Pine Nuts: What would Mark Twain say?
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Mon, 12/25/2023 - 1:32pm
A very savvy businessman and longstanding pal, Dinger, suggested to me that I write about what I know about. For 24 years I have been writing about what I think about, yet the one thing I do know about, and perhaps the only thing I know about, is Mark Twain.
So, with Dinger’s sage advice in mind, I’m launching a podcast today, to answer tough questions from readers, first as Mark Twain, and also from his protagonist, yours truly.
What Would Mark Twain Say?
Reader Question: “Is Joe Biden too old to serve a second term?”
Mark Twain: “No, Joe Biden is not too old to serve a second term. I have achieved my 188 years in the usual way; that is by sticking strictly to a scheme of life that would kill anybody else. You cannot reach old age by another man’s road.
McAvoy: “Yes, Joe Biden is too old to serve a second term. I speak only from experience, but confess that at 80 years of age myself, I could not effectively run a truck stop for more than four days, and Joe is older than I am.”
Reader Question: “Is Donald Trump fit to serve a second term?”
Mark Twain: “No, Donald Trump is not fit to serve another term as president. He was born hoggish after money, and today is effervescing the holy gas of pure unselfish patriotism. Well, the best of us would rather be popular than right.”
McAvoy: “Yes, Donald Trump is fit to serve a second term. If Donald Trump does in fact suffer from Mania Grandiosa, a sense of self-importance that surpasses all limits and is a documented mental illness, he could by all rights enter an insanity plea, walk freely out of court, and into the oval office.”
Reader Question: “Should we be preparing an Earthling epitaph?”
Mark Twain: “Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a world of good after he is dead, especially if he had hard luck while he was alive. I have never seen what to me seemed an atom of proof that there is a future life. And yet I am strongly inclined to expect one. The important thing, the essential thing, is that we endeavor so to live, that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Anyway, the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
McAvoy: “Sadly, noble folks with good intentions bequeathed us with weapons of defense and deterrence that in turn invite inadvertent escalation, and a possible Besom of Destruction.”
Finally, it is befitting that we leave the last word to Mark Twain.
“No man is entirely in his right mind at any time. When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear, and life stands explained.”
Please join us next week for What Would Mark Twain Say? I’m McAvoy Layne.
— For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American."
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