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Joseph A. Perham
Humorist – Maine and Downeast cultures, Storyteller,
Speaker, Writer and Actor
Phi-Beta Kappa – Colby College, Waterville, Maine
Degrees in English and Education – University of
Maine
Retired English and Speech Teacher
Six PBS Television Specials – One Man Theater
presentation of Artemus Ward
Stage presentation with Benny Reehl of the Comic
Poetry of Holman Day
Appeared in Charles Karault’s “On the Road” show
Television Ads – “NBC Game of the Week”, “Maine
State Lottery”
Radio Ads for Maine Office of Tourism – Broderson
Award for Writer/Artist
Producer of 15 commercial audio cassettes and CDs of
Maine Humor and Folk Stories
Movie Credits – Stephen King’s “Graveyard Shift” and
“Bed and Breakfast”
Stage Performances – “Hamlet” and “Willy Loman”
When asked to write a bio, Joe writes:
I was born in the fall of the year, 1932, five days
before hunting season began. It being “The Great
Depression”, hunting and fishing had been going on
all year round in my hometown of West Paris, Maine.
I got no idea how big the town was back then. It
never was very big. What was big was my family – 13
kids and two parents of opposite sexes. Until I was
8 we lived in a small house on the “Mine Road”. Then
we moved to a 200-acre farm overlooking the valley.
On the farm, we had more elbow room (we now slept
with only 3 in a bed).
For the first few years I thought my name was “Get
the wood!” – things like that. I liked the name
“Milk the cow!” better. I milked that cow so often I
could read her mind. Like one morning, it was like
she was thinking, “Joe, you don’t look too good this
morning and your hands are cold.” I said, “I just
don’t feel like milking this morning,” and she said,
“You just grab a hold of them teats boy and I’ll
jump up and down.” So I did and she did.
All us 13 kids went to school in the same building
for 13 years. Nobody had very much in those days, so
nobody missed anything. (There was no money around
but we never went hungry. As Tom Remington says in
his humor recording: “Life Was Good, I Had It All”)
It was like “The Worst of Days and the Best of Days”
(Charles Dickens). Everybody new everybody else and
we moved in and out of the homes of our neighbors
and friends almost at will. We had everything we
really needed: school, a gym, a baseball diamond, a
bandstand, and a big swimming pool in the river.
The men in town, and many of the women, worked in
different phases of the woods industry: lumbering,
Penley’s Metal-Snap Clothespins Mill, Mann’s Wood
Product Mill, a feldspar mining industry complete
with a crushing plant on the railroad. We had a town
gathering place out on Route 26 (½ the distance
between Quebec City and Boston, Massachusetts). That
place was called the Trap Corner Store and for
almost all the years of my life it has been where
the intelligencia of the area meet to solve all the
world’s problems.
My education was perfect. The teacher ruled.
Students were encouraged to participate in all
aspects of school life; so, from the 4th
grade on, I participated in skits and dramas and
public speaking, baseball and basketball and so did
everybody else. It was easy to earn a varsity
letter. All you had to do was know what the letter
was. After graduation, I was accepted at Colby
College and earned money by working in the feldspar
mines three summers and running jackhammer the
fourth summer for a construction firm (I was earning
68 cents an hour in the mine and $2.00 an hour
running a pneumatic drill).
After graduation, I became a high school English
teacher in rural Maine teaching speech and drama as
well. It was 29 problem-free years (all the kids
loved me except those that didn’t like anyone on
general principles). At age 50 I early retired and
moved on to self-employment as a Maine storyteller
and after-dinner speaker.
I was asked at one place that I performed if I had
any recordings of my material. It sounded like a
good idea to me so I recorded a dozen or more LP’s
initially, then tape cassettes, now CDs –
comfortably lagging behind the industry. Never was
in a hurry.
But mostly I’m a husband to Peg who appears often in
my material. She’s also from a large family of
eleven and between us we got 4 kids, 7 grandkids, 3
great-grandkids and 5 generations of relatives that
number into the hundreds. Peg and I, often with
friends, have traveled all over this country, as
well as all of Canada with multiple trips to Alaska.
At age 71 I sit here with no complaints, looking
forward to my quota of days.
Footnote: My favorite organization is the Inman
family hunting camp in Albany Plantation
(unorganized territory). These hunters (and
fishermen for the most part) are dedicated to safety
and the proper use of firearms. They also know how
to have a good time. What’s any better than having
fun with people whose company you enjoy?
Although
Joe share some of his writings with you on the site,
he also writes for
Maine Hunting Today and
Laugh Maine. |
