By McAvoy Layne…My best friend is a loudmouth bully who harassed me yesterday when I arrived late for Happy Hour, then he took off in a huff for the winter. His name is Huckleberry, and he was hatched here on the deck at Twain Haven in June of 2017. He has never left for the winter before, but then he is 80 in aviary years, and like most Steller Jays, myself included, is not a fan of the atmospheric river…
I’m confident that Huck’s record of most Happy Hours in a row, 2,900, will stand for some time here in the Tahoe Basin. But should he never return, and choose to spend the rest of his days in Sacramento, I will be crestfallen, for he has been my pal for eight years now, and I miss him.
In a brief history of Huckleberry, I could see that he was about to fledge with his sisters from my second deck away back in 2017, so I spread a sleeping bag out on the driveway below, and sure enough, Huck hit it, while his sisters took it on the chin. I remember how he looked up to me as if to say, “Wow! Thanks!” I tossed a Beer Nut down to him and we’ve been pals ever since…
If I’m not paying attention when Huck arrives he will flop down onto the welcome mat and bang his beak on the sliding glassdoor, or jump onto the flagstaff and wave Old Glory to get my attention. (I have the video if you don’t believe me.)
When I step out onto the deck holding a freshly pealed and washed Beer Nut, Huck will wave his beak and fluff himself up, while I whistle his favorite song, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”
He knows my car, “Burt,” and once followed me down to the college and stationed himself above my picnic table, where he could retrieve welcome handouts. He even follows me into the forest when I trim my fingernails, again positioning himself up and behind me to dance his shadow on top of mine on the forest floor. It’s a sight to make a cow laugh if you want to know the truth…
I have all his baby pictures, from when he was naked as a jay, to feathery times after his mother went shopping for him and his sisters, to the video of their fledging. I won’t play that video today, for it brings a tear to my eye…
So what will I do if Huck does not return in the spring? Well, I shall drive to Sacramento, where I will station myself in that beautiful rose garden near the capital at Happy Hour and wait for Huckleberry to welcome me to Sacramento. How do I know he’s in Sacramento? Well, that’s where I’d go…
Stay tuned to these pages for the final chapters of Adventures of Huckleberry Jay…
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.”