Ghost of TwainPosts

I used to sometimes remind my son, “The best two things money can buy are the morning paper and flowers for your mother.” When Mac was in seventh grade I would ask him to read an article out of the morning paper before heading off to school, which he did without complaint, sometimes. One morning around 2001 he read an article about skiing in Iran, where if you were caught skiing with the opposite sex you could get thirty lashes and a fine of $100. Mac pondered that social constraint a moment, then expounded with the easy insouciance that only a seventh grader can command: “They need to get with it a little.”

Mark Twain's Tales of Tahoe and Hawaii to support the first responders at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church.
We'll see you there. Until the...

PINE NUTS
Thanking Our Firefighters

When the lake we love for it’s scenic splendor showed up in a photo on the front page of the New York Times with the caption, “ The lake that Mark Twain once called ‘the fairest picture the whole Earth affords,’ looks and smells like the bottom of an ashtray.” Well, that was enough to sink my heart to the very bottom of Lake Tahoe.
So I donned a mask and walked down to the lake. I don’t tear-up easily, but “the fairest picture the whole Earth affords” was not looking so fair. A lady shouted to me along the way, “You are so brave to be out here walking.”
I responded, “Thanks be to our intrepid firefighters we have the smoke, and not the flames.” Then I evacuated on an unplanned road trip to visit friends in the Bay Area who were
not expecting me…

My Evacuation List looked something like this…
1 Check on the neighbors
2 Grab a Twain portrait
3 Pack a toothbrush
4 Grab a Twain portrait
5 Pack a change of skivvy-drawers
6 Grab a Twain portrait

One nice thing about lifelong friends is that they are always quick to feign they are as happy to see you as they might be to see a winning three-way parlay ticket placed at the Hyatt Sports Book a year or two ago. And too, it’s always entertaining to hear one of them whisper through the kitchen window, “Hide the good silver!”
And then our fearless firefighters did it! Twenty nine hundred of Tahoe’s finest saved the Masterpiece of the Creator, the Lake of the Sky, Lake Tahoe. I thanked my generous hosts for their safe harbor and drove four hours home to the lake, still there, encased in hazardous haze, but still there. I was so elated to be returning home that I realized as I pulled into my drive that I had made the entire trip with my left turn indicator on.
Once again home to Layne Haven, I opened a bottle of Mark Twain’s Private Stock and hoisted a glass on high to our gallant firefighters, hung a few Twain portraits back up on the wall, and called St. Pat’s for a possible venue in which to present a benefit for our firefighters, the victims of the Caldor Fire, and the animal rescue heroes who answered the call. Outside of a grateful look from a grounded hoot owl, those animal rescue folks hardly get any thanks.
I’m happy to report our benefit will be at St. Pat’s beautiful new outdoor amphitheater on the evening of Saturday, September 25th, 6pm-7:30, “The Air That Angels Breathe – An Evening with Mark Twain at Tahoe and the Hawaiian Islands.”
Let’s get out and shout our gratitude…a $25 donation is suggested, more if you can stand it, checks payable to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church. For reservations call 775-833-1835.
Seating will be limited to 100.

I would not like to be the lowest paid player in any professional sport. I’m much too conceited. I once crowed like a dunghill rooster for a week after entering a Marine Corps R&R tournament in Vietnam and beating a Red Cross nurse in ping pong. So I have to wonder how Tyrone Swoopes felt when he became the lowest paid player in the 2019/20 National Football League. My heart went out to him and I only wished I could give him a hug and shed some tears down his back.