Blog 309 – 06.02.2016

It has been sometime since I did a tribute in one of my blog and some of the writing that I enjoy most is writing in praise of others. I think most of us spend way too much time dwelling on the weaknesses and imperfections of others and also of ourselves. Do enough of that and you will begin to doubt that this is a wonderful world with wonderful people in it. It is the curse of many older people and some younger people, I might add, that their world view and their view of people and things in general is that “This world is going to hell in a hand basket and most of the people in it.”

Mark Twain was no Polly Ann and did not see life in his day as a rose garden or through rose colored glass. Religiously and politically he was a skeptic but he painted even the most dire situations with a large dose of common sense and humor. He was loved by the common man because I think he believed the greatest good dwelt there.

My first exposure to Mark Twain was as a boy to two of his more famous books, Tom Sawyer and the companion book Huck Finn. I remember how tickled I was that Tom was able to trick his friends into helping him whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence and even into paying him for the privilege because he acted like he was enjoying the job, that it was fun, and an honor to get to do it. Would we could always see our jobs that way. Like Forest Gump said about cutting grass for the City of Greenbow, Alabama after retiring from the Bubba Gump Shrimping business, “And since I enjoyed the job so much I cut that grass for free.”

Mark Twain was a true friend of former President Grant and paid him a large advance on Grant’s memoirs knowing his friend needed the money. Twain never recouped that money from sales of the book and had to spend several more years on the lecture circuit to earn back what his friendship had cost him. He never mentioned it to Grant nor to anyone else.

A much greater tribute than anything I could write about Twain is that people still read his words long after he left this stage. He was born when Halley’s Comet came and left with its return. But he left a lot of himself behind for us, which is the hope of all writers, speakers, artists, and entertainers.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White