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Those of us who knew him have one binding thing in common; each and every one of us has Rob’s fingerprints on our hearts. We are better people for having known him, and the world is a better place for his having lived in it. His presence was a
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I’ve never liked numbers, probably because they remind me of how random my life has been. As an example, by the time I was thirty I had attended three different colleges and held thirty different jobs. By the time I was seventy I had been married five times, and
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Jimmy asked me to teach him how to swim. He was maybe fifteen, and I was a lifeguard not much older. He was also blind and liked to wrestle, so I wrestled him into some deep water, where he let go and learned how to swim. We became friends, and
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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
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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 a 38-year impressionist of Mark Twain I have
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I know I shouldn’t write about things I know nothing about, but this has never been a deterrent to me in the past, so I’m hankering to write about Vivaldi, yes, that Vivaldi. So, recently inspired by Donna Axton’s Holiday Concert with the North Tahoe Community Choir,
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Flirting with death releases pheromones that make you feel more alive than before. Or as Winston Churchill put it, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” I’ve only had that feeling once in my life, but it proved true to form… I got
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Welcome to “The Wonderful Era of Artificial Intelligence.” If you’re like me, wanting to keep AI at arm’s length because we love eye contact and body language, well, to put it in New York City parlance, “Fuhgeddaboudit.” You and I are not unlike Mark Twain, watching the Paige
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With a nod to Anne Sullivan, who Mark Twain dubbed “The Miracle Worker” for her wonderous work with Helen Keller away back in the 19th century, I nominate my chiropractor, Dr. Jon, as The Miracle Worker of the 21st century. Granted, he did not have sight and hearing issues to
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When I was a seventh grader, I was sure about one thing, that in college I would be quarterbacking UCLA. As it happened, I would be diving at Oregon, but that seventh grader had the conference right. So what can an aspiring seventh grader be certain about today? Could it
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We know horses love their show jumping, and dogs love their Frisbees, but what about birds and sea otters? Well, anyone who has been to Twain Haven in the last eight years has met Huckleberry, my pet jay, who lands here on the top deck at 8am for breakfast, noon
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I’m not a political analyst by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know a hawk from a handsaw when I see them together, and Russia’s President Putin is easy to read as a Halloween pumpkin head. Yes, once Putin believes he can bedevil Estonia with impunity,