Wanted: One White Working Class Rural American male to give a White Urban Semi-Working Class Male survival lessons. Experience required. Will pay in acting lessons and successful sartorial tips.

What I need, first, is someone to teach me how to shoot a gun, or at least how to hold the thing properly so I don't blow my foot off.

I don't want to kill and mount anything, I just want to look good before the election.

I also need someone to teach me to bowl and spit. I did some bowling once. I think I did better than Obama but I'm not sure.

As to the spitting thing, I just want to look as cool as Manny Ramirez. Nobody spits a cool as that Red Sox star.

What I'm trying to do here, of course, is dispel this right-wing notion that all left-wing liberals are effete and "elitists."

OK, I do tend to be a bit effete, I'm told I get that from my mother who was a terrific dresser. My father wore a uniform all of his life. I tried that for four years, and it didn't work out the way I hoped. Did you know that there is no pocket in a Class A Air Force uniform for a silk pocket hankie? And what's worse is that the shoes are all black.

Yes, there are good, patriotic American males, simple hard-working folks who don't ordinarily wear silk pocket hankies or cashmere scarves, who don't drive hybrids or drink imported Italian water.

I think they're called "survivalists."

I know they're afraid of Obama because he always wears a suit and tie. Rural working-class guys almost never wear a suit and tie except to attend the funerals or weddings of other white rural working-class guys. I speak from experience. Except for my father, all of my five brothers were white working-class guys who served their country in World War II. They smoked, drank, cussed and knew how to spit.

They tried to teach me these skills but gave up on me when said I wanted to be an actor. It's a family thing.

If anyone wants to help me blend into the Maine-guy landscape, I would appreciate it. I'll be out on the back yard practicing spitting. Gawd. I keep getting it all over me.

How does Manny do it?

J.P. Devine, a freelancer, lives in Waterville.