As a kid, reading Mark Twain’s, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn,” lead to “Treasure Island” and eventually “Lord of the Flies.” But somehow, I always returned to Twain, especially to his shorter tales.

One such short story is “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” In it, the narrator is sent by a friend to interview an old man, Simon Wheeler, who might know the location of an old acquaintance named Leonidas W. Smiley.

Finding Wheeler at Angels Camp, the narrator asks him if he knows anything about Leonidas. Simon appears not to and instead tells a story about Jim Smiley, a man who had visited the camp years earlier.

According to Wheeler, Jim loves to gamble and will bet on anything and everything. He explains that once Jim caught a frog, whom he names Dan’l Webster, and spent three months training it to jump.

When a stranger visits the camp, Jim shows off Dan’l and offers to bet $40 that it can out-jump any other frog in Calaveras County. The stranger, unimpressed, says that he would take the bet if he had a frog, so Jim goes out to catch one, leaving him alone with Dan’l.
While Jim is away, the stranger pours lead shot down Dan’l’s throat. Once Jim returns, he and the stranger set the frogs down and let them loose.

The stranger’s frog jumps away while Dan’l doesn’t budge, and the surprised and disgusted Jim pays the $40 wager. After the stranger leaves, Jim notices Dan’l’s sluggishness and picks the frog up, finding it much heavier than he remembers.

When Dan’l belches out a double handful of lead shot, Jim realizes that he has been had and chases after the stranger but never catches him.

The narrator, understanding that Jim has no connection to Leonidas, gets up to leave. However, Wheeler wants to tell him about a yellow, one-eyed, stubby-tailed cow Jim once owned.

Rather than listening to another pointless tale, the narrator leaves. As he does, he muses that his friend must have fabricated Leonidas Smiley to trick him into listening to Wheeler’s stories.

But how did Twain come up with such a story?

It began in Virginia City, Nevada, with a prospecting pig named John Henry and Towser the Bulldog. Both animals belonged to Twain’s friend, Jim Gillis.

Gillis was not only a teller of tall tales but also a “pocket miner.” He spent his time searching for small hallows in the dirt where he might find ore.

Gillis trained John Henry to dig hardpan. He did this by burying biscuits that the pig could dig up, and in doing so, Gillis would sift through the loose dirt.

One evening after staying past midnight, drinking and swapping stories with Gillis, Clemens decided he would stay over. The cabin had four bunks and two already in use.

Gillis would let the dog and the inside on cold nights, something his guest didn’t know. They slept on the cot which Clemens was currently occupying.

The pair piled on Clemens and began to wrestle as they always did before settling down to sleep. Needless to say, this made Clemens a little more than testy.

Clemens called Gillis every name he could think of, swore off their friendship, and threatened never to speak to him again. But Gillis pulled the cork from another bottle of whiskey, offered Clemens a drink, and proceeded to tell the story about an amphibian from the Golden State that wouldn’t hop.

Sam settled down, and the rest, as they say, is history.

My Cousin Elmo says, “The Biden Administration is investigating Jesus for violating stay-in-the-tomb orders.”

We have a disconnect from logical thought in this country. To wit:

President Biden ordered a missile strike on Syria. Shortly after, a Syrian man went on a shooting rampage in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security claims there is no connection between the two events. And yet…Syria.

It’s as simple as that in my mind as I wait for DHS to avoid the connection between Noah X., the Nation of Islam, and the Washington DC roadblock attack.

Thank goodness this week is over. It has been an expensive few days and will probably be worse next week. But for now, the weekend is here, and I can allow myself to relax for a few hours.

It began with shorting the light in my garage. I hunted for the problem but eventually had to call an electrician to repair my mistake. After $140, we have lights once again.

Then the water heater gave out after nearly 23-years. That’s not bad. But it cost $519 for a new one, and fortunately, a friend of ours installed it for us.

When I took the old water heater to the Reno city dump, the Waste Management guy yelled at me. No, I did not see the sign, but posting a sign at the entrance before allowing Joe Public to drive through the lot would have been the better thing to do. Masks make some people so brave.

The next day a Washoe County Library employee got pissed at me because I could not get the frigging book return touch screen to work. The old manual pull-open and push-shut draw worked fine. The third time she yelled at me and walked in front of my truck, I had murder on my mind.

It cost us over $300 for our 20-plus-year-old lawnmower once everything was said and done. I had to put a $125 deposit down because people leave their mowers to be repaired and never return to pick them up once they learn how much the “damage” is. We could have put a downpayment on a riding mower for that expense.

As I was leaving the small engine shop with the mower, my truck took a shit. It is in the shop right now and will be through next week. I have no idea what it will cost us, and I don’t even want to think about it at the moment.

Finally, my son and his wife invited us to dinner at an actual sit-down restaurant for my wife’s birthday. It was a wonderful visit, and we all came away very full. And though I was ready to help pay the bill, “my kids” pick up the entire tab.

Happily, Easter is almost here.

My Cousin Elmo says, “I’m not sure what’s wrong with my TV, but I jus’ saw a straight white male in a commercial.”

All of my life I have wanted to belong.
To what, I’ve never been sure.
Jus’ belong.
Talk of tribalism has reinfected that wound.
I don’t belong. I have never belonged.
Outside the circle, the community, the troop.
Certainly, I have attempted to belong: school, military, service organizations, professions, even communities that involved hobbyists.
Nothing.
For a while, I will be accepted then slowly I find myself abandoned.
Left to my own devices.
Alone.
You, too?
No, this is not a complaint, but a quest for the why of the nature.
The answer is we are all alone, but together.

“Did you see the news about how Biden’s going to cancel a billion dollars in student loans?” my wife asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Whose going to pay for that?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What? Why?  This is important stuff.”

“Yup, I know.”

“Then why don’t you want to talk about it? This is in your wheel-house.”

“I know, but every time I say anything I make people mad, I make you mad and that’s because what I say is taken simply as opinion and not fact.”

She was still mad at me when she left for work.

After battling cancer, writer, artist, blogger, friend, and all-around nice person, Sue Vincent left us today. She was born on September 14, 1958.

In her own words:

“I am a Yorkshire-born painter and writer, living in the south of England. I paint the strange things that come as images in dreams and fantasies and write about life as it happens,” she wrote about herself.

“I was raised in a spiritually eclectic family in a landscape where myths and legends were woven into the stones, and have always had an intimate relationship with the inner worlds and the understanding that all paths are but spokes on a wheel, leading ultimately to the same center,” Sue added. “It is not the path that one walks that matters, but how one chooses to walk it.”

Enjoy your new path Sue. Know that we will all eventually catch up with you.

Turning from Seventh onto Sun Valley was like entering a twisted dreamscape. But now I know that this witnessed scene is but a view of the remaining year.

I expect no one to understand.

It was minutes beyond noon, as work let out early. It would forever be ‘out early’ because of COVID-19 and high taxes now, the business permanently closed.

At the side of the pock-marked asphalt, beyond the solid white stripe, lay a body on the icy Earth. I stopped to see if I could help, only to learn it was a large dog, its blood soaking into the dirt and mortal remains quickly chilling.

Holding the dog’s head was a large German woman who lived across the street. She pressed deep, the 14-month old dog to her aging breasts until animal control arrived to take away what remained.

Her neighbors, a Mexican family, stood in weeping despair near the open gate from which their puppy had escaped. Only the father’s sad eyes were dry.

Ahead sat the garbage truck, half in the travel lane and nearly in a ditch. The driver, stone-cold sober, hung on his open door, blood-shot eyes red and looking every bit as sick as a man who suffered a bender the night before.

Yes, a forboding, I tell you. This year will be filled with death, tears, isolation, separation, long waits, and misdirections.

My Cousin Elmo says, “Instead of getting rid of Dr. Suess, let’s get rid of Dr. Fauci.”