Robert Karl Skoglund

ST. GEORGE – Robert Karl Skoglund, 88, “The humble Farmer”, died peacefully at home on Nov. 30, 2024. He is survived by his spouse Marsha, “The Almost Perfect Woman,” by two siblings Sonya Faulkingham and Marta Sisco, two step daughters, Alison and Tamar, and their daughters Sydney, Madeline, and Ava. He was predeceased by his brother James.

Robert, aka humble, is best known for the decades of wit and wisdom that he shared weekly in his 29 years on MPBN and other public radio stations around the country where he played old-time jazz interspersed with musings and rants. When he stopped making radio shows, he made video shows that a number of television and cable channels picked up. In addition, humble wrote regular columns for many newspapers around the country. At one point his writings regularly appeared in more than one hundred papers. Because of his popularity at the time, humble was profiled in the cover feature of the Boston Sunday Herald in November 1989. In this article, he was called “New England’s answer to Garrison Keillor.” He created numerous personal ads for a local paper that often involved a play on words such as, “Distinguished antiques dealer seeks attractive young woman interested in one nightstand” and “Enthusiastic minister seeks female companion interested in assuming a missionary position.” humble also wrote and performed in television commercials, several of which won awards. He shared his wit and wisdom with many audiences around the country where he was an after-dinner speaker at conventions and meetings. As his speaking opportunities wound down, he cultivated a large and diverse group of Facebook friends who followed his daily postings. Most recently, from 2013 to 2024, humble wrote biweekly columns for the Portland Press Herald.

humble was born in Saint George on Jan. 18, 1936, and resided in Saint George his entire life. His house was built in 1811 and it was dragged up the road to its current location by his great-grandfather’s cousin more than 150 years ago. Saint George is where he can trace his heritage and that of many of his neighbors back two hundred years. He was an active participant in the St. George Grange that was just down the road. humble and Andrew Wyeth were lifelong friends and humble was a model for a number of Andrew’s sketches. At speaking engagements, he would often ask audiences how many of them still live within a few of miles from where they were born. Invariably a few people would raise their hands. To which he would note that he was not alone in lacking ambition.

When he was fifteen, humble borrowed ten dollars from a friend and bought the 1919 Model T truck that he maintained and drove for the rest of his life. After graduating from St. George High School, humble served in the Coast Guard, was stationed in Rockland, and lived at home. Later he engaged in a variety of pursuits, including teaching school locally and getting an advanced degree in linguistics. He hitchhiked across the USA and lived in Europe for more than half a year. While in Europe he bought a new diesel Mercedes sedan to get around. Then he shipped it back home where he maintained and drove it during the summer months. It remains in pristine condition. For work, he did a variety of self-employed jobs including mowing brush with his tractor and mower. humble also taught himself how to play several musical instruments and played bass on stage with professional musicians. In his late forties, humble found sustenance as a humorist. In that capacity he joined the ranks of other noted Maine humorists such as Kendall Morse, Marshall Dodge, Joe Perham, John McDonald, Tim Sample, and Gary Crocker. As humble noted, “A comedian gets laughs whereas a humorist is likely to impart a bit of wisdom.” For more than a decade humble put on a free annual lobster picnic in his backyard to market his writing and speaking talents. At its peak, the picnic attracted up to 1,000 people and included musicians, actors, and politicians who were given time on stage. Each year the Governor was given a designated parking spot. For many, the festivities were the highlight of their year.

Having always lived a meager existence, humble inherently became self-sufficient in doing everything he needed or wanted done. He tackled carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, vehicle mechanics, appliance repair, and a myriad of other skills. He grew one-half of an acre of rhubarb to sell at his roadside stand. He tended and kept it watered daily so he had fresh rhubarb to sell all summer. He grafted apple saplings to his apple trees to broaden the varieties in his orchard. He raked blueberries in the field across the road from his house. He managed the trees and pastureland on his property. For many projects, he was adept at finding just what he needed at the town transfer station, a place he called “the dump.” There were always valuable items there that were discarded by affluent people from away who summered in the area. Using discarded sliding glass doors he got at the dump, he designed and built solar water heating panels. The heat from the panels preheats the water going into his electric water heater and/or travels through pipes to provide radiant floor heat in his basement office. He constructed solar panels to generate electricity by placing bare photovoltaic cells in cheap picture frames. Later when commercial solar panels became available, he placed several dozen of them on frames he built and attached to his hen house. He then enjoyed paying the power company next to nothing. When a large parcel of land close to his property was sold for development, he bought seventy five acres adjoining his property and put it in conservation so that it would never be developed.

For well over a decade, he and Marsha ran a B&B during the summer season. They made three bedrooms available, one called “the executive suite” because it was on the first floor, had a private entrance, and a private bath. The other two were upstairs and shared a bath with a claw foot bathtub. The B&B breakfast Marsha put together was fit for royalty. humble thoroughly enjoyed having breakfast with the guests and routinely gave discounts to those who could speak a foreign language, especially if it was one in which he was also fluent. Likewise, the guests thoroughly enjoyed having an entertaining breakfast with humble just being himself.

To preserve some of his writings, humble published two books that remain in print. The first, Chicken Poop for the Soil, is a collection of some of his musings and rants from his years on public radio. The second book, Chicken Poop for the Reader’s Soil, is a compilation of his Portland Press Herald columns spanning the years 2014 through 2022.

Because of the thousands of people he touched throughout his life, there is no doubt that humble made the world a better place.

Robert Karl Skoglund