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PINE NUTS – Majoring in Basketball

February 14, 2025 | McAvoy Lane

Paying college athletes under the table has always been a dirty little secret, until now. I distinctly remember smiling a wry smile as a kid, when I heard the news that my hero, the greatest running back I ever saw, Hugh McElhenny, took a cut in pay when he went from the Washington Huskies to the San Francisco Forty Niners.

More recently, I remember talking with the great Arkansas basketball coach, Nolan Richardson aboard the Tahoe Queen one day, when he laughed and told me, “Oh, we love your Nevada transfers, because they already have their cars.”

Finally, last year, the NCAA agreed to start sharing broadcast revenues with their players. Bravo! But stay tuned, for now we are going to shoot for the moon…a degree in sports! Picture our academically meritorious point guard. Yes, this hoopster gets a scholarship, gets paid cash money, and gets a college degree for dribbling a basketball.

Personally, I kinda like the idea of awarding an athletic degree for playing a sport. 

I remember my older brother Tom, RIP, telling me about a conversation he once had with all-star catcher Johnny Bench…

“Johnny, do you ever regret never having attended college?”

“Yes Tom, I sometimes think about buying me a little college.”

There we go, if you can make enough money playing professional sports to buy yourself a small college, you can then award yourself an honorary degree, and hang it proudly on your wall at home for all to see…

Now I ask you, should playing sports become a college major? Should practice and competition be part of the curriculum? Is sports as much a portal to the human condition as music and art and drama? Let’s ask Nike!

In full disclosure, I was once offered a position with Nike, a company I admire still, but I turned it down when informed I would have to move from the Island of Maui to Beaverton, Oregon, where it rains, then stays up nights and rains. 

But Nike seems to approve of the possibilities of choosing a sport as a major, and why shouldn’t they? Those athletes wear shoes don’t they? And once those athletes are being paid cash money to compete, well, they will then have the money to buy their own shoes, and Nike will no longer have to give them their shoes.

Hey, let’s try it! We’ve come a long, long way from the day Jim Thorpe was stripped of his Olympic medals after it was discovered he was paid to play minor league baseball prior to the 1912 Olympics. The Olympic Committee would reinstate Thorpe as the winner of the decathlon and pentathlon 110 years later, just a tad late for Jim to savor…

As a former diver at Oregon whose audience consisted entirely of his immediate family, I am hardly qualified to judge the merits of awarding degrees for playing college sports. But most humbly I say, “Let the meritorious games begin!”

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

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PINE NUTS –  Unpacking My Political Baggage

February 7, 2025 | McAvoy Lane

As our mutual friend Mark Twain told us away back in 1897, “These are sardonic times…but I am not sorry to be alive & privileged to look on.” As vice president of the Anti-imperialist League, Samuel Clemens inveighed that he did not like to see our Eagle’s talons on any other land. This evocation gave President McKinley a mild case of heartburn… 

I have to believe that during President Trump’s second term in the catbird seat, he will suffer periodic spasms of compassion, and we will welcome his compassion at a moment in time when the country has become weary of thermostatic fixations on politics, and ready to return to the comforting confines of music and sports. This, when baseball has fallen out of favor as America’s pastime, superseded by the American pastime of litigation.

Like a new pair of cotton skivvy drawers, I feel our country’s tolerance shrinking… 

In our two-party system, it seems Republicans would like to grow the country from top down, while Democrats would rather grow the country from bottom up, and we really do need both, working together, to put an end to prevailing demonization. For now at least, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy, with the mission of, “Feed the Wood Chipper Now – Fix Later!”

“When you take to worshiping power, well, compassion and mercy start to looking like sins.” And as the prophet Isaiah cautioned us, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

Personally, and only a minute ago now, I changed my Nevada voter registration to, “Nonpartisan.” (No Political Party)

I once asked a good friend, who canceled me out every time we voted together, if he thought he had any redeeming virtues. He answered, “Yes, I sometimes pay other people’s library late fees, how ‘bout you?”

“Yes,” said I. “Now that you ask, I smooth-out the earmarks that I make in the books I borrow before returning them to the library. Our civics depends upon our ethics.”

Feeling dead-even on virtues, we continued to cancel each other out at the voting booth and then repair to the groggery to celebrate our fast friendship. But now I feel free to fly across the aisle and vote for any chosen candidate, and any preferred policy…

And while I’m thinking about it, here’s a shoutout to the Washington Post for reminding me that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press to those who own one.

Today’s good news is that 2024 appears to have been the year in which the smallest percentage of children died since the dawn of humanity. Bravo! Now let us give those little door-slammers every possible opportunity to succeed and thrive…

Like our friend SLC, I’m glad to be a deponent, and allowed to share my thoughts with you in this fine family journal…

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

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PINE NUTS – Revisiting Virginia City

January 24, 2025 | McAvoy Lane

This past summer, Reno advertising guru Michael Lucido invited me to help him publicize a few of Virginia City’s family attractions with a TV commercial. So I hauled a white suit out of the closet, grabbed a cigar, and headed for my old stomping grounds, the Comstock Lode. It was like coming home again, for in the halcyon summer of ’88 I presented 200 shows in Piper’s Opera House to launch a 36-year career as an impressionist of Mark Twain, who, as you know, got his start in Virginia City. The Comstock Lode was one lucky stop for Twain, and one sunny stop for Layne…

We started the shoot at the V&T train station. The V&T was so slow in Twain’s day that 

they once transported a prisoner from Virginia City to Carson, and by the time they got him there he had aged so, they could no longer identify him; they had to let him go. It was so slow, they took the cowcatcher off the front and moved it around to the backside.  Well, they knew they weren’t going to catch any cows, but they were afraid one might try to climb on from behind and bite the passengers.”

Michael issued a casting call for extras to meet Mark Twain at the Bucket of Blood Saloon, where ‘Samuel’ would be sharing some tales. Well, you never saw such a heartwarming bunch of fun lovers in your life, and Mr. Twain got to hear more stories than he told. 

One gentleman in a stovepipe hat told Samuel that he was glad to get out of the house, because his wife was so mad at him that he had to take the batteries out of the cattle prodder. I wondered what it was he had done to make her so mad, but handed him a drink and let it slide. 

Interestingly, the extras never left. They joined us from the Ponderosa Mine to Fourth Ward School, skipping and singing and hollering to beat the band. You’d have thought it was Nevada Day!

As I walked out of Grandma’s Fudge with a humongous ice cream cone in my hand a beautiful lady asked me if she could have a taste. I handed her my coveted cone, she gave me a wink, and walked away with it. Some things never change up there on the Loveable Lode.

In the final scene we were back at the V&T, and I invited folks to revisit Virginia City, where, “Who knows, you might even see a ghost!” Whereupon I snap my fingers and magically disappear. 

I hope the Comstock gets as much custom from Michael’s TV commercial as I received from its viewing. One wag was quick to attest, “McAvoy, I haven’t seen you disappear like that since the waitress at the Café Del Rio brought us the check!” 

Thank you, Virginia City, and Michael Lucido, for reminding me of just how delightful an adventure the Comstock Lode can be in 2025… 

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

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PINE NUTS – A Groovy Kind of Love

January 18, 2025 | McAvoy Lane

“A Groovy Kind of Love” is a brand-new song to me in this year of 2025, as I had never heard of “The Mindbenders,” at least not until I landed on a music station that featured music of the 60’s, and wondrously discovered a few of the hits I missed while I was in the Marine Corps. I don’t have to look to the wall in Washington to remember the real losses, but it gave me a lift to hear a few of the singles that were popular while I was gone. The Monkees’ Greatest Hits never made it to Cam Lo, nor did the Supremes, “You Can’t Hurry Love,” not to mention, “96 Tears” by the Mysterians…

No, the only song I remember hearing in thirteen months over there in the Nam was sung by an old Montagnard woman, whose teeth were stained brown from chewing so many betelnuts. I’ll never forget her heavy accent…

“Nine, ten, eleben o’cock, we gonna Cock-a-Doodle-Do!”

Then she smiled a smile that would scare a cat. Well, it was enough to bring a tear to my eye, for it was the first and last music I would hear in thirteen months over there. I wanted to hug her but was afraid she might shoot me.

The first thing I did when I rotated home in ’67 was to thank God, and the next thing I did was to turn on the radio, find some popular ’67 music, and turn it up. That’s when Aretha Franklin stole my heart and stomped it flat. I still listen to, “I Say a Little Prayer,” even today.

And when Aretha got together with Ray Charles, well, that was, and still is, heaven on earth to me.

Nowadays I count on live music to keep me in a good humor, and we have an abundance of it here at the north shore of Lake Tahoe, music from the talented likes of Donna Axton, James Rawie, Susan Horst, Patty Gegenheimer, Linda Pittman, and Mary Collins to mention a few…

As the news director that lies fallow inside of me, I would like to interview Vladimir Putin, and the first question I will ask him will be, “Mr. President, what music do you listen to?”

My guess is he might stare at me for thirty seconds before answering abruptly, “Next question!” And therein lies the problem. World leaders should be required to listen to a half-hour of music a day, their choice, though I would like to squeeze a little Aretha Franklin in there, given the chance. Were we all to listen to half an hour of music a day I have to believe we would be having more block parties and fewer acts of violence in this smoldering world of ours…

In closing, I will stand by my maxim, when it comes to judging the sixties in America, we can feel confident and satisfied in boasting, “We had the best music!” 

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

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PINE NUTS – Gramps & The Four-Year-Old

January 10, 2025 | McAvoy Lane

From this beautiful blue ball I shall depart in grand old age with a deep appreciation in my breast of having lived in the luckiest time to ever have been welcomed aboard. When I think upon it, we saw relative peace between the end of WWII and 2025, a relative decline in poverty, and relatively good worldwide health. 

Albeit, I shall exit with some regret that we are still a leetle too addicted to violence, and not concerned enough yet about climate, either one of which could bring a premature end to a long run.

So here’s one idea about how our iron men & women, with wind at their backs and a following sea, might save themselves. First, they must collectively shout as one man to divest the world of weapons mutually assured destruction. Nuclear weapons must be relegated to the dust heap of history before they relegate us to the dust heap of history. 

Climate? I see a man sitting in a beach chair, up to his chest in water, smoking a cigar, while the water rises around him. We have no permanent enemies in 2025, but those who are hindering attempts to control global warming are not doing us any favors.

I can imagine a conversation I might have with a four-year-old grandson while watching the news together on television…

“Gramps, why are all the houses broken?”

“They’re having a war over there, son.”

“Are we going to have a war here?”

“Not today, but man is unpredictable when it comes to politics.”

“What is politics?”

“Politics is the social science of getting your way.”

“Why don’t they do politics instead of breaking houses?”

“Good question, son, a question we have been asking since Cane killed his brother.”

“Why did he kill his brother?”

“Unfortunately, killing is the chosen problem solver of the muddled mind.” 

“Tom’s mom killed her own self.”

“You’re right, Tom’s mom ended her suffering with authority and dignity, as she was diagnosed to die before long, sad as it was.”

“Why?”

“She had terminal cancer, and she chose to make that journey less painful.”

“Are we going to die of cancer?”

“Not if we can help it, though one never knows.”

“We could die from a buffalo stampede.”

“Not anymore, but a two hundred years ago we sure could have…”

“Then will we go to heaven?”

“Well, maybe, if we made the world a better place, maybe so.”

“Is there Nerdy Bubblegum in heaven?”

  “You bet there is…”

“I want to go to heaven, where they don’t break houses, and you can chew Nerdy Bubblegum all day…”

“You’re on the right track, son, I think you’ll make it.”

“Will there be girls in heaven?”

“I reckon they will outnumber the boys, but it’s Super Bowl time right now, son, so why don’t you run along and ask your mother a few questions.”

Yes, our four-year-olds will soon enough be running the big show in the little time we might have left before it’s too late, and game over. We wish you luck, kids, God’s speed, and enduring success…

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

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PINE NUTS – More Valuable Even Than a Football Team

January 3, 2025 | McAvoy Lane

I was lucky enough to live fifteen years in the Hawaiian Islands before moving to Tahoe forty years ago, and I learned several valuable life lessons out there in what Mark Twain called, “The loveliest fleet of Islands that lies anchored in any ocean.” One of which I shall recount here if I can claw it back from recollection’s fragile vault…

I was news director at KHLO on the Island of Hawaii, and at that place in time, there was no news on the Island of Hawaii. In fact, our news studio was located on the sundeck of the Grand Naniloa Hotel, where you could hear Myna Birds singing whenever we went on the air. So one news-absent afternoon, a lady friend and I went hunting for a beach upon which to play. Soon enough we were in the shallows off the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and were frolicking in the surf there when a gentleman hailed us from onshore and hollered for us to come join him in some fresh squid he had just caught, and we did. 

He was a kindhearted gentleman who had a merry twinkle in his eye, and good snacks too, fried squid and Primo Beer, it just didn’t get any better than that. The squid was on a portable burner, and the Primo was on ice. It’s always the Hawaiian way, whether it be a spoonful of poi, or a puff on a pipe to share.

We talked about the weather, which was mostly absent, and about the news, which was always absent. Then for a moment it grew quiet and he motioned to the hotel with his hand and asked, “You see that top floor up there?”

“Yeah, nice view from up there.” I offered.

“Well, I own that floor, and own a football team too, the Minnesota Vikings, but you kids have something more valuable yet.”

“What could that be?” my lady friend asked.

In an earnest voice, he gazed solemnly at us both and said, “Youth, you have your youth.” And we smiled in the awareness of that truth.

I made a little promise to myself just then, to never, ever let go of my youth.

Thank you, Mr. Max Winter, wherever you are…

So should you happen to read a Pine Nuts column and say to yourself, “This McAvoy guy is really immature.” Well, that’s why, and I shall pull for the Minnesota Vikings as long as I live, unless they are playing the 49ers of course. In closing, I hope the current news director of KHLO in Hilo has it easy as I did back in those halcyon days of the sixties. There might not have been any news back then, but every day was a little bit like that day on the beach when we encountered Mr. Winter, and came away a little wiser for the company…

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

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PINE NUTS – Embarrassing Moments Part Two 

December 31, 2024 | McAvoy Lane

I was on a down escalator once at Capwell’s when the skirt on the lady in front of me was suddenly swallowed up in the mechanical mouth waiting at the bottom of that ride, and her skirt completely disappeared. She fell down, and I fell on top of her. But as good fortune would have it, nobody was behind us to pile on, or hear her screams…

On another occasion, just before I retired from 35 years of portraying Mark Twain, I was to speak to a room full of California sign language folks at Harvey’s, at least I thought that’s who I was going to be seeing.

As I walked into Harvey’s I was greeted by a warmhearted lady who rushed over and gave me a hearty hug. Wanting to add a little sign language to my program, I asked her if she could show me how to say, “I (and I pointed to my eye) love (and I pointed to my heart) you (and I pointed to her.)

She looked at me like I had just escaped from the Tahoe asylum, then started laughing, and it dawned on me that I was somewhere out in left field. When she stopped laughing, she half-covered her mouth, and shared with me out of the other half of her mouth, “We make signs, billboard signs.”

So, no wonder she thought I had fallen in love with her at first sight, and that I wanted her to show me how I could tell her I loved her in sign language…

Finally, even our mutual friend Mark Twain endured an embarrassing moment…

“When I was fourteen years of age, 1850 or so, my sister Pamela threw a party and invited all the marriageable young people of Hannibal.  I was not invited.  But I was given a small part in a play as a bear, and they gave me a big brown hairy suit to wear.

A half-hour before the play was to begin, I withdrew to a vacant upstairs room to practice.  I thought it was vacant, but there were a couple girls behind the shoji-screen, and they could see me, but I could not see them. Well, it was much too hot to practice in my bear suit, or even my clothes, so I stripped to the skin and threw myself into my work.

I was full of ambition, I capered around on all fours; I did everything a bear could do, some things no bear could do, some things no bear with any dignity would want to do, including standing on my head.

When I climbed into bed that night I found a note on my pillow. It read, ‘Sam, you played bare very very well.’  

By the bye, Mark Twain said propitiously in 1899: “The Czar is ready to disarm: I am ready to disarm.  Collect the others, it should not be much of a task now.” More recently, President Putin, in his annual address last month, quoted Mark Twain, upon which he received a round of laughter and applause…to be continued. 

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

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PINE NUTS – A History of Nevada Revisited

December 20, 2024 | McAvoy Lane

Around eleven pm, I asked the only other passenger in an elevator at Reno’s Grand Sierra, “Any Luck?”

He was a cultured looking gentleman, nicely attired in cowboy chaps and bolo tie, and had a sagacious twinkle in his eye.

He shouted, “Lu-uck!?” And I thought I detected whiskey in the air. 

“Son, have you any idea but a child’s, what LU-UCK is?!” he asked.

“Well, I guess I meant to ask, have you won any money?” I answered humbly.

“Son, you are a but a newborn, come with me.”  He locked his little finger into my buttonhole and pulled me into a bar around the corner, where he stood back, looked me over, and began dusting me off, like I had been in storage somewhere.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Johnie Walker” I lied.

“Well, Mr. Walker, let me give you a little Nevada history at no charge…”

Fortifying himself with a restorative, he launched headlong into a history that went well into the midnight hour…

“In 1897, on St. Patrick’s Day,” he began, “Carson City hosted the Heavyweight Championship Fight of the World.  That fight, son, between Gentleman Jim Corbett, our champ, and Fightin’ Bobby Fitzsimmons, England’s champ, would save Nevada’s statehood.  You see, mining had played itself out here in the Silver State, our population had dwindled to 40,000 people, and there was a movement in congress to revoke our statehood.

Then suddenly four thousand people crossed the High Sierra to see that fight, which Fitzsimmons won in the fourteenth round with a low blow to the solar plexus, but then Corbett always wore his trunks hiked up so high, who was to know?

Anyways, when everybody had gone back to California and we counted up all the money that was left behind, our legislators asked themselves out loud, ‘If four thousand people will cross the High Sierra to see one fight, how many more will come if they can spin the French Wheel, get married, get divorced, visit a brothel?’

So you see, son, Nevada’s romance with disrespectability began with the Corbett-Fitzsimmons fight. Those two boys preserved our statehood, and we became the state of attractions on St. Patrick’s Day, 1897. My boy, everything you see around us today, from that crap table over there, to all of Las Vegas, and back to the Mustang Ranch brothel, is a direct result of that fight! Luck!? It ain’t just luck, it’s called, NEVADA! We’re the only state in the union whose economy and very identity are intrinsically linked to luck.  You see, son, here in the Silver State, the words, LUCK, and NEVADA, are merely two different words for the same thing. So the next time you ask a stranger if he’s had any luck, understand that you are asking a perfectly round rhetorical question.”  

And with that he gave me a slap on the back that watered my eyes.  So I guess the moral of this story is, don’t talk to strangers in elevators…

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

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PINE NUTS – Ain’t it Great to be Alive?

December 6, 2024 | McAvoy Lane

I was treated to a hearty laugh this holiday season, not from a good joke or a bad pun or an amusing anecdote, no, but from the sheer joy of being alive. This tingling sensation was initiated by my Sierra Blue Jay, Huckleberry, who arrived at Happy Hour and while waiting patiently for me to find him a Beer Nut, puffed himself up to twice his normal size as if to say, “Happy Holidays, Dude!” Huck communicates to me his sheer joy of being alive, and it gives me chicken skin to see it…

It is that joyous little moment that reminds me of my good fortune to be alive at this particular point in time. In truth it strikes a chord in my heart that resounds throughout my body. It makes me want to shout, “Ain’t it great to be alive?!”

I talk to Huck like he is family, “Hey, you look great today, all fluffed out like you’re going to church or something. You should be proud that you and Emmeline raised four great kids this past summer, and they’re all doing fine. Bravo!” Then I whistle our favorite song, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

For fun, I imagine Huck talks back to me, “Well, seems you’re doin’ pretty fine yourself. I notice you have a new Lake Tahoe School pullover that looks mighty smart, and you seem to be enjoying that eggnog like its Mark Twain’s birthday or something.”

Of course I am compelled to continue the conversation, “How did you know? It is Mark Twain’s birthday, his 189th, and for that you get an extra Beer Nut, my little genius!”

“So what do you plan to do on Mark Twain’s birthday?” He asks.

“Well, I might have a second eggnog, or better yet, I might sit down and pen Samuel a letter, thanking him for the sunshine he has brought into my life, sunshine that I was able to share in classrooms and lecture halls over the many years.”

At this point in our eyes-only conversation Huck sometimes shouts, “And, you must tell me once again what Mark Twain had to say about us jays.”

So of course I launch into The Blue Jay Yarn: “Oh, a jay’s everything a man is, he loves gossip and scandal, and he knows when he’s an ass, just as well as you do, maybe better.”

With that, Huckleberry stands on one leg, laughs, then nods his head in acknowledgement to me, before flapping his wings twice, and taking off into the wild blue yonder…

Our daily conversations are in body language mostly. I slowly flap my arms when I hear his beak tapping on the window, he puffs himself up, and I start to whistle our favorite song while hunting up a Beer Nut. Our daily conversations do vary a little, but always end up with the same refrain, “Ain’t it great to be alive?!”

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

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PINE NUTS – The Gift of a Music Box

November 23, 2024 | McAvoy Lane

As our mutual friend Mark Twain reminds us around this time of year, “The Christmas holidays have this high value: that they remind Forgetters of the Forgotten, and repair damaged relationships.” We thank you Samuel, for that reminder, ever so poignant in this particular Christmas season.

A gentleman knocked at my door recently and said, “You don’t know me, but I know you, and I have been instructed to deliver this sidewheeler.” He handed me the cutest little music box in the shape of a sidewheeler that Sam Clemens would have piloted, and added, “I hear you have a pet jay named ‘Huckleberry.’

I laughed out loud and said, “I do!” I took the sidewheeler in my hands and wound it up. We then stood raptly by as it played “Moon River,” and joined together in singing the line, “My Huckleberry Friend.”

It brought a tear to my eye, really, and I had to ask, “So who instructed you to deliver this treasure if you don’t mind my asking.”

“The Lord.” He answered solemnly.

“Then I shall take the very best care of it.” I promised.

We shook hands and he went on his way. Some days are diamonds, and this was one to be sure. Here were two strangers listening intently to a music box while smiling and sharing a refrain. I play that wonderful gift every morning while pouring my coffee and it makes me wonder what it might take for all of us to share the gift of music, somewhat like that gentleman did for me…

Might we each have a little sidewheeler music box to bequeath to a neighbor, a friend, or a total stranger? I have to believe we do; it might not be in the form of a sidewheeler, it might be in the form of a piece of pie or a Christmas wreath. And our little gift of music would not have to be “Moon River” but could cross the borders of 195 countries with music from each and every homeland.

These gifts of music could fill the air with goodwill and stop us from chasing around and biting our tails, as many of us have been prone to do of late. It might not be a music box at all. Can you whistle?

I whistle Huckleberry’s favorite song every day at Happy Hour before giving him a Beer Nut, and he goes into a touchdown dance and does everything but spike that Beer Nut to show his gratitude. It is no coincidence that Huckleberry and my favorite song is, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” So, allowing for a scarcity of music boxes, why don’t we take to whistling a song out the window, down the street, and across this great land of ours at the stroke of midnight, this January first, 2025. And if we cannot whistle, then let us hum…  

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

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