Thanksgiving 2023

A young son is watching the TV news with his father… 

“Dad, how come all their houses are broken?”

“They are at war, Son.”

“Why?”

“Go ask your mother.”

“Mom, why are all their houses broken?”

“They are at war, Son.”

“Why?”

“Go ask your father.”

“He told me to ask you.”

“Alright then, I’ll tell you why their houses are broken. You see, Honey, grown men have this thing called testosterone. It’s a hormone that brings out the very best, and sometimes the very worst in men. Excess testosterone can cause package rage that can escalate into road rage, and escalate yet again into internecine warfare, and the breaking of houses.

“Do I have testosterone, Mom?”

“No, Honey, but you will soon enough, and it’s your father’s and my responsibility to raise you in an environment that will inspire you to become a clarion call for harmony between neighbors…all neighbors.”

As her son leaves the room, she finishes her thoughts by talking to herself…

“Dr. Martin Luther King told us, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.’ Yet this recent spike in human depravity is demonstrating that justice is not inevitable. If we presume that progress is perpetual, well, we are going to fail.  

Each generation, in its turn, is responsible for maintaining the peace, as there will always be belligerents to muddy our otherwise pristine political waters. So it becomes each generation’s responsibility to keep our waters drinkable, or ‘potable’ as the saying is, though I don’t cotton to that particular word. To my mind, a potty-trained child could be called, ‘potable,’ not drinking water. And while I’m thinking of it, it seems to me that, ‘a temporary cease-fire,’ or ‘a limited pause in fighting’ are sanitized terms for, ‘temporary interruption in senseless killing.’ Just as ‘collateral damage’ is a nice clean term for, ‘Woops, sorry we murdered you, but you should have gotten out of the way.’

Warfare is so below us, and should be so far behind us as to be unfathomable, and yet we continue to find reasons to kill each other in the name of one god or another, one politic or another, one misplaced hatred or another. My grandmother used to have an expression that she would use on me when I came crying to her for a third time in an hour, ‘Oh, dry up!’ And I guess that is my mantra to those who feel a need to declare war or fight a war, ‘Oh, dry up!’ I can’t say it like my grandmother could say it, so that it carries the perfect pitch of authority and affection, but it will just have to do for now.”

Satisfied that she had solved the world’s troubles, our mother’s thoughts return to her Thanksgiving dinner…

“Let’s see, I better replace this kitchen sponge, for this one, like artificial intelligence, is about ready to get up and walk out of here on its own.”

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Most friends who have visited Layne Haven over the past six years have met my pet Jay, Huckleberry. He stops by three times a day, 8am for breakfast, noon for lunch, and 5pm for Happy Hour, when he gets a Beer Nut. Huckleberry has been my constant companion since 2017 when he was hatched right here on the second deck. I spread a sleeping bag out on the drive below when he fledged. He hit it dead center and looked up at me as if to say, “Thanks, Pal.” We’ve been fast friends ever since…

If I sleep-in, Huck will bang on the window with his beak as if to say, “Hey, let’s get some breakfast going out here!” He has even gone so far as to fake his own death to get my attention. Then he jumps up as if to ask, “Got any Beer Nuts on you?!”

Over the years Huck has learned English and a smattering of Spanish that he has picked up from the neighbors. So yesterday I sat down to have a father – son talk with Huck…

“Huckleberry, now is the time for all good jays to come to the aid of their planet. You are destined to become the world’s first feathered Superhero, now let me tell you how…

I am going to band you with a global positioning device that will guide you to the windowsill of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, where you will flop onto your back and fake your own death, like you are prone to do. Your legs will be banded with the words, ‘CLIMATE’ on one leg, and ‘PEACE’ on the other.

I shall alert Secretary General Guterres that you will be coming, and ask him to take a photo of your petition for the world to embrace, ‘PEACE’ and ‘CLIMATE!’ The Secretary’s photo will circle the globe to capture hearts and minds the world over. Peoples from Fairbanks in Alaska, to Antarctica’s Union Glacier Camp will wake up and take notice.” 

They will ask, “If a Nevada Jay can be aware of the perils that we all face, who are we to ignore this feathered friend called, Huckleberry?” World peace and a cleansing of the atmosphere are sure to follow.

“Secretary Guterres will disband you, Huck, and you should have no trouble finding your way back to Layne Haven, where your girlfriend, Emmeline, and I, will be eagerly awaiting your return.”

In closing, Nevada’s premier artist, Steven Saylor and I are collaborating on a book to chronicle Huck’s heroic adventures. We’re calling it, Our Huckleberry Hero, to be available soon wherever books are sold, and I promise the gentle reader, you will want to frame Steven’s illustrations.

Of all the superheroes the world has ever known, who in God’s Green Acre could turn a cold shoulder to a Sierra Nevada Jay named Huckleberry? Heck, I might even wash and peel two Beer Nuts to welcome Huckleberry back home…

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Huckleberry & Jim had many a grand adventure aboard their raft, adventures that we can read all about in Mark Twain’s iconic book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But who would ever guess a Missouri man, Steve Kueny, could grow a 1,280-pound pumpkin, hollow it out, climb inside, and float 39 miles down the Missouri River inside a pumpkin he just happened to name, “Huckle Berry.”

It took Steve eleven hours to complete his journey from Kansas City to Napoleon, and place his name on a page in the Guinness Book of World Records. Mind you, this record is not your grandfather’s, “Hold my beer…watch this!” No, there was much planning, tender loving care, careful carving and much paddling involved, not to mention the annoyance of pumpkin hairs tickling his toes for eleven grueling hours.  

Kueny claims he was just a man with a pumpkin who was looking for something to do on a Monday morning. But we know he was a man with a mission, and we congratulate him for his creativity and endurance. After all, Missouri is the “Show Me State.” As for Huckle Berry? He was unceremoniously decommissioned, which is to say, run over by a tractor.”

Reading about Steve’s adventure gave me an incentive to go back and reread Cinderella, as she too took a ride in a pumpkin as I recall. Cinderella’s fairy grandmother turned a pumpkin into a golden carriage and turned mice into horses to pull that pumpkin to the prince’s ball. She even turned a rat into a coachman. Don’t ask me how.

But if Cinderella did not leave before midnight, well, that golden carriage would revert to a regular old pumpkin in which to ride home, and I still don’t know how Cinderella got home that night. Did the mice carry her back home in her pumpkin, or did she just call Uber…

If there is a moral to that fairytale I could not find it with a hunting dog, but others more learned than I have suggested that the moral of the Cinderella story is, “Where beauty is a treasure, graciousness is priceless.” So let us go with that, and let it ride.

I had a chance once myself at a world record, and feel the sting of regret even today that I did not make it into that noble book. Yes, back in high school I was carried off the field on a gurney twice in one football game. One more time and I might have landed in the Guinness Book of World Records. I wasn’t hurt, actually, so much as I was really really tired, and, yearning for the sympathy of one of our cheerleaders, who did cross herself when she suspected I must surely be dead on my second exodus on that gurney.

Oh well, the day is young, and we never know when providence might offer an opportunity to earn oneself a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records…

“Hold my beer…watch this!” 

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Originally Published in The Sierra Sun 10/27/2023, Written by McAvoy Lane

The first thing I did on my first day of retirement was to toss my Mickey Mouse alarm clock out the window. Then I started pricing marimba’s, as I have a latent desire to make some music. Also I’m looking for books to learn Spanish because it is a beautiful language and I want to get closer to some of my interesting neighbors.

And too, because I have this computer chock full of photos of interesting people and places that I encountered during my 35 years of pretending to be Mark Twain, I’m starting an illustrated memoir, The Incredible Lightness of Being the Ghost of Mark Twain.

Just this morning I came across an early PINE NUTS photo that made me smile…

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Photo provided by The Bonanza

I’m deathly afraid of bedbugs myself, and even turned down a chance to compete in the 1964 Olympic Games because I could not face the possibility of a bedbug nibbling on my toenails in Tokyo on the night before the diving finals. If I had another opportunity to compete in the Paris Olympics this coming summer I would not go for the same reason. I’ve heard in Paris the little bloodsuckers do not stop at the toenail, but go for the whole toe, then beg for more. But help is on the way…

Apparently, Morocco has a surplus of cockroaches, and what do cockroaches love most in this world to eat? Right, bedbugs. So Morocco is offering to send Paris boxcars full of cockroaches, trainloads full of them, until all the bedbugs in Paris are entirely consumed by the voracious cockroaches.

So then you might want to ask, “What are those Parisians going to do with all those millions of cockroaches?” Well, who loves a cockroach for an appetizer more than a mongoose?  And Africa just happens to have an abundance of mongooses. I humbly suggest asking Africa to send as many mongooses as they can possibly spare. And if Africa will part with them, Bingo! No cockroaches in Paris for the Olympic Games.

But who wants a mongoose slithering between his sheets on the night before a 100-meter dash for Olympic Gold? I would suggest bringing in snakes, but when a snake confronts a mongoose, well, I’ve heard the snake always meets his maker. Yet even a slippery mongoose must have a predator, and yes, I’ve been advised by the first person I asked, it is the bird of prey, and who in God’s Green Acre harbors the most raptors? We do, the Great State of Nevada. We’ve got eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, even a Great Horned Owl, who just craves dining on fresh mongoose, if he can find one. Our Nevada raptors might not recognize a mongoose if they saw one, but once they get used to examining their slithery moves, well, it’s goodbye mongooses.

Ultimately, who better to rescue Paris and eliminate the bedbugs? You guessed it, the Great State of Nevada.

Some people only think of Nevada as a place where the word “book” is a verb. Some who visit Nevada don’t know not to split their tens, and will take the “Under” on the National Anthem in the Super Bowl when everybody in Nevada knows if Chris Stapleton is scheduled to sing the Anthem, he’s going to hold that last note like a grudge, but then, our visitors learn, and they have a good time while they’re at it.”

Actually, when you think about it…it might make more sense to just ask the Great State of Nevada to host the 2024 Olympic Games. We have spectacular venues and great sportsbooks, and thanks to the high desert, we are totally free of the dreaded bedbug…

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

On the 30^th of September, trembling like an Aspen in Autumn, I stepped onto the stage at Piper’s Opera House in front of a packed house. What in tarnation was I about to say? I had two hours of information to cram into 90 minutes…somethings had to go, but what? I can’t remember now what I decided, but our trusted friends at PBS Reno will air a portion of it on October 15^th…

I remember tossing in a last-minute off-color piece that proved President Taft wrong: “Mark Twain never wrote a paragraph that a father could not read to his daughter.” That purple piece might have bombed in Hoboken, but happily, it took wings up on the Comstock Lode.  

Fittingly, we ended where it all started 35 years and 4,000 programs ago for the Ghost of Mark Twain, crossing this great land of ours, across Germany, and yes, into Russia, where we got the warmest welcome outside of Missouri.

I do remember saying, “My friends, Artificial Intelligence is not going to do it for our kids. Our kids are going to need real people to teach them history, and it will be up to you to provide that living history. Get involved with Chautauqua, it will give you another life, and one life is not enough.” Then, before I knew it, it was time for my final remarks…

“It is with profound and heartfelt gratitude to Carol Piper Marshall, God rest her beautiful soul, that my time has come to sail my little sloop up onto dry land, and haul down my colors. A very smart lady once told me, ‘McAvoy, better to retire two years too early than two minutes too late.’

“Speaking metaphorically, I am but this this frivolous little captain of a coasting sloop in the dried-apple and kitchen-furniture trade, hailing every cargo ship that comes into sight, just to air my small grandeurs. ‘Ship Ahoy!  What ship is that?’
           “The answer comes thundering back through a speaking trumpet aboard a majestic Indiaman, with course on course of canvas towering into the sky, ‘The Begum of Bengal, one hundred and twenty-three days out from Canton -homeward bound!  What ship is that?’

“My vanity is crushed out of me, and humbly I squeak back: ‘Only the Mary Ann -fourteen hours out from Boston, bound for Kittery Point with -with nothing to speak of!’

 “You see, during one hour in the day, I stop to reflect.  Then I am humble, then I am properly meek, then I am only the Mary Ann, cargoed with vegetables and tinware.

But tonight, tonight, my vain self-satisfaction rides high, and I am the stately Indiaman, plowing the great seas under a cloud of sail, laden with a rich freightage of kind words from you, my friends and fellow travelers. Yes tonight, this final night, I am the Begum of Bengal, one hundred twenty-three days out from Canton -homeward bound!”

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

A friend sent me a video entitled, “Nothing but Smiles,” and it was so chockfull of smiles that it brought a tear to my eye. So I thought I might try to recount it here with words that could never do the video justice, but still might bring you, the gentle reader, a smile…

This slow-moving saga begins at a public drinking fountain in a public park with a distinguished looking gentleman holding the water on for his German Shepard, who is lapping away with a look in his eyes that says, “Thanks, Pops, let’s catch a bite to eat on the way home, then settle-in to another rerun of “A Dog’s Way Home.” 

The second scene features another elderly gentleman, this time with two dogs, and the three of them are carelessly exercising on public foot swings, each offering sideways glances of approval to the other two, a sight to make a homeless person smile.

Scene three presents a mature gentleman cuddling two large parrots that are in turn, cuddling him. It’s a lovefest, and they are one loving family. Just to watch makes you want to run out and hug somebody…

Scene four? A toddler busies himself lifting ducklings from a basket, and tossing them one by one, unceremoniously, into a large basin of water, then hosing them down. The toddler seems self-satisfied, while the ducklings appear to be enjoying the novel adventure. It is obvious that the toddler is destined to be a successful businessman someday.

Scene five is reposeful. A large cow and a young lady are sleeping next to each other when the cow lifts his heavy head and plops it down on the young lady’s stomach. Both continue their rest as though nothing has happened. Personally, I would have awakened and bellowed like a newborn calf had it been me.

Scene six, my favorite, highlights a large sea lion and attractive young lady embracing and mugging for the camera, both beaming and both sticking out their tongues at the same time. If you don’t smile at this synchronicity you ain’t right…

In scene seven a large goose flies alongside a speedboat, letting passengers reach out and pet its stomach, and everyone seems gratified.

Scene eight showcases two mountain goats balanced on a precarious precipice a thousand feet in the air, enjoying the scenery as if they were on level ground. Placed in the same spot, my heart would be in my throat and my eyes would be sealed shut.

The ninth scene boasts a young kayaker paddling along without a care in the world. His passenger just happens to be a gigantic Bengal tiger, looking much like the captain of a majestic Indiaman, plowing the great seas under a cloud of sail.

In a closing scene, an elegant lady on a second story balcony is feeding two equally elegant giraffes, and we have to know, thanks to this beautiful video, all of these wonderful characters will live happily ever after… 

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

One of the chief joys in my life is to go fly fishing with my Marine Corps buddy, Marlboro Man. Craig Fellin runs a successful Montana outfitters resort, the Big Hole Lodge, with his son, Wade. Craig will walk the banks of the Wise on the day before we arrive and kick over logs to see what’s hatching. Once we arrive, we get to watch him tie a fly, perhaps a Wooly Bugger, that no self-respecting trout can refuse. 

Fly fishing is not a sport, to my mind it is an art, and Marlboro Man is the Rembrandt of the Wise. His son, Wade, being the Picasso of the Big Hole. And then along comes the Zombie Trout, the brown trout that has been blinded by pollution, and can no longer see the Wooly Bugger.                   

First question: If a trout can no longer see his next meal, how is he going to find his next mate during mating season? Imagine the stress the Zombie trout is dealing with, for stress is just as hard on fish as it is on you and me. I can hear a female trout now as she is approached by a Zombie trout, “Oh, here comes that Zombie again, he is kinda cute, but my mother tells me he would not be a good catch. And besides, how on earth are we going to feed the kids if he can’t see a Wooly Bugger? It beats my time!”

So what makes a trout a Zombie? Well, number one, cows don’t really care where they poop, even if they’re standing next to a sacred Montana river. So, we have the well-worn western expression, “Never drink downstream from the herd.” 

Number two, I never knew there was oxygen in water, but I found out firsthand that there is not nearly enough oxygen in water to sustain me while underwater, as I came very near drowning in the finding out of that singular fact. However, there is just enough oxygen in Montana rivers for fish to breathe, don’t ask me how, yet that oxygen level is dropping drastically. So when a Zombie trout can’t see, and he can’t mate, and he can’t breathe, what’s a Zombie trout to do?

Well that’s the very question the Fellin’s and other concerned Montana citizens are asking as a nonprofit called, “Save Wild Trout.” They are presently asking Governor Gianforte to create a task force to study and stem the sudden hemorrhaging of Montana rivers.

Our waters are warming, our world is roasting, and unless we do some really smart things really fast, I’m afraid you and I are going to be two-legged Zombies, finding it ever more difficult to eat, to mate, and to breathe. The very thought provokes me to buy an electric car, a self-driving one, and get off the grid. Some people tell me I’m already off the grid, but I take it as a compliment, and continue in my blasé ways…

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Continuing from last week…over the years I’ve contented myself in collecting poignant quotes that I thought might shed some light upon a long and winding road toward old age. Recently I opened that file and was astonished to discover it had grown to thirty pages in length. So I thought for fun I might like to select my next eleven favorite non-Twainian quotes, and share them with you here in this fine family journal…

We pick it up here with number eleven from Quincy Jones: “No matter how much you feel, you have to have your science and craft together to express it.  Otherwise you are in deep doo-doo.” Mr. Jones still has it all together at ninety years young and going strong. 

Number twelve? Douglas Casey, while at Georgetown University, shared this satirical observation: “Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.”

Robert Frost gives us number thirteen with his astute definition of freedom, “You have freedom when you are easy in your harness.” 

For number fourteen we turn to Kahlil Gibran, “In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures.  For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

At number fifteen Mike Caro weighs in on gambling: “Every conscious act requires risk. Every conscious act requires decision. Put these two facts together and you realize that the secret to life is not to avoid gambling, but to gamble well.”

Moving right along, Erich Fromm asserts “Giving is the highest expression of your aliveness.” 

Marcus Aurelius checks in with number seventeen, “Waste no time debating what a good man should be.  Be one.”

A short list of useful quotes would not be complete without one from H.L. Mencken: “Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.”

We miss you, George Burns: “Happiness?  A good cigar, and a good woman -or a bad woman.  It depends on how much happiness you can handle.” 

Number twenty brings us closer to home. Las Vegas is not renowned as a literary town. In truth, Las Vegas, literally translated from its original Spanish means, “place of general inebriation.” Deke Castleman tells us, “The word ‘book’ around town, 90% of the time is a verb.”     Finally we shall culminate this short list with a manifesto from Bertrand Russell & Albert Einstein: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”

Those two very smart men leave us on page 15 of 30 pages of useful quotes that I’d like to share, but the remaining 15 pages will have to wait for another day. Meanwhile, I hope these eleven might give you a lift as they did me…

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

Over the years I’ve contented myself by collecting poignant quotes that I thought might shed some light upon a long and winding road toward old age. Today I opened that file and was astonished to discover it had grown to thirty pages in length. So I thought for fun I might like to select my ten favorite non-Twainian quotes, and share them with you here in this fine family journal… 

The first comes to us from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” Thank you, Mr. Emerson.

Number two comes from a man who lived for a hundred years, George Burns: “Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.” We miss you, George.

Number three is a lasting proverb from Mexico: “Eyes that see do not grow old.”

Number four comes from the pen of Luciano de Crescenzo: “We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly embracing each other.”
             For number five we call on Oscar Wilde: “The future is what artists are.  Art is what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament and not a speculation.”

Number six flows from the founder of our nation, George Washington: “To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.” As an aside, Mark Twain proffered, “George Washington could not tell a lie. I can but choose not to.”

Number seven is a welcome to the world from Kurt Vonnegut; “Hello, babies, welcome to Earth.  It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.  It’s round and wet and crowded.  At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here.  There’s only one rule that I know of, babies -God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” Vonnegut, as you know, loved Mark Twain.

Number eight goes to Florence Kennedy, who told it like it is: “The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.”

For number nine we call on Henry David Thoreau: “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature.  It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” Should you happen to live near Tahoe or Donner Lake, you might want to add: “Amen.”

 Finally at number ten we return to Mr. Emerson, who reminds us, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

But I see I am running out of space and am only on page ten of thirty pages of my favorite quotes, so I shall have to continue this chronicle next week… 

Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne