The old man was asleep.
He'd found a comfortable spot on a bench, out of the direct sunlight. And he slept. Relaxed and peaceful.
He was oblivious to all around him; even the large-boned women with the ugly-colored shirts who passed him in a never-ending stream failed to draw his attention.
It didn't take a brain surgeon to realize this old man was very, very comfortable. Despite the small beads of sweat trickling down his weather-beaten face he slept in a deep, uninterrupted sleep.
His false teeth — a complete set, comprising the whole of his lower jaw and stained yellow by cigarettes and coffee —were pushed out of his mouth in a garish, skeleton-like fashion.
He had no place to put them on the bench, so he kept them "in" his mouth.
A large, fleshy woman found a seat next to him; but she had chosen to ignore this lesser example of the human race. She was embarrassed by his dirty clothes, his wandering teeth and his threadbare shoes.
So she sat. Stiff and unnatural.
She really didn't want to be there, on that bench. But she was tired and hot and the extra 150 pounds of flesh she'd been maneuvering all day didn't help.
She suffered. Quietly. Sacrificing her olfactory virtue on behalf of her large, chubby, overworked feet.
I walked past them both on that sunny, warm afternoon. Me and thousands of others who had traveled here to celebrate the Fourth of July.
But I had other reasons for this trip.
For years Mark Twain had been calling me. Deep in the back of my head. A quiet, gentle voice pushing, prodding and cajoling.
Until now, years after the first stirring. On a certain July in a certain year, I joined thousand of others in Hannibal, Missouri.
You see, Twain my hero. Cranky and opinionated, he forced us to think. He lured us in with humor, dialogue and wit. When there was no escape, he bombarded us with essays on mankind, religion and the evolution of the human race.
He lampooned our most sacred conventions.
And many — myself included — loved him for it.
There have been many times in my life when I've imagined myself sitting in the shade of a large, wooden verandah fondling a cigar, sipping brandy and laughing with the sage of Missouri.
Walking the streets of his boyhood home, I wondered how many people here even knew what 'Mark Twain' meant.
I think that old man on the bench knew.
I think he understood what Twain was telling us when he wrote of yellow tomcats — their bellies pointed toward the sun — lounging on the front steps of a clapboard house.
Twain understood what it was to be poor. He understood the need for all men — regardless of their color — to be free.
I believe he would have sit there on that bench, his white main gently blowing in the summer wind, and talked to that old, tired man.
And we, the rest of the world, would have been better for it.
He'd found a comfortable spot on a bench, out of the direct sunlight. And he slept. Relaxed and peaceful.
He was oblivious to all around him; even the large-boned women with the ugly-colored shirts who passed him in a never-ending stream failed to draw his attention.
It didn't take a brain surgeon to realize this old man was very, very comfortable. Despite the small beads of sweat trickling down his weather-beaten face he slept in a deep, uninterrupted sleep.
His false teeth — a complete set, comprising the whole of his lower jaw and stained yellow by cigarettes and coffee —were pushed out of his mouth in a garish, skeleton-like fashion.
He had no place to put them on the bench, so he kept them "in" his mouth.
A large, fleshy woman found a seat next to him; but she had chosen to ignore this lesser example of the human race. She was embarrassed by his dirty clothes, his wandering teeth and his threadbare shoes.
So she sat. Stiff and unnatural.
She really didn't want to be there, on that bench. But she was tired and hot and the extra 150 pounds of flesh she'd been maneuvering all day didn't help.
She suffered. Quietly. Sacrificing her olfactory virtue on behalf of her large, chubby, overworked feet.
I walked past them both on that sunny, warm afternoon. Me and thousands of others who had traveled here to celebrate the Fourth of July.
But I had other reasons for this trip.
For years Mark Twain had been calling me. Deep in the back of my head. A quiet, gentle voice pushing, prodding and cajoling.
Until now, years after the first stirring. On a certain July in a certain year, I joined thousand of others in Hannibal, Missouri.
You see, Twain my hero. Cranky and opinionated, he forced us to think. He lured us in with humor, dialogue and wit. When there was no escape, he bombarded us with essays on mankind, religion and the evolution of the human race.
He lampooned our most sacred conventions.
And many — myself included — loved him for it.
There have been many times in my life when I've imagined myself sitting in the shade of a large, wooden verandah fondling a cigar, sipping brandy and laughing with the sage of Missouri.
Walking the streets of his boyhood home, I wondered how many people here even knew what 'Mark Twain' meant.
I think that old man on the bench knew.
I think he understood what Twain was telling us when he wrote of yellow tomcats — their bellies pointed toward the sun — lounging on the front steps of a clapboard house.
Twain understood what it was to be poor. He understood the need for all men — regardless of their color — to be free.
I believe he would have sit there on that bench, his white main gently blowing in the summer wind, and talked to that old, tired man.
And we, the rest of the world, would have been better for it.
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