Forty years ago or so, I recorded portions of a Nevada textbook, Battle Born Nevada, for the blind. That excellent little book by Don Lynch and David Thompson, surfaced today, and I took great delight in reviewing the inspiring words of Sarah Winnemucca, as she described a courting ritual of the Paiute…

“The courting is very different from the courting of the white people. He never speaks to her, or visits the family, but endeavors to attract her attention by showing his horsemanship.

As he knows that she sleeps next to her grandmother in the lodge, he enters in full dress after the family has retired for the night, and seats himself at her feet. He does not speak, but if the young woman wishes him to go away, she rises and goes and lies down by the side of her mother. He then leaves as silently as he came in. This goes on sometimes for a year or longer, if the young woman has not made up her mind.”

Wow, that is so different from my courting experience. I met my future wife at a backgammon tournament. As news director of WOCB Radio in Cape Cod, I was covering the tournament with a remote broadcast on a very slow Sunday, and there she was! But as I approached her with my microphone she waved me off as though I were a 150-pound wasp.    Once I put the microphone away, she allowed me to approach her, introduce myself, and invite her to a Bruins game that night. She tossed her hair, informed me she already had a date for that game, and turned her attentions to the backgammon tournament. I was defeated, and my heart, as I knew it, was broken…

While watching the Bruins on TV with some friends that evening, I shared my heartache with them, then stepped outside to flip some burgers. That’s when I heard the shouting, “McAvoy, get in here!” I stepped inside too late to see what they told me was a pretty girl in the crowd holding up a sign that read, “Hello, WOCB News!” Had my heart been a frog, it might have leaped clear across the room.

She had told me she worked in a dress shop in Hyannis, so the next day I went looking for her, and was ever so happy to find her…

“That was really something that you did last night.” I stammered.

“And what was that?” she asked. 

“The sign!” I almost shouted.”

“What sign?” she asked with a sympathetic smile.

It then occurred to me that I had been bamboozled by my own dear friends.

I apologized, excused myself, and went for a run to vent my misery. Then the unexpected happened… 

While running along my training route for the Boston Marathon I saw a handwritten sign in a garden on the side of the road. It read, “Hello, WOCB News!”

She had found out that I was training for the marathon, had gone out there herself, and placed several signs along my route that read, “Hello, WOCB News!” And the last one was adorned with a blood red heart.

So, though different in procedure, a Paiute courtship and a WOCB courtship both ended up in blissful marriages… 

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

In August we welcomed a statue of Mark Twain to the water’s edge at Lake Tahoe, where he looks ever so relaxed and satisfied. Gary and Susan Clemons, members in good standing of the Never Sweats literary society, arranged for the bronze likeness to be placed in the front yard of their Lake Shore House in Glenbrook, where Sam Clemens once stayed. And the sculptor, Gary Lee Price, came out from Utah with his wife for the occasion. Price told us how easy it was to select Mark Twain as a subject in light of Twain’s stimulating writings about human nature. Then Larry Schmidt delivered a compelling account of how Sam Clemens hiked from Carson City to Glenbrook.

This is not a statue of Mark Twain reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, no, by special request, this is a statue of Twain reading Roughing It! And I have to say, it gave me chicken skin all over to see it…

This regal likeness of The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope now highlights a garden at the very beach where Sam Clemens must have stood away back in 1861, and gazed out upon those caerulean waters, thinking to himself, “This must be the fairest picture the whole Earth affords.”

Of course we all stood patiently in line to get a picture of ourselves sitting on the bench next to The Father of our literature.

Sam Clemens loved “Lake Bigler” as it was known back then, loved it almost as much as today’s Clemons love the Lake of the Sky. Our Washoe Native Americans called it Da-o-aga. And having been a lifeguard at Tahoe myself away back in the wonderous summer of 1961, I might fall comfortably into line in my love for “Tula Tulia” as the lake has been called over the years. Actually, Sam Clemens found the name “Tahoe” to be too weak a name for so majestic a body of water, “…weak as soup for a sick child.”

Were he to come home to us today, I have to believe Sam would struggle with the difficult decision as to whether he should settle in the Sandwich Islands, or on the shores of Glenbrook, where his regal statue sits today. 

He must be smiling down upon such a masterful work of art, such a treasured addition to the Clemons’s Lake Shore House, the lovely community of Glenbrook, Lake Tahoe, and the Great State of Nevada. We can all feel a steely pride in this gift from the talented hand of Gary Lee Price.

I might like to close here with some poignant words from our mentor, Sam Clemens, “When I said goodbye to Virginia City, Carson City and Lake Tahoe, I knew I was saying goodbye to the most vigorous enjoyment of life I would ever be afforded. Those days were full to the brim with the wine of life, and there have been no others like them.” 

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

It never concerned me that there were so many people smarter than I was, because I always knew I had just enough smarts to appreciate and enjoy this crazy world of ours. But when a machine demonstrates that it is smarter than I am, well now, that is disconcerting…

Just the other day, in a first such incidence to be documented, an autonomous AI guided drone killed a human target in Ukraine. Yes, McAvoy, weapons are now capable of making decisions to attack. Excuse me while I place a cold towel on my forehead…

While we humans are standing still in the matter, chatbots are surpassing most of us in our faculty to create flowing text, and as helpful as this might be in the short term, it will prove deleterious in the long run, as we casual humans will take all the shortcuts we can get…

We know that unassisted composition is good for us, and we are finding out that when we write in partnership with chatbots, our brains shift down a few gears. We are fast discovering that regular AI use can be debasing to critical and creative thinking. Our brainwaves actually slow down and flatten out when we lean on AI.

I admire people who walk around on titanium knees, and I applaud people who walk around on titanium hips, but I’ll be darned if I will congratulate anybody who is walking around on a titanium brain.

Personally, I refuse to surrender any of my cognitive abilities to AI. I find it noble to harbor emotions, extend kindness, express love, and be utterly human.

Perhaps a kinder chatbot is on the horizon, to deliver that day when we can all become artists and musicians, but right now it seems to me that AI is capable of tossing the baby out the window with the bathwater. And when that happens, do you suppose a robot is going to be outside that window to catch that baby? No, but a human just might be out there to catch and coddle that baby, while the robot is outback counting beans…

And, I just read that OpenAI recently discovered that a new artificial intelligence model it was testing had gone rogue, and hacked another company.

Recently a robot beat Usain Bolt’s 100m world record of 9.58 seconds. So what? Can that robot now go into the schools and encourage kids to eat nourishing foods, so they can be stronger, jump higher and run faster? No! Well then, will that fast robot be retired to a stud farm? No, most likely that fast robot will be delivering pizzas!  

On the flip side, the day that AI can cure cancer, negotiate tariffs, broker ceasefires and expand peace, I will eat my UNR Wolfie Jr. hat on national TV, and will not ask for condiments to sweeten-up the occasion. Hope springs eternal…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

Composing a pictorial essay to promote the performing artform of Chautauqua ain’t easy. But I’ve had the capable hand of Nevada author and all-around good guy, Michael Archer to help get it done, and we’re almost there… 

First we had to learn how to spell Chautauqua, then we needed to learn how to pronounce Chautauqua, then we had to learn what Chautauqua is, and finally we needed to learn how to present Chautauqua.

With the advent of social media and AI, many of us denizens of 2026 are craving eye contact, body language, real human smiles, and the great out of doors. So living history could be a magical cure-all for maintaining mental health. Also there is the likelihood that the attributes of a character one chooses to portray will be absorbed, and will make that Chautauquan a better person. 

As a quick example, Mark Twain tells us about a dying Ulysis Grant, “To a manifestly great man, dying is nothing.” Over the decades I have tried to become brave enough that dying is nothing, and I think I might be closing in on it.

So we encourage you, the gentle reader, to find someone you admire who’s been dead for awhile, study that person’s life, have some clothes made that that person might have worn, and bring that person to life. It will not only please those who witness this transphormation, but it will give you a second life, and one life is not enough.

Then too, those lucky Chautauquans like Doug Mishler and Kim Harris, who can portray more than one character, are the happy recipients of the best characteristics of their historical personas, and they have become better people in the bargain. The important thing, the essential thing, is that we remain caring beings, just brimming with the milk of human kindness…

When I lived in the Islands, I learned from the Hawaiian people to think with the heart, and thinking with the heart has served me well over the years. So I guess my next question is, “How does an AI character think with the heart?”

Chautauquans become problem solvers. Sometimes solving a problem requires putting oneself into somebody else’s shoes, and to the experienced Chautauquan, this is an easy task. Problem solved.

Over time I have met dozens of Chautauquans, and never have I met even one who was not likeable in their red corpuscle selves. I have to believe that becoming someone else brings out the best characteristics in our twenty-first century identities. So please give it some thought. Not only will you learn much about a certain historical person, but you will gain the extra appreciation of the life and times of those personalities who surrounded that character of yours…

Wish us luck if you will be so kind, and we should have a pictorial essay available soon that you can give to your favorite aunt who is about to retire, and might be the perfect candidate to become everybody’s favorite Chautauquan…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO  

Glancing back upon my ten years of living on the Island of Maui, the best party I can remember was thrown by a Russian guy, Rodonovik.  And here’s how it came to be…

The 1981 San Francisco Forty Niners made it to the Super Bowl, and I thought it might be fun to have a “Forty Niner Faithful” party to celebrate the occasion and watch the game together on somebody’s TV. So I announced on my morning radio show that I would be taking one representative from the first twelve ethnic groups to call in. Each representative could then bring one guest and a hot dish from his former homeland… 

As the names came rolling in, I dropped them into a hat: Nagamini, Macadangdang, Hoopii, Koo….  

When we had a dozen faithful I cut it off, and there were some unhappy listeners who let me know they were not going to invite me to their next party.

I mixed our twelve names in a hat and pulled out that lucky person to be honored with hosting the Niner Party at their home: “Rodonovik!”

On Super Sunday here we came, an even dozen 49er faithful of differing ethnic backgrounds with guests and a hot dish from their homeland, all arriving at Rodonovik’s in Kihei at the same time!  As none of us knew each other, we wore name tags, and I had a Niner jersey made up that said, “Hi, I’m Joe Montana.”

Well, you never saw such confusion in the kitchen, but the ladies got it all worked out and pretty soon we were seated in the patio area with plenty to eat and drink. Rodonovik had mounted TV’s near the ceiling at both ends of the deck. It was a heartwarming sight.

During the course of the game we toasted and cheered with each Forty Niner score, and during the second half, we took to toasting and cheering on first downs.

When the game was over, and we had won, we went out on the town as one. The ladies were designated drivers, and we were a sight for sore eyes, the most diverse looking gang ever to walk into a Maui bar arm in arm!  And because my shirt said, “Hi, I’m Joe Montana,” I was the happy recipient of a few gifted beers. You never saw a more convivial bunch than what we were on that Super Sunday…

Fast forwarding, on my birthday that year I took a call live on the air and heard, “This is Joe Montana, I want to wish McAvoy a happy birthday.”

“Oh, sure!” I demurred, “This is one of my buddies from Rodonovik’s party, I just know it!  Besides, I’m Joe Montana.”

“Yeah, I heard about your shirt…”

It was Joe Montana, and I was reduced to an awkward teenager. 

“Joe!  You’re the greatest!”

It’s embarrassing when your hero is younger than you are, but it’s quite alright when that hero is Joe Montana…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I’ll never forget that 1988 call from Carol Piper Marshall, great-granddaughter of John Piper, who gave us Piper’s Opera House…

“McAvoy, I understand you’re portraying Mark Twain in the schools.”

“Yes, Carol, I’m getting to see ten schools a week and loving it.”

“Well, how would you like to do two shows a day, six days a week, during the four months of summer here at Piper’s?”

There was a moment of silence as I picked myself up off the floor. What a lucky break! Thanks to Carol, I was able to try out Twain material on a live audience each day to find out what might fly in 1988. So of course I took to it like a duck on a Junebug… 

The first thing I discovered was that the spirits up there in the Piper’s attic, which served as my green room, were the friendliest and most hospitable apparitions on the Comstock. If you don’t believe me, just go up there by yourself sometime…

Joe Curtis (great guy) gave me a warm welcome, and we put together a hasty historical timeline on the wall at the Fourth Ward School. It was still there the last time I looked…

My son was born during that memorable summer of ‘88, and Sheriff Del Carlo gave me a cigar. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so happy. The denizens of the Comstock Lode opened their arms to the future Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope, extending generous portions of western hospitality. 

We had a homeless person up there on the Lode that summer, Bob, who would only talk to Mark Twain between shows….

“Sam, I hitch-hiked over to Lake Tahoe yesterday and got me a bath. It was cold!”

I learned from David Toll that Bob lived in an abandoned shack over in Gold Hill,

so when that wonderful summer of ‘88 came to an end, I drove over there with a large Mackinaw jacket that I wanted Bob to have. When I found him, I walked up to him with the jacket and said, “Bob, I want you to have this.” He looked at me like I had asked him to borrow five dollars, said, “I got two of them!” And he walked away. Bob would not talk to McAvoy, only to Mark Twain…

We shot a TV commercial for Virginia City awhile back, and I was coming out of Grandma’s Fudge with a large ice cream cone, preparing for the final scene, when a pretty lady came up to me and asked, “Can I have a lick?”

“Sure.” I said, and I handed her the cone, whereupon she turned and walked away with it. I mention this only to alert first-time visitors to the fact that there are still a few folks up there on the Lode who will brighten your day with a practical joke, should the opportunity present itself…

I do so love Virginia City and her colorful characters…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

In the merriest of experiments that we are calling, “Jimmy Buffett Meets Mark Twain on the Way to Heaven,” impressionist Darin Talbot and I are connecting dots between two of America’s most colorful characters. We decided to begin by selecting lyrics that might segue seamlessly, and just let time and space fall into simultaneous dimensions.

I’ll present some first proposals here, and await Jimmy’s (Darin’s) rejoinders…

Jimmy, my son, I feel a need to share with you some etiquette on getting into heaven…

Upon arriving at the Pearly Gates, don’t speak first.  Let St. Peter speak first. And don’t start a sentence with “So, or Say, or, Be good and you will be lonesome…”  And don’t try to take a selfie with him, hell is full of people who have tried that. And Jimmy, in case all else fails, you might want to take along your guitar…

On your way to heaven, Jimmy, you must stop at the Island of Maui. You will think you have arrived. I remember one particularly pleasant afternoon on Maui I observed a bevy of naked native ladies bathing in the ocean. This was the sort of local color I was looking for, for the Sacramento Union, so I went down and sat on their clothes -to prevent them from being stolen.  The sea was rising, I shouted for them to come out but they ignored my warnings and continued to frolic in the sea. When I got up to go I noticed my horse was asleep, which goes to show you that there is a difference between a horse and a man.  You cannot depend upon a horse to gather news…for the Sacramento Union.

The Sandwich Islands are to this day the peacefullest, restfullest, dreamiest haven of refuge for a worn and weary spirit that the surface of the earth can offer. Those islands affect you just as all things that you instantly recognize as perfect affect you -perfect Parot Head music, perfect joy.  The Sandwich Islands are one long slumbering Sabbath.  The good that die there experience no change, for they fall asleep in one heaven -and wake up in another…

I wrote to my brother in 1866: I have had a call to literature, of a low order – humorous…to excite the mirth of God’s creatures. When it comes to writing, Jimmy, the difference between the right word and the almost right word, is the difference between the lightening and the lightening bug…

I know how you like to travel, Jimmy, and travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. I have gone over the Atlantic so many times now that I know all the whales, and lately it’s been an embarrassment to me to meet them, for they do not look glad to see me, only annoyed, and they seem to say, “Here comes that old derelict again.”

You will be one of the youngest to enter heaven by this gate, Jimmy. Your few wrinkles merely indicate where the smiles have been…

So I repeat and emphasize my maxim, Jimmy: You cannot reach old age by another man’s road.  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…

Stay tuned to these pages for future Buffett – Twain progress…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

War was the problem solver of choice back when we settled our differences with battle axes, whereupon, with each and every advancement in weaponry, we got more wars. Even when disagreements between countries appeared to be solvable at the bargaining table, well, those disagreements oftentimes slipped off the bargaining table into a sea of testosterone.

Here in America, we were starting to see the futileness of war during Twain’s time, when he penned, “The Private History of a Campaign that Failed.”

“Well, fifteen of us gathered together in a secret place by night and formed ourselves into a military company:  The Marion Rangers. I arrived riding a small yellow donkey, so small my feet touched the ground on both sides, and he was able to bend around and bite me on the legs.  I was carrying a skillet, a squirrel gun and an open umbrella to keep the sun off.  They made me second lieutenant.  We had no first lieutenant -I don’t know why. 

“We struck across some rocky pastureland which offered good advantages for stumbling; consequently we were down in the mud most of the time, and every time a man went down he black guarded the war and everybody connected with it, and gave himself the master dose of all for being so foolish as to go into it.”

I ordered Sgt. Bowers to go out to Hyde’s prairie and post a picket until midnight.  He said he wouldn’t go, on account of the weather. I ordered the others to go and they said they wouldn’t go; in any kind of weather. 

So for the next two weeks we learned more about retreating than the man who invented retreating. And in that little time, that two weeks, the desire to kill people to whom I had not been introduced -had passed away. So I seceded from the secession.  Well, the ungetaroundable truth is, I was missing in action -before a shot was fired. Some said I was too irregular, even for the irregulars.”

So today we can appreciate the satire in Mark Twain’s, “Private History of a Campaign that Failed.” Fast forwarding 165 years to 2026, the contentious country of Iran seems hellbent on creating a nuclear weapon capable of an explosion creating a core hotter than the Sun, vaporizing everything at ground zero, and emitting an intense flash of heat to cause severe third-degree burns, and igniting fires over several surrounding miles. This is a weapon that should never be in the hands of a party that regards violence as a problem solver.

So please allow me to close here by stating, “War is dumb, until it evokes survival, and  becomes imperative. In this time of uncertainty let us not allow an emergence of a nuclear Iran, but let us secure a permanent termination of the war on all fronts, then march anew down the long and difficult road toward universal deescalation and worldwide disarmament…   

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I wanna live on a houseboat with a dog, surrounded by lots of water and love. What could be more tranquil and ideal? I don’t know if statistics will bear me out, but I suspect nobody who has lived on a houseboat has ever started a fight with a neighbor or waged a war. Water is a calming elixir, and an enduring peacekeeper. Just walking to the shores of Lake Tahoe each day makes me feel terrific and ten years younger.

Perhaps it all started for me when I was a teenage lifeguard and pool rat who could sniff the air of a natatorium and tell you the chlorine count. As a water safety instructor I taught senior lifesaving, and was in hog heaven while floating in my clothes between classes…

In those three idyllic guarding years, I only had to make one save, and that was while vacationing in Hawaii. A Philippine gentleman got caught up in a rip tide off Pe’ahi, and instead of riding it out, he was panicking and fighting it. I kicked off my rubber slippers and went after him of course, but when I reached him, he was frantic and went grasping for me. 

I shouted for him to relax and assured him I would take him in, but he did not understand English, so I let him thrash around a little longer. But he managed to get hold of me and wrestled us into a tight death grip. I knew I had to get him off me or we were both going to visit Davy Jones down there in his locker, so I took a large gulp of air and let us sink together. He didn’t struggle long before abandoning me and paddling for the surface. Had he been able to hold his breath longer than me, well, I suppose we would both be down there playing poker with Davy. But I was finally able to grab him from behind and haul him in…

Once safely ashore, that Philippine gentleman, Catalino, gave me a genuine hug and fixed us both a bowl of Bebinca that was the best I ever had…and he told me, in his personal sign language, that his mother was one hundred years old and still smoking cigars. She was so weak that she had to rest her cigars on the windowsill while smoking them, but if I were to visit them in Manila, she would fix me a bowl of Bebinca that would beat anything I ever tasted before. Well, I was too busy to visit back then, but now that I’m retired, I could go visit, and savor Mom’s Bebinca, but then she would be 160 years old now, and probably smoking her cigars up there alongside Mr. Twain and Mr. Churchill…

So I will close here with apologies to the Bard. Instead of, “Get thee to a nunnery!” May I close with, “Get thee to a watery way!”

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I met Eglantine in 1964 aboard an ocean liner on my way to the Old World, we were both 21. Coincidentally we were also reading books of philosophy by Sarte, hers in French, mine in English, and her manner was so enchanting, well, I fell in love with her…

At one point she suggested, “I know you are heading to South Hampton, but disembark in Cherbourg with me…we can walk through Paris barefoot.”

I had some money waiting for me at American Express in South Hampton, but what was a twenty-one-year-old boy going to say to an invitation like that?

So we disembarked in Cherbourg and hopped a train for Paris, reading aloud as we went, and the more she read, the harder I fell… 

At last we arrived in Paris and off came our shoes. This was heaven on the half shell. About then, as I was intending to kiss her for her mother, her mother appeared, and gave me a straight-arm-shiver with one hand, while dragging Eglantine off with the other, and shoving her into a cab. My last glimpse of Eglantine was out the back window of a taxicab, and there I was, barefoot and broke in Paris. 

I hardly ever cry, but I think I did, as I did not know a soul, and did not speak the language. I did learn to hitchhike fairly well, and I must have given Eglantine my mother’s address, because when I arrived back home to America my mother handed me a letter from Eglantine. She had an artisan’s hand, and I tucked it away for safe keeping. But with life in a college fraternity, and then the Marine Corps, and domiciles in Cape Cod, Carmel, Kauai and finally Tahoe, Eglantine’s letter went missing, until last month, when it surfaced just as my son came to visit with his charming French partner, Oriane. Of course I retrieved Eglantine’s letter and handed it to Oriane…

“Will you be so kind as to read this letter to me sixty-two years later?”

Oriane read to me in her lilting French accent while I pictured Eglantine in my mind’s eye. The last line went something like this, “Please, Macky Boy, come visit me before you are too old.”

I looked to my son and asked, “Do you think I’m too old?”

“No, Dad, I think you have a chance.”

So I’m saving all small change, and placing careful bets on a few fast ponies with a trip to visit Eglantine on my mind. Her return address is on the envelope, and her mother must have been promoted to glory by now, so Eglantine and I could finish our books by Sarte, and have time, brief as it may be, to get to know each other. So it is, that I’m looking forward to being in the arms of Eglantine, a happier place than where she left me, barefoot and broke in Paris…  

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO