(upbeat music) - [Announcer] The following program is a videotaped production of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

(gentle music) (Axe chopping) (gentle music) (wood clattering) - You know, when the snow gets real deep around here, sometimes the only excitement you have is standing around watching the flies dying on the windowsills.

But, every once in a while, somebody like Don Taverner will stop in for a visit.

Don was out of state quite a long time there, quite a few years.

But he's back now and he stopped in the other night, and I guess he's glad he is back.

- Oh, goodness, Kendall.

I've been from coast to coast and border to border, and too many times at that.

I'm glad to be home again, and to be in Maine where I really belong, I guess.

But I do get around Maine some and seeing old friends and places that I didn't see for so long, and I got up in Aroostook.

I don't know if you've been up there at all lately.

- Not lately, no.

- Well, it's changed since I left there almost 50 years ago, as a boy.

The town of Acton was where I was born, and that town has really become, quite a lot sophisticated.

Never was a frontier town in my time, but it's a lot more sophisticated now than it was.

And of course, I spent good many years down in Washington, D.C. - [Kendall Morse] Yeah.

- In fact, when I decided I wanted to come home, that's where I was located, in Washington, and I thought, gee, I'd like to get back to Maine.

If I could find something to do back in Maine that would be productive and interesting, why, I'd go home.

So I got the idea, I called, Mrs. Coffin, who was a town clerk in Ashland, Maine.

And I said, "Look, if there's something I could do up that way "that would be interesting, I'd kinda come home."

And I said, "But I don't expect anybody in Ashland, "remembers the Taverner boys, whatnot, we've been gone for so long.

And she said, "Oh my Lord" she says, "Remember you... "Of course, we remember you."

Why, she says, "Your brother went in the ministry "and set the church back 50 years, "and you went on down to Washington "and got involved in that Watergate thing, "caused all that trouble down there.

"You're probably those two well-known famous boys " who ever came out of this town."

In fact, she says, "They just put a sign, "in front of the house where you were born."

I said, "They didn't."

She said, "Yes, they did."

"What's that sign say?"

She says, "Presque Isle, 20 miles."

(Kendall Morse laughs) So I figured I was going back.

It could be Ashland, so I came back, but I'm afraid I'm not back in Ashland, at least not yet.

But, speaking of Washington and Maine and all, when I was in Washington, the nature of my work there, used to get me invited to a lot of these Washington receptions that take place from 5-8 in the afternoon.

And they have a lot of firewater and shrimp, and things of that kind.

And it's usually to some political purpose and whatnot.

So I used to get invited to a lot of those things.

But when was at one of 'em, and this rather large-busted woman came up to me and said, "Mr. Taverner, they tell me you're from the state of Maine."

I said, "That's correct."

I said, "I am."

And she says, "Well, they also said... "Someone said that you were born in a log cabin."

And I said, "No, that's not so."

I said, "But my father moved us into one "just as soon as he could afford it."

(Kendall Morse laughs) Now, I think that poor lady went off and believed it all.

I mean.

- Probably did.

- She walked away, you know, she probably didn't know the difference.

(Kendall Morse laughs) (indistinct) Maine, there's something about the story that I like the best I guess.

Kendall, of all the stories, although it may be known to a lot of people, because it is Maine.

And that's the story of the fishing schooner.

Now, today, of course commercial fishing is still a big thing in the state of Maine, it's a big, important industry.

But it's very different than it was at the turn of the century.

- Oh yes.

- You know nowadays, they go out in those 90-foot steel beam trawlers with all diesel power, refrigerated hull, so they don't have to worry about the fish after they get the catch.

And they have Serta inner spring mattresses, and pastel-colored cruise quarters, and Hifi record players and Coke machines and whatnot.

And it's kind of like a cruise on the north Atlantic with a few fish thrown in.

- [Kendall Morse] Yeah.

- But back at the turn of the century, it was quite different.

They used these 90-foot, smaller Gloucester fishing schooners.

These were two-masted schooners.

Depending on the wind only for propulsion, nothing that was mechanized.

To refrigerate the hull, they cut ice in those inland lakes around Hope, and Purgatory, and Liberty, and some of those towns, store it in the ice houses.

Then they'd line the hull of the vessel with these ice chunks, and then take out with a hope of getting a good catch and getting back before the ice departed and the fish along with it.

Now, as I say, their only propulsion was wind.

They were dependent upon that.

So, they depended a lot on the seamanship of the skipper.

(Taverner coughing) It was a 1902 that there was a crusty old skipper from St. George, took his schooner off the Grand Banks.

Four days, he got a haul down catch.

She was lying mighty low in the water, with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of ground fish in that hold.

Now, those are 1902 dollars, not the ones we know today.

And the old skipper realized he'd better get back and get going... Get that fish in before that ice melted.

So he came about and headed back for Rockland, where he's gonna discharge his fish and pay off the crew.

But a day and a half offshore, the wind pooched.

Now I don't have any idea if the folks in Mattawamkeag know what happens when the wind pooches, but you do if you're down from the coast way.

- Oh yeah.

- Because when the wind pooches a day and a half off the coast of Maine, as Gobo says, "There ain't nothing, nowhere, "any place, any harm.

"Just a dead flat calm."

And that vessel lay low on the water with all those tons of fish.

The sails hung up straight up and down like long drawers during Aroostook County in the wintertime.

And there she was.

Well, the old skipper... Of course, proficiency in life was seamanship.

So, he tried everything he knew.

He put a crew on the starboard side and ran 'em in unison on to port side, tip her and teel her and get a little wind in the topsails, and that didn't work.

He put a long boat out with the crew in it and tried to tow it off a lee of a nearby iceberg, pick a little wind up from that way, it didn't work.

Tried to scull it with a rudder, that wouldn't go.

She's too low in the water.

- [Kendall Morse] Mm-hmm.

- So, finally, he turned to a second proficiency in life, which was profanity.

Everything in the book and a lot of things he made up as he went along.

He started astride of the quarterdeck of that schooner, spitting tobacco, and swearing, and cursing.

Now down below deck in the galley was a cook's helper.

Very pious old man, a very religious old soul, and it bothered him terribly to hear all these profanity and whatnot come down through the deck boards.

So he put the pot over his head, then he put dish rags in his ears, he got under the galley.

Did everything to drown out that profanity, but as the Air Force says, it came through loud and clear.

So, finally, he mustered his courage and went topside, and he faced the skipper on the quarterdeck, and he says, "Skipper, you're as a fine seaman ever go up on the coast of Maine.

You know the ways of the sea and the ways of a vessel.

"If it was humanly possible, for you to move this ship, we'd be docked in Rock Harbor right now, discharging the fish and getting paid off.

But it ain't humanly possible, and instead of calling on the only power that can help you, you stand here and call him bad names.

Now that don't make sense, Skipper, that don't make sense.

"You take the advice of an older man."

He says, "Thing for you to do is call on the Lord, tell Him your troubles.

Make Him a love offering, to show your good intent.

Tell him to ship you a little wind.

You'll get your wind, Skipper, you'll get your wind."

Well, the old skipper says, "Well by God, I got nothing loose.

I sure tried everything else."

He gets in his pocket, gets out a half dollar and he holds a half dollar up and he says, "Lord, if you're half as good as this guy says you are, "ship me a little wind."

And he pitched that coin overside.

No sooner it hit the surface of the water, 110-mile-an-hour hurricane came up.

Stripped her clean.

Headsails went overside, bowsprit and foremast went.

And she's gotten for sure 75 knots, which is pretty good speed for sailing vessel.

- [Kendall Morse] Mm-hmm.

- She piled up on the beach down below south Thomaston, in what Duranti would call a catastrophe.

The old skipper came to below six feet of dead fish, worked his way up to get the sun, which he needed badly.

And found himself there in square in the eyes of the old cooks helper, who was just looking enthusiastic as he'd been offshore.

Skipper, he says, "You got your fish."

He says, "You got your wind, you got your wind."

He said, "Didn't I tell you to call on the Lord, made Him a love offering, show your good intent and ask Him to ship you a little wind.

"Did he answer your prayer?

"You got your wind, you got your wind.

"Got the fish, get the wind."

And the old skipper look at him.

He says, "Yes."

He said, "But by God, if I known his damn wind was as cheap, "I wouldn't have ordered so much."

(Kendall laughing) "So I guess the wind being that cheap, we probably better not try to carry on too long, you know, during this visit."

- Well, you mentioned how nice it is to be back in Maine.

I haven't spent a lot of time outside Maine, just enough to know what it's like to be able to come back.

And it makes me think that old woman up country there, I forget her name now but, somebody was talking here about going on vacations, and running all over the countryside, and flying around and all that.

She says, "Well, as far as I'm concerned, "when you're already there, "there ain't much point in traveling."

(Taverner laughing) Well, that's the way I feel.

- That pretty good philosophy, I think.

- Yeah.

- And I can sign the proof of it too.

'Cause I'm back where I started and happy to be here.

You know, staying with salt water for a bit, there was this fella down in Orange, New Jersey, who was a manufacturer.

He wasn't well educated man, but he was a good business man.

He made himself quite a lot of money.

His middle years, he decided it was time to enjoy the money, and also get a little status out of all this.

So he got the impression that the thing to do would be to buy a boat, buy a yacht of some kind.

So he found a 57-foot cruiser, which was a beauty and he bought it.

Didn't know anything about the sea, about boats or anything, but he struck outside.

He'd go up to Nova Scotia on a little sea trip.

And, so he went out of New York Harbor, up through Long Island Sound, up through Narragansett Bay, up through the Cape Cod Canal, into Casco Bay, and on up toward Penobscot Bay, but put in a Boothbay Harbor.

Went ashore and found an old coaster in there.

And he said, "you know, there's something wrong with this boat for which I paid a small fortune, don't steer good."

He says, "Doesn't handle right, the helm doesn't seem to do right."

And he says, "Could you help me?"

The fella says, "Well, for a few dollars, I'll take a look."

So he goes aboard and he looks her over and he says, "Well..." He says, "There's really nothing very wrong with this boat at all, she's a good vessel.

Your problem is your compass isn't calibrated."

He said, "You calibrate that compass, you'll be all set.

She'll handle good, you can be on your way, and have a good time up Nova Scotia."

And he says, "Well, how do you calibrate the compass?"

He says, "Well..." He says, "There's really not much to it if you know how."

He says, "For a few more dollars, I'll take you off "to the Rockland Navy trial runs up here, "and we'll take some sightings on navigational age and bouys and whatnot, and calibrate that compass, and you can be on your way."

So they struck out, make it out there, and they were sighting on bouys and all this And you know what happened down that area.

No time at all, pea soup fog dropped in.

Right down, Couldn't see the hand in front of their face, couldn't see a thing, and of course, they cut the engine and laid there.

Begin to hear these horns and whistles all around them, which meant there was some vessels moving around.

And by the tempera of those horns, some of those vessels were 500 feet long.

Well, a guy from Jersey, of course lost his head right away.

He said, "My God, we're dead.

"Here we are in the water, "can't move, can't see where to go.

"Big vessels, move around out there, we're gonna be crushed and swamped right here, we're dead right here in the water."

The old fella from Boothbay said, "Now, wait a minute..." He said, "Don't lose your cool."

He said, "We ain't either."

He says, "All we gotta do, is navigate by potatoes.

And he says, "How you navigate by potato?"

He says, "Well, you take a bag of potatoes "and you go up in the bow, "and you throw 'em over one at a time.

"And when one don't splash, you turn."

(Kendall Laughing) Now I kind of use that a little bit, fooling around with some of the fellas in legislature I... - Cheaper than radar, ain't it?

- Well, I guess there's that.

But I often sometimes accuse the legislative leadership down there in Augusta, about operating, navigating by potatoes too.

(Kendall laughing) When something don't go, they make a turn.

So it may or may not be something to that.

And mention in politics, Rogues Bluff, you know, up Machias Callais way.

- Oh yes.

- There was a fella up in Rouges Bluff a number of years ago now who- - Careful I got relatives there.

- Yeah, well it could be one of yours.

You can tell after getting the story away.

You can tell if it was one of yours or not.

But this fella, he had never been a much of a success in life.

- [Kendall Morse] Yeah.

(Kendall Laughing) - He raked a few blueberries, you know?

And he seen a few herring.

- Yeah.

- And he cut a little pulp and I think maybe $1,100 was the best year he ever had.

(Kendall laughing) And as he got toward his 50s, well, he thought, "Geez, I'm not getting much out of all this."

He says, "I gotta change in...

He says, "What do they say in the seas?

"I got to have a.... "I gotta reevaluate my occupational position."

He says, he needed something else.

So he got thinking.

"Well, I guess there's two things I could do."

He says one, he says, "I could run for legislature.

"Or two, I could go on welfare."

Now they pay about the same, and some of the fathers say, "It's about the same amount of work in it."

And he says, "But I guess maybe, I'd run for legislature "'cause it'd be a little more prestige for me."

So he sent away to Sears Roebuck down in Boston for a book on how to be a politician.

- Mm-hmm.

- And when that book came, it told him essentially this.

It says, "In so far as being a politician's concerned, "there are two kinds of people.

"There are those who know ya, and those who don't know ya.

Now those that know ya, either like you or they don't like ya.

If they like you, they're gonna vote for you regardless.

If they don't like you, there's nothing you can do to get them to vote for you.

So don't waste your time on 'em.

What you gotta do is find out who doesn't know ya, and go after them and cultivate their vote and their interest."

So he got in the town hall and got the town list there, and wrote down the names of all the people in the outskirts that he didn't think knew him.

Went around calling.

Came to one farmhouse knocked on the door, farm wife answers the door.

And he says, Hello."

He says, "My name's Evan Jones."

He says, "And I'm running for legislature down Augusta, and I'd sure appreciate your vote."

She looked at him, says, "Evan Jones, I know you, know your father before him, "your grandfather before him, "and the whole posse of you are no damn good.

"I wouldn't vote for you "if you were the last man in the state of Maine, "and then Russians will come up the Passadumkeag River.

"I can't think of a thing I could do that'd be a great disservice the people of Maine, than send the likes of you down to Augusta, tell us how little to spend our money.

Now you get the hell outta here, don't you ever come this yard again.

'Cause if you do, I'm gonna put the dog on you."

(Kendall Laughing) Fella got out his little book with the names and what not, came down to her name, put a little check mark in front after he wrote, "Doubtful."

(Kendall Laughing) And I think that's probably... Kendall, perhaps the philosophy of all politicians, "Never say die."

- Yeah.

Well, I...

When I went up to Aroostook there, as I mentioned, I went up in there.

I went up Old Route 2, you know, goes up through Haynesville area and whatnot, instead of taking the interstate up.

And I was reminded of back in the 50s before they put that interstate in.

There was a young lady from Houlton, who was going down to Bangor on a beautiful June morning.

And she struck out from Houlton, down through Linneus, you know in Haynesville and all that, in a beautiful convertible whatnot with her top down, and the sun was shining, and the birds was singing, and all was right with her world.

And those days that Route 2 was 45 mile an hour speed.

- [Kendall Morse] Mm-hmm - Well, by the time she hit Linneus, which wasn't very far, she was doing 55 miles an hour.

She looked in the rear view mirror and there was a state trooper, one of those Maine state troopers with the blue light and all right behind her.

Fire siren going and light flashing and whatnot, so she stepped down a little harder on the accelerator.

By the time she hit Haynesville, she was doing 65 miles an hour.

Looked the rear view mirror, and there were two state troopers behind her, the lights flashing and the sirens going.

So she gunned it a little bit more.

Once she got down by Passadumkeag, she was doing about 75 or 80 miles an hour.

Looked in the rear view mirror, three state troopers right behind her.

Lights flashing and the sirens going and all.

So she hit Stillwater corner, you know Stillwater Corner 90 degrees.

She was doing 90 miles an hour.

She made it, which was a miracle in itself.

Down College Avenue in Orono, wheeled into the Phillips station there, Bill Garrett runs, the chalet.

Reached to a stop, ran into the little room (indistinct) ladies.

She was in there three or four minutes.

When she came out here with these state troopers with her hand on the hips and the hat squared away, very displeased with her.

Went on, she smiled and says, "You fellas didn't think "I was gonna make it, did y'all?"

(Kendall and Taverner laughing) The going back up to your old country again, up in the Washington County, (Kendall coughing) there was a family up in Washington County that was burned out.

Mother and father and eight children.

And they lived in a kind of a tie paper shack to start with, and all they had was a little oil stove for heat and whatnot.

And one February night, when it was about 28 below zero, the wind hit the stove pipe, tipped the stove over, and the place burned.

Well, they get out of there with their lives, but nothing else.

So they started...

Neighbors took them in on one thing and another.

Now the Baptist minister there decided it was his bounded duty to do something to help these people out.

So he called up a meeting in the Grain hall, everybody in town to come, benefit for these people.

And he had 'em all sit down front, the mother and the father and the eight kids, all in Pillsbury flour sacks, 'cause that's all they had sitting down front there.

And the minister said, "I think we'd better open this meeting with prayer."

And so he looked to heaven, he says, "Oh Lord, look with great compassion on thee, our children in that time of destitution."

And he said, "they've lived the life without having live it, they've read the book as thou would have them to read it, they've done what thou would have them to do.

But thy great wisdom, now it seems fit to take away all their worldly goods.

And they sit in front of you just as they came in this world with nothing.

Oh Lord, send this family a barrel of sugar.

Oh Lord, send this family a barrel of salt.

Oh Lord, send this family a barrel of flour.

Oh Lord, send this family a barrel of pepper.

Oh God, he said, "That's too much pepper."

(Kendall and Taverner Laughing) So moderation in all things.

- You get carried away.

You know, he was talking about the trooper there, and the young lady outsmarted him.

Reminded me and my great uncle, Kurt, back home.

Now he told us one time that he'd been out hunting up Township 19, where they all go hunting.

He says, "I come out of the woods, then come out the road, and now was just black car sitting there with a fella sitting in it that I didn't know who he was.

And I went to pass him, and he stuck his head out the window and he says to me, he says, "How's the deer hunting?"

And uncle Kurt, you know, he was a great one to brag.

He never could tell the truth if a lie would suffice, you know.

He says, "Oh..." He says, "Not bad at all, I killed three for breakfast."

Well, of course, as you know, in the state of Maine, you're only allowed one deer for a season.

So this fella looked at him and he says, "You know who I am?"

Uncle Kurt says, "No, who are you?"

He says, "I'm the new game warden for Washington County."

Uncle Kurt says, "You know who I am?"

And the fella says, "No."

Kurt says, "I'm the biggest damn liar in the whole state of Maine."

(Taverner laughing) (Taverner coughing) Good, very good.

The only time he ever told the truth.

(Taverner laughing) Very good.

- Well, you know, speaking of stopping and then seeing things.

Of course, people from away, as we call 'em, our Summer visitors and all, always have a lot of stories to tell about getting directions in Maine.

- [Kendall Morse] Oh yes.

- And there's more stories about getting directions in Maine.

I think the one I liked the best, was this (indistinct) started to stay here from Massachusetts, was driving up.

Got up in the Waterville, and the old Elm Motel was still there.

And one of the local fellas was standing in front of the Elm Hotel.

And this fella wheeled up with his Massachusetts plates, and said, "I'd like to go see "Margaret Chase Smith's place in Skowhegan.

"Can you tell me how to get Skowhegan?"

Of course there's nothing to it.

He said, "All you do is turn right here."

He says, "And go down this road here.

He says, "Until you come to Colby College, "which you can't miss with all those big buildings."

He says, "Bear right around Colby..." He said, "Down by the barons."

He said, "Come up by the corn factory out by the grove of pine trees."

He says, "bear left there."

He says, "Make a switch where the old Baptist church used to be, and you're on your way."

- Yeah.

(Kendall laughing) - Well, fella try to remember all this you see.

So he was driving along, went down to Colby College and he went to barons, and he went up by the corn factory, you know, by the trees and all this stuff.

And twenty-five minutes later, he was right back where he started in front of the same guy.

And boy he was mad.

So he yank hank the window down and the fella said, "Oh no now hold it."

He says, "Don't blow your stack."

He says, "I had to find out "whether you could take directions or not.

"Now that I know you know how to take directions, "I'll tell you how to get to Skowhegan."

(Kendall Laughing) And I think that's probably one of the best of the many, many, many Maine direction stories.

- You've been up around Lincoln at all?

- Yeah, I went up through there when I went up to Ashland there a while ago.

- A friend of mine used to live up in that country.

and he was telling me that he and his uncle went out somewhere and they got a box trailer full of cow manure to put on the garden.

(throat clearing) You talk about strange things happening.

It even happens to Maine people too among ourselves.

We like to have a little fun with one another now and then.

And they were coming down the road, with this box trailer full of cow manure.

And something happened.

Either the hitch broke, or it let go of something.

Anyway, it flipped in the whole... Oh, it made an awful mess.

As I stand there looking around, by and by this fella drove up, in an old station wagon, rusted out clear to the windshield.

They didn't know him.

(Taverner coughing) He didn't know them.

But he got out, he looked it all over, never said of word.

Took his jolly time looking it all over.

Finally, he looked at 'em and he says, "Well, fellas, looks like your trailer's alright, but there ain't the hell of a lot left of that cow, wonder where he went.

(Taverner laughing) - That reminds me another one somewhat along the same vein.

Few years ago... Well, let's say, several years ago, Maine had a governor who was not too popular.

- [Kendall Morse] Really?

- And we won't name him, but... (Kendall Laughing) He wasn't too popular.

And there was this guy up in...

I don't know if you know the Lincoln County, Kennebec County area, but Whitefield, - Yeah.

- And Windsor.

Well, this fella had lived in Windsor, but he had a farm down there in Whitefield.

And he'd been planning, all for a long while to fertilize his field down there, 40 acre field down there.

He gonna fertilize it, but he kept postponing it, kept postponing it, kept postponing it.

So finally, one morning it was bright in sunny, so he loaded up his truck with this cow manure or horse manure, actually, is what it was.

The horse manure that he had, and he loaded the truck and struck out for Windsor, to fertilize the field.

And as he started down the road, he noticed the clouds begin to form.

"Oh my Lord, is gonna rain.

"And if it rains with this load I got on here, he said, "it's gonna be a mess."

So he gunned her up some, and got her up about 60, 65 miles an hour.

Well, Maine state trooper whom he knew, Bill Bailey, actually he knew him, and trooper pulled behind him, pulled him over.

Said, "Mr.

Jones?"

He says, "Where you going at that kind of speed?"

"Well, I can get down "fertilized my acres down there."

He says, "And it looked like rain, "so I kind of was moving along.

He said, "You were moving along, alright."

He says, "I clocked you at 67 miles an hour, "this 45 mile an hour road."

He said, "That old truck is really not supposed to go that fast anyway."

He says, "You got a governor on that truck?"

He says, "Hell no, that's horse manure you smell."

(Kendall laughing) So I guess probably, we won't try to guess which governor that might have been.

- Well, that could fit a number of ones in the last 50 years or so.

- It's supposed to become funny, that could qualify in there.

The * staying again, as long as were in that kind of a agricultural situation.

Knox County, where the state prison's located.

The Warren area, there was this farmer there that was going out to do his fertilizing, and he had a load of manure on his truck.

And he looked like it was gonna rain, so he said to his hired man, Joe.

He says, "Joe, why don't you climb up on top "of that load of manure, "and I'll put a tarp over you so you can stay dry.

'Cause you sit up here with me you're gonna get wet, an open truck."

And so he said, "You've been a good man.

I take care of you, "you've been good to me."

And so Joe, the hired man, climbed up on the load of manure and he put a tarp over him and off they went down the road.

Well, as it so happened, there was a inmate escaped from the state prison, Thomaston, near there.

So they got to one place and there was a roadblock of prison guards and they stopped.

And they says, "Where you going, Mr.

Jones?"

"Well, I'm going down here."

He says, "To Warren and fertilize my field.

And he says, 'Well, who you got in the back of the truck?"

And he said, "Just a load of manure and my hired man."

He said, "Okay, go ahead."

Go down further and here's another roadblock with the three or four state troopers, stopped him and they says, "Where you going sir?"

And he says, "I'm going down into Warren to fertilize my field."

He said, "What you got in the back of that truck?"

And he says, "I got load of manure and my hired man."

Goes on further, stop for the third time.

Same thing, "What's in the back of the truck?"

He said, "A load of manure and my hired man."

So they go on further, you know, and whatnot, and the farmer begin to sing, and the sun came back out and whatnot.

And he said, "Joe..." He says, "Oh, you're a good man."

He says, "How you doing back there?"

And he says, "Good, fine, fine farmer Jones, fine."

Farmer Jones said, "Anything I can do for you, Joe?"

He said, "Well, there is one thing."

He said, "What's that?"

He said, "Next time, how about introducing me first?"

(Kendall laughing) Trying to get a perspective on the situation.

(Kendall laughing) The...

I was reminded of the...

Speaking of traveling around, the traveling salesman... And this isn't the traveling salesman story, but the traveling salesman who was driving up through Franklin County.

And up by Strong somewhere is like open country, a farm ran... A cat ran out a farm yard across the road and he hit and killed him.

So he felt very bad about it, of course.

And being a very responsible kind of guy, he went up and knocked on the farm door, and the woman came to the door and he said, "You have a black and white cat?"

And she says, "Yes."

He said, "Well, I'm awful sorry."

He said, "It's an accident."

He said, "I'm awful sorry, "but I just ran over it and killed it."

And he said, "I kinda like to replace it."

She said, "Well, come right in "you can start in the cupboard."

She says, "The mouse in the cupboard."

(Kendall laughing) - You know, you were talking about farm animals and one thing or another, and bad weather.

You know, people in Maine, rural Maine, to some degree, I think they have something in common with the Scotch people.

- Yes I do, I agree, yeah.

- When you get a good day in Scotland, you know, it's quite rare, and it's the same thing around here.

And you get to wear... You get suspicious after a while, like they tell about the old Scotsman that was walking down the street in Glasgow.

He met a young fella that was feeling pretty good.

And the young fella says to him, he says, "Good morning Jacques."

Says, "It's a beautiful day, ain't it?"

And the old fella says, "Aye, it 'tis, but we'll pay for it."

It's kind of like that in Maine.

- Yes, that's right, it is.

- There was, there was an old fella was out plowing the field with a prize breeding bull.

And his neighbor come along and he, he looked at him a minute then he thought he'd gone crazy.

So he called him over to the fence and he says "Uh, John."

He says, "What the hell are you doing using that prized bull to plow the field with?"

The old fella says, "Well."

Says, "Nothing wrong with my tractor, you know.

I could have been using that, but I had a purpose in mind plowing with that bull.

I just wanted the old son of a bitch to find out that life ain't all fun and games.

- [Don Taverner] laughing - How about hotting up your tea?

- Yeah, that would be good.

We could just put on a bit.

That would be just great.

(calm guitar music) - Well, you gotta admit that an evening with Don Taverner, it sure beats watching flies die.

Come to think of it, it beats the hell out of splitting wood too.

(wood-knocking sound) (calm guitar music) (upbeat music)