We all crave our father’s endorsement. Heart surgeon Dr. Kelly once acknowledged to his toxicologist daughter, “Honey, you have saved more lives than I could ever heal.” That became the young Dr. Kelly’s culmitative day.
When I was attending the University of Oregon, one of our track stars, Phil Knight, started experimenting with coach Bowerman on attaching waffle souls to track shoes.
Phil Knight’s dad was getting a little perturbed that his son was spending so much of his time on developing a faster track shoe, and queried his son, “Phil, when are you going to stop jackassing around with those shoes?”
Well, Phil founded the now global Nike Shoe Company, and recently donated a billion dollars to the University of Oregon. Not bad for Dad’s, “jackassing around.”
When I was just getting started portraying Mark Twain my father thought I was suffering a personality disorder, and offered, “If you will stop being somebody else, and go back to school, I will pay your way.”
Then Dear Old Dad accompanied me on a couple of my school enrichment programs as Mark Twain, and confided to me, “You know, Son, what you are doing as Mark Twain just might be socially redeeming.” That was my culminative Mark Twain moment. Even to this day, when I finish An Evening with Mark Twain in my home, I sometimes point to the sky and silently tender, “Thanks Dad, for the support.”
As for Sam Clemens himself, well, his father died when Sam was eleven, and Sam had to go to work in the printing shop. So the printing house became Sam’s high school, the steamboat his university. Then, in his masterpiece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Sam created Jim, a runaway slave, who becomes a father figure to Huckleberry, and who teaches Huck, as well as the rest of us, that a sound heart is a better guide than an ill-trained conscience.
So it has slowly evolved, over the past forty years, that I have been actively seeking the approval of Samuel Clemens in my portrayal of Mark Twain, just as a son would seek the approval of his father, albeit my father figure was promoted to glory away back in 1910.
Truth be known, a Father’s Day never gets by me without my pointing to the heavens with both index fingers, and stating out loud, “Thanks, Dad, for your support of my work as Mark Twain, and thank you Samuel Langhorn Clemens, for making this college dropout a better person.”
Let’s hear it for the dads of the world. About moms we can talk another time, for it would take twice the space allocated here, and I see that I am fast running out of room in this fine family journal.
But while I’m thinking about it, I do believe I shall call my son, who is writing grant proposals for nonprofits, and tell him how proud I am of him.
Want to hear McAvoy Layne tell it? Go here for an audio version of this column. For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy 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.”
Editor’s Note: The fourth annual Mark Twain Days festival returns to Carson City Oct. 13-17 with five days of literary events, live music, historic tours, train rides and family activities, including a new competition celebrating Nevada’s signature Basque cocktail.
Presented by the Brewery Arts Center, the festival celebrates Carson City’s connection to Samuel Clemens. In the article “Letter From Carson City,” published Feb. 3, 1863, Clemens first used what would become one of the most famous pen names in American literature: Mark Twain. This signature has given the capital its claim as the birthplace. Click on the story below for details.
