By McAvoy Layne…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
— For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne 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.”