Most friends who have visited Twain Haven (my home) over the past nine years have met Huckleberry, my pet Steller Jay who stops by every afternoon at Happy Hour for a Beer Nut. We have a special relationship, a bond we only wish we could pass along to our more antagonistic two-legged friends…

I was just reading about birds of different feathers actually preening, and some birds will sit on eggs not their own to keep them warm. Hey, if birds of a different feather can flock together why can’t we? The way I see it, Mother Nature is working on the birds now, and we’re next. 

The Hope Academy in Carson City is employing the performance art of Chautauqua to enhance the teaching of conflict resolution. It’s heartening to see a twelve-year-old stand up and extol the virtues of non-violence in the guise of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. And the list goes on with the teaching of living history through enrichment programs in the classroom. It will warm the coldest of hearts to witness a twelve-year-old depicting Sarah Winnemucca’s broadmindedness for differences in people…

Next, we are going to take Chautauqua out into the public square, where families can gather to experience living history and learn from our colorful past.

Currently I’m reading a book of American history that is deadly dull and almost painful to read. But I entertain myself by imagining Chautauquans acting out our history in period costume…

Kim Harris has been successful in presenting youth Chautauqua out at Dangberg Ranch in Carson Valley. Want to smile a smile that will stay with you for days to come? Just stop by for one of her Youth Chautauquas this summer. I will bet my Golden Gloves that these kids will soon take the next step, embody the virtues of the characters they portray, and carry those virtues with them into the future to make our world an even better place.

Can’t you picture a young Chautauquan portraying Marie Curie, and then going on to bring us advancements in saving lives? It can happen, as art so often becomes a catalyst for creativity.

I would go on, but Huckleberry is here and is banging on the window with his beak. He waves that beak to the beat of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” as I whistle to him while placing a Beer Nut on the railing outside. Our nine-year friendship is built upon trust. I dropped a Beer Nut once and it landed on my slipper. Huckleberry smiled with his eyes, then dived down to fetch it. He trusted me to stand still while he retrieved that Beer Nut. I thought I heard him chuckle, though it could have been my imagination. Truth is, in spite of our vast differences, we humans can learn to flock together in kindness and courtesy, and while we’re at it, we might want to start drawing down our weapons of mass destruction. But excuse me, Huckleberry has arrived…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

When Ski Incline expanded to 8500 feet with a new quad to become Diamond Peak back in 1987, Lee Weber Koch invited me to be the first civilian to ride up with her and mountain manager Jim Bradshaw, and ski down. What an honor…

School was out that day, and I did not get off the air until ten o’clock, so the kids were lined up and wetting their pants waiting for me. There are adults in our village today who still hate me for holding them up on that memorable day…

At risk of damaging my reputation for humility, I asked if Diamond Peak might consider naming that new run after me. But they only laughed and insisted, “Faceplant would not be an appropriate name!”

That great gentleman and fabulous skier, George Galante RIP taught me how to ski in ’83, and he did it while skiing backwards. I was a surfer fresh from the Islands so it was no easy task, but George was patient and coaxed me down the avalanche shutes of Mt. Rose, back when they were out of bounds and we had to hitchhike back up from Mt. Rose Highway. 

George, God Rest his beautiful soul, never worked a day in his life. He taught skiing in the winter and tennis in the summer. He hailed me one day in the village and told me he had a confession to make. I said, “George, please don’t tell me you had to work a day. I’ll be crushed!”

“Yes,” he confessed, “I had to take three cocktail waitresses skiing!”

I bought him an adult beverage and we both recovered, but my immense respect for him was forever damaged…

We had such great fun back in those days, skiing all day, then retiring to the social club in the lodge for an apre ski drink and some good conversation, which usually led to talking about sports and laying a sawbuck down at the Hyatt Sports Book on a little three-teamer made in heaven…

Along with riding a perfect wave, hitting a perfect golf shot, or getting a kiss from your sweetheart, there is nothing comparable to a bluebird day at Diamond Peak.

I would be up there today, instead of writing this dang column, but my friends told me I was a hazard to them, so I gracefully retired from skiing a few years ago…

Still, on my daily walks, I gaze up there and long to be gliding down, with a song in my heart, carving turns to the beat of Lido Shuffle, and thanking those who came before me for making Diamond Peak such a wonderful place to capture the essence of life with a perfect run…

Happy Sixtieth Birthday Diamond Peak…we love you!

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

Smitty moved from Las Vegas to Maui in the seventies, dramatically changing his lifestyle from a well-healed casino croupier to a barefoot Hana cave dweller. We had a running club on Maui and Smitty jumped right in. He was a talker, and the baldest man I ever met. I saw a fly try to land on Smitty’s head one day and that fly slipped and broke a leg…

I helped him move into his new home in Hana, a cave set into the cliff overlooking Heavenly Hana beach there at Koki Park. It didn’t take but ten minutes to move him in as he had hardly any belongings. Then we went for a run on the beach…

He kept a small garden next to his cave, and seemed satisfied to live on seeds, seaweed and shellfish.

One day while out running I told Smitty I was going to Las Vegas for the weekend. He smiled a knowing smile and asked innocently enough, “Mac, would you like a number to call for some female companionship? You might get lonely out there on the strip.” Apparently, Smitty was quite a swinger in his ramblin’-gamblin’ days.

I remember Smitty giving everybody a hug after a run one day, and my girlfriend asking me, “Honey, who is that interesting man?”

“That’s my bookie, Honey, Smitty. He knows more about football than John Madden.”

Smitty ran the Maui Marathon barefooted, with J-E-S-U-S  S-A-V-E-S printed on his toes. He finished in under three hours, then retreated to his Hana cave without partaking in the apre race party. Besides, he had to get back to his unofficial job as lifeguard of Koki Beach. He also considered himself to be the Beach Kahuna, and as such he would police any and all litter every morning after a sunrise swim…

He told me once that he would use his portable radio to listen to kids asking me a riddle each morning on the air at 6:30. I never did get a riddle right, so Smitty guessed that’s why they called me the king, and he had a laugh at that…

Smitty was at home one morning when the ledge he lived on gave way and carried him to his death beneath a pile of Hana cinder. If ever there was an act of God that was identifiable to me, that was it…

The Maui Sun asked me about Smitty, and I recently came across what I said at the time: “I loved that guy. We have to believe he’s up there acting as race director for Jesus.”

That was March of 1984. I imagine by now Smitty is in charge of all foot races in heaven, and is delivering the pre-race blessings himself. And if after the race you just happen to have a pair of dice on you, well, you might want to sit down next to Smitty and test your luck…

Everybody loved Born Again Smitty. May his beautiful Hana soul rest in eternal marathons…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I’m excited to be collaborating with celebrated author Michael Archer on a pictorial essay we’re calling, Now Let’s Get Your Story Out! 

Michael wrote the book on Bill Raggio, and is in possession of a very sharp sardonic but kind sense of humor that can cast mirth upon most any subject.

The first part of our essay is to encourage the performance art of Chautauqua as an alternative to screen time. Chautauqua is destined to diminish adverse effects of our modern-day smart phone in this age of AI. Our people are craving eye contact, subtle signals of body language, and the warm sound of a live human voice…

So we would ask you to start thinking about who you might like to be. History is so much more interesting when presented firsthand, and you can put some muscle and blood into the telling of the story. You might be thinking, “I could never do that,” but you could, if you found it to be an interesting challenge, which is exactly what will happen… 

And then, let’s get your story out! We all have a good one to tell, and you only need to do two things.  One, read good books. “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” So whenever you have a choice of two things to read, let’s say between social media and a good book, try to remember that quote from our old friend Mark Twain. Just this morning I stopped for coffee, and while looking around, saw this headline on the cover of a tabloid, “Woman Pigs Out on Five Gallons of Haagen-Dazs and Freezes to Death!”

Reading social media is like eating cotton candy for breakfast, you have nothing to build on, but when you read a good book you have ideals and ideas, and that good book can bring out your best instincts, and good things can happen for you when you read good books.”

Now the other thing you need to do is to provide yourself with some solitude, that is to say a place where you cannot be interrupted by a person or a text. Only then can you engage the critical thinking, the creative thinking necessary to unleash your imagination and let it work its magic. 

If you do those two things, read good books and provide yourself with some solitude, your story will jump out just like that Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. It might not come out in book form, it might emerge as a screen play or a song or a poem, but it will jump out, and people will be glad to see it…

We shall leave the last word here to Mark Twain: “There is only time for love, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”

So now you have a sneak preview of Michael and my pictorial essay coming soon to a Thrift Shop near you…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

Footballs are pointy and bounce funny. I guess that’s what makes football so much fun. Watching a grown man chase a fumble is like watching a child chase a duck, it’s enough to make a cow laugh, really.

Betting on sports is popular these days, but you don’t want to bet on football. No, save your money for March Madness where the balls are round and the games are determined by something the fat guys in Las Vegas cannot measure or predict, that of the heart. 

My good friend Pilarski RIP and me, used to carry money out of the Hyatt Sports Book in wheelbarrows in March. Of course, we would give it back over the balance of the year, but, hey, we had a few free drinks and one merry hell of a good time along the way.

There was one season in my hoary old days of sports betting where I actually made a small fortune by adding up the total tonnage of offensive lines, and betting on the heavy side to best protect the quarterback and the running backs. That proposition vaporized however when my swaggering stats got swallowed up by an even heavier defensive line.

Then for a while, I rode comfortably along with the Tooth Fairy by betting strictly on the strongest kickers, as so many games are determined by a field goal. That manifesto served me well until my favorite kicker got turf toe and kicked me out at the next homeless shelter for escaped sports book apostates.

Every little surefire sportsbook scheme that set me on fire from head to foot soon enough left me grasping for a Little-Three-Team-Prospect-Made-in-Heaven. 

For a few short weeks I actually made money on the flip of the coin. I figured the captain of the team who won the toss would be so jacked-up as to continue his good fortune with a dead-center win, and there was still time to get in on the action. That prediction market held me over for a few weeks of euphoria until I got puffed up big as a Kauai Bufo and bet the farm on one single provocative toss. I am limping still from the loss…

At the end of my string, I turned to that Oracle of Prophecy, my ex-wife, whose favorite team is the Bengals, though she calls them the “Bagels.” 

“Honey, who do you like in this Sunday’s feature game?” I asked over the phone.

“Who’s playing?”

“The Bengals and the Rams.”

“Well, you know I love my Bagels, so bet against the Lambs.”

You might wonder why I might consult my ex-wife for advice on football bets.

Well, when her attorney called to tell me I was late with my alimony, I excused myself by telling him, “But she told me to put it on the Bagels!”

I shall leave the last word about football to Mark Twain’s astute observation of 1900, 

“Football beats croquet. There’s more go about it!”

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I’ve never liked numbers, probably because they remind me of how random my life has been. As an example, by the time I was thirty I had attended three different colleges and held thirty different jobs. By the time I was seventy I had been married five times, and coincidentally they all had the same first name…Plaintiff. 

As a morning radio announcer on Maui I was invited to occasional one-year-old birthday parties, and at one of those parties I delivered a particularly long-winded celebratory speech before asking, “So where is our birthday boy?!” Whereupon a toothless octogenarian walked up to me, gave me a hug, and accepted my gift of diapers. I was at the wrong party, and not the first time either…

In my twenty years in radio I wrote and produced over one thousand commercials, most of them bad. I remember the owner of the first Mexican restaurant on Maui coming to me with his concern, “I’m worried the locals might wrongly assume that our food is too spicy.” I assured the gentleman I would assuage that fear, and I did, with one fateful line, “Our food is not too hot!” They were out of business in a week, and my advertising agency, “McAvoy Layne and Associates” was right behind them. (We never had any associates.)

In my 1,000 cruises into Emerald Bay on the Tahoe Queen and the Dixie, there was one I would like to forget. I wasn’t actually onboard when it happened, but the crew could not wait to tell me all about it…

I used to keep a can of Frosty White Hair Spray up in the wheelhouse in case I had another engagement as Mark Twain when I disembarked. We used to marry people on those paddle-wheelers, usually on a Saturday, my day off. Well on this particularly windy Saturday the bride to be went up into the wheelhouse to make last minute adjustments and happened to spy, “Hair Spray” but failed to read the fine print, “Frosty White.” So she grabbed that fateful can, closed her eyes, and battened down the hatches.

Well, there were no mirrors up there in the wheelhouse, so having no idea what she had done, out she went. The crew told me they had to stuff napkins in their mouths to keep the laughter down, for the groom thought she turned into her mother up there in the wheelhouse. Furthermore, the crew took great delight in advising me, “And she’s looking for YOU!”

So you see why I don’t like numbers? In a thousand cruises into Emerald Bay, the one where the bride turned into her mother is the one I remember most, and I wasn’t even onboard when it happened. No, I’m done with numbers. Did I ever tell you about the time Loni Anderson came up to me on the poop deck and…oh but I see I’m running out of space…another time.

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

My best friend is a loudmouth bully who harassed me yesterday when I arrived late for Happy Hour, then he took off in a huff for the winter. His name is Huckleberry, and he was hatched here on the deck at Twain Haven in June of 2017. He has never left for the winter before, but then he is 80 in aviary years, and like most Steller Jays, myself included, is not a fan of the atmospheric river…

I’m confident that Huck’s record of most Happy Hours in a row, 2,900, will stand for some time here in the Tahoe Basin. But should he never return, and choose to spend the rest of his days in Sacramento, I will be crestfallen, for he has been my pal for eight years now, and I miss him.

In a brief history of Huckleberry, I could see that he was about to fledge with his sisters from my second deck away back in 2017, so I spread a sleeping bag out on the driveway below, and sure enough, Huck hit it, while his sisters took it on the chin. I remember how he looked up to me as if to say, “Wow! Thanks!” I tossed a Beer Nut down to him and we’ve been pals ever since… 

If I’m not paying attention when Huck arrives he will flop down onto the welcome mat and bang his beak on the sliding glassdoor, or jump onto the flagstaff and wave Old Glory to get my attention. (I have the video if you don’t believe me.)

When I step out onto the deck holding a freshly pealed and washed Beer Nut, Huck will wave his beak and fluff himself up, while I whistle his favorite song, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

He knows my car, “Burt,” and once followed me down to the college and stationed himself above my picnic table, where he could retrieve welcome handouts. He even follows me into the forest when I trim my fingernails, again positioning himself up and behind me to dance his shadow on top of mine on the forest floor. It’s a sight to make a cow laugh if you want to know the truth…

I have all his baby pictures, from when he was naked as a jay, to feathery times after his mother went shopping for him and his sisters, to the video of their fledging. I won’t play that video today, for it brings a tear to my eye…

So what will I do if Huck does not return in the spring? Well, I shall drive to Sacramento, where I will station myself in that beautiful rose garden near the capital at Happy Hour and wait for Huckleberry to welcome me to Sacramento. How do I know he’s in Sacramento? Well, that’s where I’d go…

Stay tuned to these pages for the final chapters of Adventures of Huckleberry Jay… 

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I had some time to kill this morning while waiting for my Ford, “Burt,” to be serviced by the capable team at Campagni Ford in Carson City. So I stood outside and surveyed the rolling foothills that surround our state capital. As a 38-year impressionist of Mark Twain I have felt the amplified charge that comes with visiting various haunts that gave our mutual friend his start. I always get chicken skin when I stand where he once stood -Territorial Enterprise, Walley’s Hot Springs, Fox Brewery, our Nevada legislature, and the Ormsby House, which looked better then than it does now…

But today, while gazing out upon those soft brown foothills, silent as they are and were back then, Twain’s words came to me from his timeless book, Roughing It: “We climbed into the foothills and looked back on Carson City nestled in that flat sandy desert, and surrounded by such prodigious mountains that they seemed to expand your soul, until you felt yourself spreading into a colossus, and in that instant, you were seized with a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put Carson in your pocket, and walk off with it.”

Whereupon something out of body happened. I was besieged by an intense recollection of having gazed upon those Carson foothills before, 1864 perhaps, before Sam Clemens decamped for San Francisco to be unemployed. Instead of pooh-poohing such a fanciful notion, I opened up the moonroof of my mind and welcomed that sensation inside…

A captivating and beguiling awareness slaked my soul, and I stood stock-still until I heard my name on the intercom: “Mr. Twain, ah, Layne, ‘Burt’ is serviced and ready to roll. Please see Adam at checkout.”

Had I not heard that voice calling, I might be standing there still, traversing those leather foothills back to 1864, when those brown hills were a launchpad for the Lincoln of our literature. 

In that all-encompassing moment, I cited Samuel Clemens to myself: “I have never seen an atom of proof to support the fact that there is a future life, and yet I am strongly inclined to expect one.”

Yes, not only do I now suspect that I am living an afterlife, but like Sam, I am strongly inclined to expect another. My brief love affair today with those raw foothills was not my first rendezvous, but a reiteration of an earlier encounter so strong as to harbor itself deep into the heart of this 2025 Nevadan…

I have felt a couple taps on the shoulder from Samuel in my close encounters with him, so today’s excursion back through the ages comes as no real surprise, but rather as a confirmation that there is more to the transmigration of souls to be discovered. So, yes, I’m excited to entertain more of these enticing sensations as I stroll jaunty-jolly through this most interesting expedition that we call human life…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO