Pine Nuts with McAvoy Layne: A gift, toast and nod from Mark Twain on life beyond death
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 02/05/2023 - 5:31pm
What might be my favorite Christmas present I have yet to open. It‘s a gift from a young man I admire, Bryan, who has some issues to deal with in his daily life. You see, Bryan does not talk, or walk, but is a hidden treasure of Nevada history and folklore. And once science taps into his vault of knowledge we might be the first to get to read the next great Tahoe novel.
I imagine Bryan’s book will start out with his parents, who have been ever so patient and loving in raising him to be the man he has become, strong enough, with a little help from his friends, to take a swim in the waters of the Hawaiian Islands this past summer. I have the picture.
Bry’s Christmas present is a yet unopened bottle of Bareknuckle Brandy with instructions on the label: “Serve with a cigar you cannot afford, and a quote from Kierkegaard.”
Well, as Mark Twain loved his cigars, and Kierkegaard was my go-to-guy in college, Bry’s gift is on the top shelf, patiently awaiting a deserving toast, a toast to be made next week to a person of noble character, gone to another shore. I like to think she will be back, for as our mutual friend Mark Twain tells us, “I have never seen what to me seemed an atom of proof that there is a future life. And yet — I am strongly inclined to expect one.”
On a lighter note, my college sweetheart just released a memoir, My Three Lives by Tina Cole. If you’re looking for a page-turner, this is it. While working on the set for Hawaiian Eye, she actually turns down advances from Troy Donahue and Bob Conrad. I might be the only living soul to believe that, but I do.
I remember talking to her from a phone booth at the SAE House at the University of Oregon, where we had been pinned, when I heard a banging in the background of her hotel room in Hawaii.
“What’s that banging” I asked, a little annoyed.
“Oh, that’s just Troy, wanting to come in.”
I’m only in Chapter Thirteen and have died three times.
On an even lighter note, photographer and consummate Tintype artist, Rie, just created a classic portrait of Julia Bulette, as portrayed by the intrepid Kim Harris, that will be most helpful in promoting, “Julia Bulette Meets Mark Twain,” during Carson City’s Mark Twain Days in April.
There is something consoling about living in the 19th century that I can’t explain. What I can say is, participating in Chautauqua is one of the most gratifying endeavors one can ever partake. Becoming someone else and presenting that someone else to a live audience or a classroom is not reincarnation, but it’s the next thing to it. I would encourage the gentle reader to consider taking up Chautauqua, to discover for yourself how many layers Chautauqua can add to an already interesting life.
— For more than 30 years, in over 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 to listen to this and other McAvoy Layne columns.
