posted by Christopher James
Amber Star and I are not Nevadans. But nobody is, really.
No, let me try that again: Amber Star and I are not blood-relatives of Nevada, but the state was gracious enough to take us into its family. In fact, like so many other Nevadans, we are Californians originally.
That was also true of Nevada's first Senator, William Stewart. It's not clear that he had much connection to the nascent state other than a stake in the silver mines, but that's really all you need. I worked briefly for an investment firm in Incline. Some of the clients, legal residents all, "lived" in their lawyers' mailboxes. You see, Nevada citizenship is determined by investment, not some outdated feudal sense of location.
Stewart was also a sort of patron to another legendary Not Nevadan, Samuel Clemens.
That's the Senator's own recollections of the legendary author. (He seems to have had a good funny bone of his own.) Senator Stewart hired Clemens to be his clerk, and there are still some extant letters written in Clemens' hand but the Senator's name. Indeed, it was that same sort of work that moved me from Nevada to the Nation's Capital. So I guess I'm following in Mark Twain's footsteps.
Whatever. He was just a carpetbagging Californian anyway.
Amber Star and I are not Nevadans. But nobody is, really.
No, let me try that again: Amber Star and I are not blood-relatives of Nevada, but the state was gracious enough to take us into its family. In fact, like so many other Nevadans, we are Californians originally.
That was also true of Nevada's first Senator, William Stewart. It's not clear that he had much connection to the nascent state other than a stake in the silver mines, but that's really all you need. I worked briefly for an investment firm in Incline. Some of the clients, legal residents all, "lived" in their lawyers' mailboxes. You see, Nevada citizenship is determined by investment, not some outdated feudal sense of location.
Stewart was also a sort of patron to another legendary Not Nevadan, Samuel Clemens.
Clemens had a great habit of making fun of the young fellows and the girls, and wrote ridiculous pieces about parties and other social events, to which he was never invited... He didn't have a friend, but the boys got together and said they would give a party, and invite Clemens to it, and make him feel at home, and respectable and decent, and kindly, and generous, and loving, and considerate of the feelings of others. I could have warned them, but I didn't.
Clemens went to that party and danced with the prettiest girls, and monopolized them, and enjoyed himself, and made a good meal, and then shoved over to the Enterprise office and wrote the whole thing up in an outrageous manner. He lambasted that party for all the English language would allow, and if any of the guests was unfortunate enough to be awkward or had big feet, or a wart on the nose, Clemens did not forget it. He fairly strained his memory.
Of course this made the boys angry, and we decided to get even. There was a stage that ran from Carson to Virginia City, and Clemens was a passenger on it one night the boys laid in wait, and when the stage lumbered by a lonely spot they swooped out, and upset it, and turned it upside down, and dragged Clemens out and threw him in a canyon, and broke up his portmanteau, and threw that in on top of him. He was the scaredest man west of the Mississippi; but the next morning, when he crawled back to town, and it was day, and light, and safe, he began to swell a little, and pretty soon he was bragging about his narrow escape. By and by he began to color it up, and add details that he had overlooked at first, until he made out that he had been in one of the most desperate stage robberies in the history of the West, and it was a pretty poor story that he couldn't lug that one into, by the nape of the neck, sort of casually.
That's the Senator's own recollections of the legendary author. (He seems to have had a good funny bone of his own.) Senator Stewart hired Clemens to be his clerk, and there are still some extant letters written in Clemens' hand but the Senator's name. Indeed, it was that same sort of work that moved me from Nevada to the Nation's Capital. So I guess I'm following in Mark Twain's footsteps.
When he wrote "Roughing It" he said I had cheated him out of some mining stock or something like that, and that he had given me a sound thrashing; and he printed a picture of me in the book, with a patch over one eye...
I was confident that he would come to no good end...
Whatever. He was just a carpetbagging Californian anyway.
