thicker.
20 above	Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves and woolly hats. People in Maine throw on a flannel shirt so they can fish at 3:00 in the morning.
15 above	New York landlords finally turn up the heat. People in Maine have the last cook-out before it gets cold.
0	People in Miami all die from shock. Mainers lick the flagpole to tell which side of the lake the ice is thinnest (so they can go fishing).
20 below	Californians fly to Mexico. People in Maine get out their winter coats, so they can drag their uninsulated ice fishing cabins out on the lake with the tractor.
40 below	Hollywood shatters into a pile of frozen faux jewelry. The Girl Scouts in Maine are selling cookies door to door among the ice fishing communities on the lakes.
60 below	Polar bears begin to evacuate the Arctic. Maine's Boy Scouts postpone "Winter Survival" classes until it gets cold enough. Instead they go fishing with their folks, and work on their bare-handed catches at the ice fishing holes.
80 below	Mount St. Helen's freezes. People in Maine rent some videos to watch during their overnights in their ice fishing cabins.
100 below	Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Mainiacs get frustrated because they can't thaw the keg while fishing.
297 below	Microbial life no longer survives on dairy products. Cows in Maine complain about farmers with cold hands.
460 below	Absolute zero on the Kelvin scale. ALL atomic motion stops. People in Maine start saying "Cold 'nuff for ya?" (answer: "ayuh, 'bout time to hit the lake and catch a couple…")
500 below	Hell freezes over. The New England Patriots win the Super Bowl and the Red Sox win the World Series.

MAINE: Land of the Bad People A TRUE STORY

As anyone "From Away" can attest, Maine has a reputation for showing convivial disdain for outsiders. This trait actually goes back to the earliest days of its settlement. In fact, when Giovanni da Verrazzano explored the coast of Maine in 1524, he encountered the native Abanaki tribe and found them less than welcoming. The Abanaki, already embroiled in sporadic warfare with the powerful Iroquois Federation to their west, were not a very trusting group (later treatment by European settlers would justify this lack of trust) and refused to come down to the shore to trade with Verrazzano's men. They were more than willing to barter, but only from the safety of a shoreside cliff. From this vantage point, they would trade by lowering items on a rope (and thus establishing the first American line of credit). Verrazzano writes in his journal that when the Abanaki were finished trading, they "showed their buttocks and laughed immoderately..." In other words, they mooned the Europeans. For this, Verrazzano bestowed upon Maine the title "Terra onde la mala gente," or "the land of the bad people."

Theodore Roosevelt Goes to Maine ANOTHER TRUE STORY

"Once, while driving in a wagon with (Maine native) Dave Sewell, up an exceedingly wet and rocky backwoods road, with the water pouring down the middle, I asked him how in Aroostook County they were able to tell its roads from its rivers. 'No beaver dams in the roads,' Dave instantly replied..." -- Theodore Roosevelt, describing one of his trips to Island Falls, ME, circa 1890.

Maine Computer Terms

1. Log on - Make the wood stove hotter

2. Log off - Don't add no more wood

3. Monitor - Keep an eye on that wood stove

4. Download - Getting the firewood off the truck

5. Floppy disk - What you get from downloading too much firewood

6. Ram - The thing that splits the firewood

7. Hard Drive - Getting home in the winter

8. Prompt - What the US mail ain't in the winter

9. Window - What to shut when it's cold outside

10. Screen - What to shut in black fly season

11. Byte - What the black flies do

12. Bit - What the black flies did

13. Mega Byte - What the BIG black flies do during trout season

14. Chip - Munchies for TV

15. Micro Chip - What's left in the bag after you eat chips

16. Modem - What you did to the weeds growing in the driveway

17. Dot matrix - Old Dan Matrix's wife

18. Lap top - Where the beer spills when you nod off

19. Software - The dumb plastic knives and forks at McDonalds

20. Hardware - Real stainless steel cutlery

21. Mouse - What makes the holes in the Cheerio box

22. Main frame - What holds the house up, hopefully

23. Enter - The only way to win those magazine sweepstakes

24. Web - What a spider makes

25. Web site - High corners of the ceiling

26. Cursor - Someone who swears

27. Search Engine - What you do when the car dies

28. Screen Saver - repair kit for the torn window screen on the camp

29. Home Page - map that tourists keep in their pocket in case they get lost in the woods. Real Mainers never use them

30. Upgrade - Steep hill

31. Server - waitress

32. Mail Server - male waitress. Damn few in Maine

33. MS DOS - Some new disease they discovered

34. Sound Card - One of them gall darned technological birthday cards that plays music when you open it

35. User - The neighbor who keeps borrowing your stuff

36. Browser - A problem moose in the Blueberry patch

37. Network - Mending holes in the gillnet

38. Internet - Complicated fish net repair

39. Netscape - What haddock do when you don't do your network

40. Online - good sign there'll be clean clothes this week

41. Off line - the clothes pins let go and the laundry falls on the ground. Next week, get biggah pins...

The Hayloft, The Stalls, and Other Places in the Barn Watch where you step...."

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