Ghost of Twain, PINE NUTS: Character Matters

Pine Nuts: Character Matters

By McAvoy Layne

Elmo. Some people don’t need a last name. Elmo was the youngest American to win the highest award for knowing the most about wine back in 1972, yet he was not a wine snob.  He lived on the edge of Kapiolani Park in Waikiki and I used pass his patio on my morning runs.  

One Sunday morning Elmo hailed me and invited me to join him for breakfast out there on the patio, but I had a few more miles to go and gracefully declined.         

Pine Nuts: A Walk in the Woods Is the First Step Toward Mental Health

By McAvoy Layne

We have long known that exercise reduces anxiety, and now we are finding out why. Dr. Jennifer Heisz has been studying how a modest amount of exercise can help protect us from depression, anxiety, and various other mental health challenges. Turns out, it’s all thanks to neuropeptide Y, which is the pacifier that increases its flow during exercise and washes away stress like a hot shower.

Ghost of Twain, PINE NUTS: Taking Stock of 2022

Pine Nuts: Taking Stock of 2022

By McAvoy Layne

Taking stock of 2022…from someone who lives for the most part in the 19th century… “Man is good, woman, even better.” Now should they disagree, he might end an argument with a definitive, “But Honey, that’s not in the Constitution!” And she might end the same argument with the last word, “But Honey, remember too, that we are endowed with certain unalienable rights, and among them just happens to be the pursuit of happiness!”

Ghost of Twain, PINE NUTS A World Worth Saving

Pine Nuts A World Worth Saving

By McAvoy Layne

There’s a loose cannon out there who thinks as little of his fellow man as his fellow man thinks of him. Oh, and by the way, did we mention, he happens to have 6,257 nuclear weapons within reach of his fingertips, about 30 for every country in the world, were he to choose to distribute them fairly, a thing not likely to happen.

Sphere of influence is what is driving him in Ukraine. “Come home to Mother Russia, stand tall, be proud to be counted as Russian, or I will have to shoot you.” 

Snowflake image

Pine Nuts: Love Your Mother

By McAvoy Layne

Reason suggests that if nature exhibits symmetry and design, nature must have a designer, so mankind has been kept pretty busy over the ages crediting that design to various deities and creators. Were I superintending, I would give full credit to the rightful designer, the original creator, our dear mother herself, in all her glory, Mother Nature.

Photo of MacAvoy Lane with a dog

Pine Nuts: We’re Going to the Dogs and That's a Good Thing

By McAvoy Layne

The world is going to the dogs and that’s a good thing. There are more dogs in San Francisco today than people. Emperor Norton himself had two dogs, Lazarus & Bummer. When Laz & Bum expired they were regally stuffed by a taxidermist to become a popular display above the swinging doors of a swinging downtown saloon. I don’t know if our little village of Incline has more dogs than people, but if not, we’re gaining on it.  I know a good many dogs by their first names, because I carry milk bone treats with me everywhere I go, and from Daisy to Georgia, they all come running.

Ghost of Twain, PINE NUTS: Lincoln Day Dinner

Pine Nuts: Lincoln Day Dinner

By McAvoy Layne

There are only a handful of counties in America with only one township, and Nevada’s Churchill County is one of them. So I was honored to be invited to speak as Mark Twain at this year’s Lincoln Day Dinner at the Fallon Convention Center, hosted by the Churchill County Republican Central Committee.

Mark’s opening came easy, “With the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, my brother was appointed secretary to Territorial Governor Nye out in the Silverland, Nevada.”

Photo of MacAvoy Lane with Mark Twain Statue

Pine Nuts: Sneaky Legs, Jasper & Me

By McAvoy Layne

Sneaky Legs, Jasper and I turned thirteen and we were feeling our oats, so we concocted this cockamamie scheme to test our courage. Carrying a pick and two shovels on our bikes, we peddled along the railroad tracks that led out of Moraga into the hinterland. Once assured our privacy was secure, we bivouacked and went to work digging a tunnel between two ties, under the tracks. It was tough going and it took us several days to burrow a lair large enough for a body to wriggle into.

Jimmy Phillips and MacAvoy Lane

Pine Nuts: Jimmy

By McAvoy Layne

Jimmy was a friend of mine.  He was blind, but often saw more than I did. He was nine when he walked up to my lifeguard stand, introduced himself, and asked me to teach him how to swim. I taught him how to swim and he taught me how to see. He taught me how to read braille and see with my fingers.

Pine Nuts A Cube of Ice

Pine Nuts: A Cube of Ice

By McAvoy Layne

As Mark Twain tells us, “It’s the little things that smoothes people’s roads out the most.”  And so it happened back in 1966 on a hellish afternoon in a Vietnam village, that a Montagnard woman handed a Marine a cube of ice.  There was no electricity in that village, nor was there enough money to purchase a generator, so how could this guardian angel have manufactured a cube of ice?