I met Mark Twain again.

It's been nearly 117 years since he came through town in the flesh. That was early August in 1895. He was on the first leg of a long journey of lectures that would take him across the ocean and through countries that most who heard him speak could only imagine. As Samuel Clemens he had gone bankrupt, and although it wasn't required, he was determined to pay his creditors. He needed to keep the wolves at bay while he did so.The Portland Oregonian carried an account of his brief stop here on the Northwest portion of his journey. Here's an accounting of it: http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/onstage/mttalks.html 

Mark Twain has come through here other times as well since then, in the embodiment of Hal Holbrook, dressed as usual in his "don't give a damn" cream colored three-piece suit. We've sat two rows back and twenty rows back. Last Saturday we sat ten rows back. We dressed up, walked through a dry downtown to the theatre with its huge marquee, sparkling lights shining on everything, my wife looking absolutely beautiful to me. I noticed a couple of nudges of other theatre patrons and told her to relax, they've noticed us but will keep their distance. That one always gets a big smile and a loving squeeze to my arm.

 Now maybe I'm imagining it, as I do have a large imagination, which my wife notices on occasion as I spin tales of exact events that never happened, but I swear every time we've gone to see him I've made eye contact with Holbrook while seated in those crowded theaters. I've always known that without a doubt, as sure as I'm typing away right here and now in this time, that for those few seconds of my life I was meeting Mark Twain in person. Holbrook has been lauded for nearly six decades for his portrayal, and at 87 his stamina throughout the evening was a miracle to behold. Mark Twain himself slipped away at age 74 on an April evening in 1910, grasping the tail of Halley's Comet on the way. He had predicted it, as he had come into this earthly plane the last time it had swung by.

I found a copyrighted site online that has Mark Twain quotes arranged alphabetically by topic. It's enjoyable and if you are so inclined you might lose yourself in it awhile and note how much of what he observed is still with us today : http://www.twainquotes.com/

In part, what has always been so remarkable about Twain to me, is that he speaks to our times as much as to his own. Holbrook's own politics are such that he recently spoke of his dismay at the current state of our union and his belief that Twain would be supportive of the Occupy Movement. Much of the lecture Saturday night was from pieces of Twain's writing that took the selfish rich to task. He questioned in Twain's own words if the Republic could remain standing. I'll let you draw your own conclusions to that.

I'm just glad to have met Mr. Twain again.