Secrets to longevity: What would Mark Twain say?
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 01/21/2024 - 6:18pm
By the time I had reached twenty years of age, I had managed to crash a motorcycle, a car, even a friend’s hydroplane, not to mention surviving a skydiving accident and missing the pool as a clown diver. I was an accident looking for a place to happen, and did not expect to see 30. But God looks out after children and idiots, and I’m here today to talk about longevity.
Rule No. 1: Stick to a Mediterranean diet.
What would Mark Twain say? “Stick to things that do not agree with each other’s company and let them fight it out on the inside.”
Rule No. 2: Drink in moderation.
Mark Twain: My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water. Oh, and whatever a man’s age, he can reduce it several years by putting a brightly colored flower in his buttonhole.
Rule No. 3: Don’t smoke.
Mark Twain: “I came into the world asking for a light, but I’m smoking in moderation now, I never smoke more than one cigar at a time. No, it’s easy to give up smoking, I’ve done it thousands of times.”
Rule No. 4: Exercise daily.
Mark Twain: “Exercise is loathsome. I’ve never seen any advantage in being tired. Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I go lie down somewhere until it passes away. Oh, and never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until day after tomorrow.”
Rule No. 5: When angry count four.
Mark Twain: “There are times when profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer, and when it comes to pure ornamental cursing, the average American is gifted above the sons of men. Oh, I used to be able to utter an oath that would knock the dust up where it struck the ground. When angry count four. When very angry, go ahead and swear, it’s the people’s poetry.”
As is our custom, we shall leave the last word to Mark Twain.
“I have achieved my 188 years in the usual way; that is by sticking to a scheme of life that would kill anybody else. You cannot reach old age by another man’s road. My habits protect my life, while they would assassinate you. The important thing, the essential thing, is that we endeavor so to live, that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.
Our dear friend, ally and thirty-year housekeeper, Katy Leary, wrote about me in her book, ‘Mr. Clemens swore like an angel, not like real swearing, but gay.’
Now I promised you some etiquette on getting into heaven. Upon arriving at the Pearly Gates, don’t speak first. Let St. Peter speak first. And don’t try to take a selfie with him, hell is full of people who have tried that. And don’t take your dog. Heaven goes by favor, if it went by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out.”
— For more than 35 years, in more than 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American." Go here for the spoken word version of this and other columns.
