Twain muses in his autobiography how each life is the result of and influenced by an endless series of coincidences which coalesce into the present reality of that individual. These events all began with Adam and Eve and continue unimpeded through the ages.
His life hinged on his mother's childish fury at her physician in training suitor not being available to take her to a dance because of his studies. It was then she decided to accept her second choice suitor, Mr. Clemens. Mark Twain noticed his parents never showed any affection for each other publicly, and at the end of his mother's life she tried desperately to see her physician suitor, she at age 88 and he at 90.
I salute Mark Twain's mother for her second choice in mates for she bore the greatest national literary treasure the United States is likely ever to produce. His first teacher rightly predicted that Mr. Twain was destined to walk among kings and presidents.
His daughter, Suzy, wrote of him in her autobiography, cut short by her death at age 25 of meningitis, that he was often confounded by the simplest of things. For example, he could not understand why the electric burglar alarm sounded when he opened the window from inside the house. One day he was reading a book in the library and was laughing out loud. When Suzy asked him what he was reading he replied, "I do not know." She looked at the title and it was one of his books. He explained in his autobiography that he forgot what he had written soon after it was completed.
I have had my ancestry checked on my father's side only and found the "Maybolts" were not on the "Mayflower" for the founding of the colony at Plymouth, but they were on board the "Fortune" which landed just after the first Thanksgiving there in Plymouth. William, my great x 12 grandfather, arrived there with his wife Martha, and children Will jr and Martha and his wife gave birth to little John the day they arrived there in November of 1621. Then William Jr begat, Thomas, who begat Stephen, then Thomas, then Isaac, then Benjamin, then John, who begat John, Jr, then William Mercer Maybolt, who fought for the Confederacy and begat Carlos William who begat Jesse Hill, who begat Jesse jr who begat me.
I am grateful, I believe, for this unbroken chain of lust and sex which has begot me. For my part, seeing what took place to get me here, I have done my best to keep it going. I have added seven children to the current generation, a son, a daughter, a son, a son, a son, a son and a son. In these days of thoughtful reproduction and limited resources I have oft been chided for my seemingly irresponsible spread of the seed to the egg, but I allay all doubters when I explain I was only having children until I had one I liked. But this is a lie. I am fond of them all. My ancestors chose well the mothers of my grandfathers, and my ability to marry up has strengthened the Maybolt line. I do not believe there is a loser in my litter of little Maybolts.
I have fished since I was three years old, and when I was five my family lived near Gainesville, Florida in the house once occupied by the woman writer who wrote "The Yearling".We were only there for a summer, but my father would drop me off with a cane pole and a box of worms and I would fish all afternoon at the boat ramp at Cross Creek. I caught a good many fish, baited my own hook and took the fish off by myself, and was never kidnapped or molested, snake bitten or drowned or struck by a meteorite.
I recall the fear I had of the multitude of large dragonflies when first we arrived at Margaret's somebody's home there in Florida. I also recall the swampy woods around the house were littered with large empty turtle shells, apparently a local delicacy to the country inhabitants. Chuck Lingren, a friend of my father's, shot a chicken snake to pieces in a tree outside the house with a German lugar his father had brought home from the war. Our baby sitter, a local teenaged girl, peed in the toilet while I secretly watched her through a crack in the door with keen interest in her plumbing, and though it was quite dark, I got the idea that it was a wondrously mysterious place I might want to explore in the years to come. Prescient or precocious?
At age 8, my father loaded up the family and moved us to Oslo, Norway for a year where he studied Nordic literature. My older brother and I complained bitterly that our pals, the Bell brothers, got to go to the Great Smokey Mountains and we had to go to Norway!
There we were enrolled in the Norwegian elementary school. It was 1961 and soon enough after the second World War that the Norwegian people were openly grateful to "the Americans" for defeating the Nazis. This was to our great benefit. We quickly learned the language and made great friends. Our status was raised higher on the second day of school when my older brother, who one might accurately describe as a "tough", beat the hell out of the only other American boy who attended the elementary school, a kid named, Daniel, who was known for his reputation as a conceited ass and a bully.
The principle, a kindly older man in his 50's, called my brother and me into his office after Daniel's ass whooping, and said in so many words it was against school policy for fights to take place on school grounds, and for us not to engage in this activity any further and then he thanked my brother for doing what he had wanted to do himself to little Daniel but protocols forbade it. Daniel was an ass, but we never heard from him again as the beating clipped his wings, and his status fell with the arrival of the new Americans! We were a setback and disappointment to Daniel's reign of terror at Jar Elementary School.
I made friends with Olaf, Arndt, Morten, Estevan, Paul and the prettiest girl in the second grade, whom I lusted after, was a red haired little vixen named, Annaberret. I spell these names as they sounded to my 8 year old ears and can promise no accuracy. Vibecky was our voluptuous 14 year old baby sitter who I would entertain with my inappropriate queries in Norwegian. "Skal vi pula?" Which is a very naughty thing, but it is what we all talked about at the elementary school, at least the boys, with whom I associated. I can still remember her delightful reels of laughter at the illicit propositions coming from my tiny 8 yr old body. I was a man trapped in a child's body for a few years more.
And she would let me make my proposition while astride her, her seated on the couch, and my hands reaching for the bumps under her woolen Norwegian sweater, but she would push them away. I am glad she never consented to my proposition for it was only meant to entertain the both of us and it did to great effect.
We lived in a duplex in a suburb of Oslo. Upstairs was occupied by a Nazi collaborator by the name of Merck. He seemed an old man to my 8 years but perhaps in his 50's. He was bald and fat and complained bitterly to my parents about the noise the four children made. He often caused us problems like the day he called the police when we played with toy guns outside with our friends. He often exposed his genitals to my 7 yr old sister from his bathroom window. When my parents were out at night my siblings and I would march around the house and scream "Fee Fon, Merck!" which I believed was a Norwegian cussing along the lines of "Goddamn or go to hell" ViBecky only smiled and aproved of our parade.
Merck hated us. Oh and Merck was called "Bash" by the locals since he was a Nazi during the war, and his name means "Dark". His name fit him.
I am tired of these memories but will come back to them at a future date.
Is it heaven? Or Hell?
Jackson Delano Maybolt, President Urban Poverty Law Center
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