By McAvoy Layne…I had some time to kill this morning while waiting for my Ford, “Burt,” to be serviced by the capable team at Campagni Ford in Carson City. So I stood outside and surveyed the rolling foothills that surround our state capital. As an impressionist of Mark Twain for the last 38 years, I have felt the amplified charge that comes with visiting various haunts that gave our mutual friend his start. I always get chicken skin when I stand where he once stood -Territorial Enterprise, Walley’s Hot Springs, Fox Brewery, our Nevada legislature, and the Ormsby House, which looked better then than it does now…

But today, while gazing out upon those soft brown foothills, silent as they are and were back then, Twain’s words came to me from his timeless book, Roughing It: “We climbed into the foothills and looked back on Carson City nestled in that flat sandy desert, and surrounded by such prodigious mountains that they seemed to expand your soul, until you felt yourself spreading into a colossus, and in that instant, you were seized with a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put Carson in your pocket, and walk off with it.”

Whereupon something out of body happened. I was besieged by an intense recollection of having gazed upon those Carson foothills before, 1864 perhaps, before Sam Clemens decamped for San Francisco to be unemployed. Instead of pooh-poohing such a fanciful notion, I opened up the moonroof of my mind and welcomed that sensation inside…

A captivating and beguiling awareness slaked my soul, and I stood stock-still until I heard my name on the intercom: “Mr. Twain, ah, Layne, ‘Burt’ is serviced and ready to roll. Please see Adam at checkout.”

Had I not heard that voice calling, I might be standing there still, traversing those leather foothills back to 1864, when those brown hills were a launchpad for the Lincoln of our literature. 

In that all-encompassing moment, I cited Samuel Clemens to myself: “I have never seen an atom of proof to support the fact that there is a future life, and yet I am strongly inclined to expect one.”

Yes, not only do I now suspect that I am living an afterlife, but like Sam, I am strongly inclined to expect another. My brief love affair today with those raw foothills was not my first rendezvous, but a reiteration of an earlier encounter so strong as to harbor itself deep into the heart of this 2025 Nevadan…

I have felt a couple taps on the shoulder from Samuel in my close encounters with him, so today’s excursion back through the ages comes as no real surprise, but rather as a confirmation that there is more to the transmigration of souls to be discovered. So, yes, I’m excited to entertain more of these enticing sensations as I stroll jaunty-jolly through this most interesting expedition that we call human life…

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.”