Mark: Twain, By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

December 2, 2010 Whitney Farmer 23 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A. She has an M.B.A and might learn to play the harmonica.

What a man!

Born on November 30, 1835 when Halley’s Comet seared a path across the sky and dying when it reappeared in 1910, Samuel Clemens put truth to words and became the writer Mark Twain. Now, 100 years after his death and 175 years after his birth, he has a new bestseller. His prescient instructions to allow the publishing of his autobiography have begun with the first third being released. He required the delay for reasons that were fully his own, sometimes alluding to how the powerful of his day would react if they REALLY knew what he thought of them, and sometimes whispering with brokenness from his torn faith in God following the deaths of nearly all who were loved by him.

Before he was a writer, he was many things. One of his identities that seemed to shape his soul perhaps most was as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi. Not a captain, a pilot. He knew that the pilot had the burden of a safe and lucrative passage on his shoulders, and that’s why becoming one was his goal. He loved being on the river, in the river. He studied every curve and shoal of her 2,000 miles for two years before he won his license. The name that he became known by was taken from the river. “Mark…’Twain!” was the cry that would go out when the bowman would cry out that the ship had entered water deep enough for safe passage — two fathoms, shouted with the accent of those on the Mississippi “markin’ the twine…”with the depth then being reported. Conversely, it could perhaps also be used to report when when the ship had entered dangerous waters, full of shallows and snags.

It is telling to note that the deep waters allow a vessel to carry rich and heavy cargo, travel great distances with speed, and increase the chances of arriving in a safe harbor. Samuel Clemens wrote this way. His humor allowed his audience to swallow the medicine of truth that had the power of combating the disgraceful. The still, tranquil surface caused by being in deep water was the effect of his writing. He would describe the profound in common ways: A former slave who displayed no troubles to his eyes, only to learn that she lived with no joy for having seen her children sold…a young ‘river rat’ boy being surprised to hear in the dark of night the moaning grief of a runaway slave over his lost family…the embarrassing rise of the Ugly American as wealthy tourism united with Manifest Destiny to reap bitter fruit in international relations even to our modern times.

It was a blessing to be told by Twain that a reader was in over their heads. As an individual or as a nation, it was important to do an immediate inventory and see if there was stamina and character to keep a stubborn or ignorant head above water. And like the Mississippi, the voyage could change as the course of the river would shift and require what hadn’t been expected. Mark Twain’s brother Henry was killed in an explosion on a riverboat, working a job that Twain had secured for him. Twain lost a son Langdon as an infant and refused to forgive himself for not bundling up the child more before he took him for a walk in a stroller. Years later, his most precious daughter Susy died blind and demented from meningitis when she was only 24. The biography that she had started of her father when she was 13 was used as a foundation by him in this beginning volume of his autobiography. His passionately loved wife Livy, whose parents required of Twain references before consenting to their marriage,(only to be given scathing opinions by ALL of Twain’s closest friends regarding his suitableness as a spouse), died after 37 years of marriage as he read to her as she recuperated from a heart ailment. And a daughter Jean, drowned during a seizure on Christmas Eve five years later.

There seemed to come a time after all of this and until the end of his life, that Samuel Clemens lost the elasticity in his soul. He didn’t choose to bounce back after taking a punch, or perhaps he could repair the damage no longer. He seemed to accept that his world was different, and seemed to instead try to become acquainted with this uncomfortable new world.

Last week for Thanksgiving, our family was visited by a couple of our oldest friends. They used to be our guardians in our parents’ wills until we all grew up and got married. It was decided then that we shouldn’t have to leave our husbands and move in with them when our mom and dad died. This Thanksgiving was the first time that we have seen them since the funeral of their son who died earlier this year. He was just 30, a sheriff’s deputy, and he died for no known reason in his sleep just before what would have been his first wedding anniversary. Seven years ago, they also buried their grandson. He had been an NFL quarterback’s healthy son who went to Disneyland and caught a virus. By midnight that same night, he was in cardiac arrest. 40 days and 40 nights later, they took him off life support, never knowing why it had happened. Now, my surrogate dad helps former gang members get straight and get jobs, becoming a father to all of them and walking as a miracle each day, and my surrogate mom has just retired from a career of helping children love reading. But they are still without their son and grandson, and I don’t know if they recognize the course of the the river that their lives have taken. They are traveling in uncharted waters.

Many people traveled through grief last week. It doesn’t surprise me that it happens during what should be celebrations. That’s when the battle is fiercest. Our family had Chinese food as I traveled through my dangerous and sad waters, and I found two fortunes when I opened up a single cookie. The first said, “You will do well to concentrate on practical matters this week.” I suspect that this is what Samuel Clemens did in the end. The other said, “Tomorrow the seas of your life will be calm and you will easily guide your ship to a safe port.” This same word was given to me many years ago as I entered what would become one of the darkest, but eventually richest times of my life. This time, I hope that this ship will reach shore riding low in the water from a rich cargo.

Quote of the Blog from Samuel Clemens: “Be good and you will be lonesome.”?