If you’ve ever driven a bait truck to Port Clyde, you’ve probably passed by our old yellow house at least twice. So you’ve also seen my blueberry field and West Pasture, which are right across the road. You couldn’t help but notice what a good job I did mowing that pasture right up to the road this fall, but you might not know that manicuring my grounds cost me dearly.

Because this is one of those “Don’t do the stupid thing I did” stories, a cursory perusal of the words below might be worth your while.

In 1938 the Maine Department of Transportation improved the road that goes by my house. They moved the road 100 feet this way and 20 feet that way and they filled in some low places and they knocked off some high places. And when Mr. Hinman, or whoever did the work, looked at the level road in front of my house, he saw that it was good and he rested.

When I moved in 32 years later, I saw a level road in front of my house but was unable to mow my West Pasture up to the road because, although Mr. Hinman had leveled the road, to do it he created shoulders with 10-foot drop-offs here and there.

Fast forward another 25 years and the Maine Department of Transportation is back, this time to eliminate their original 10-foot drop-offs and create long, sloping shoulders. That way, if you car leaves the road, instead of rolling over, it continues on in an upright position until it hits a tree.

You’ve seen how easily they now grade shoulders with that huge scraping machine with the extended arm. I was so pleased I wrote the commissioner a letter, thanking him for improving the shoulders so I could mow them.

Now, in some places on that shoulder, Marsha’s little John Deere will skitter right along parallel to the road. In other places, where it is still a mite too steep, I have to mow up and down the bank so the tractor won’t tip over. In some places where it is really steep, I threw myself backward violently in the seat so the weight of my upper body would give the wide wheels enough traction to get up to the road.

If you are 12, your bones are made of rubber, but if you are over 70, or perhaps even an adult of 40, you do not want to thrash about like this – because the next day your sacrum will forget that it is happy only while attached to your pelvis and you will soon be on a first-name basis with your chiropractor and your orthopedist.

Do you find it ironic that a man who prided himself on having avoided sports and lived almost fourscore years without breaking a bone or pulling a ligament should be undone by an ignorant rider-mower?

Unaccustomed to sports injuries and being unable to stand up straight for the first time in my life, I found hobbling about like an aged crone to be an uncomfortable and annoying new experience.

Luxuriating in pain because my codeine pill hadn’t kicked in, I was rocking back and forth like a perpetual motion drinking bird in front of my computer, when my wife, Marsha, walked into the solar radiant-heated cellar/office, bubbling over with cheerful words of encouragement.

She said, “You have enough material from your doctors’ visits from just the past two weeks to write the great American novel.”

No sympathy there.

Instead, she handed me a two-page hand-written catalog of real and imaginary afflictions and said, “Write about this: MRI, X-rays, every test known to modern medicine, lower bridge replaced, no relief from drugs that young people find euphoric, knee drained …” I acknowledged the literary possibilities but was not amused.

I continued to read: “If they ever start up a new medical series like Marcus Welby or Dr. Kildare, where they need an elderly doctor, you’d be a natural for the part. You already know all the medical lingo just from reading your after-visit reports.

“Get creative. Write about some exciting new hip ailment that nobody has ever noticed before. It would open up a whole new market for our struggling pharmaceutical industry. They’re always looking for wonderful new aches and pains (and everyone knows you’ve got enough of them) that will require pills. You could be their poster boy.

“Don’t forget to mention that the first day you felt better, you split half a cord of birch and undid a week’s worth of therapy. P.S. If I’m going to write your columns, I want 50 percent.”

The next day I was opening some pill bottles when she said, “Why don’t you let me put your pills in one of those pill dispensers? Then you’d only have to open one thing in the morning instead of three.”

I told her I’d rather open the three bottles every morning. A man my age needs the exercise.

The humble Farmer can be seen on Community Television in and near Portland and visited at his website:

www.thehumblefarmer.com/MainePrivateRadio.html