Pine Nuts: There are parties, and there is Nevada’s 150th

In case you’ve been spending your time at the Big Dance, well, there’s another party going on, and it’s called “NV150.”

Our sesquicentennial celebration is one long, rolling party to commemorate our 150 years as the great state of Nevada, so jump on the caboose before the train leaves the station. State-sponsored events are listed online at www.nevada150.org.

Last Friday I had the best time I’ve ever had in a white suit. Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval could not attend the Battle Born Birthday Cake Celebration at Carson Tahoe Hospital, so Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki invited Mark Twain to deliver the Governor’s Proclamation. Wow, you should have seen that cake. Maybe you did, and maybe you got a piece of it. Nevada’s First Lady, Kathleen Sandoval, cut the first piece with a sword. That left 8,999 portions, so nobody pushed forward to get a piece before they ran out.

Prior to reading the Governor’s Proclamation I ventured upstairs to visit the patients, and I’m happy to attest that Nevada humor is still the best medicine on the shelf. I told those patients, “If Nevada humor does not cure whatever ails you, I’ll bury you at my own expense.” Of course this was of great comfort to them. Upon leaving the second floor I passed the nurse’s station, where a half dozen nurses were gathered. I stopped to assure them that they could take the rest of the day off as their patients were all in a good humor and would need no further attention. One of them clapped her hands and shouted, “Oh good, let’s break out the needles, girls!” Nurses happen to be in possession of the best Nevada humor of any profession.

Down in the cafeteria President Lincoln (Wally Earhart) was holding forth, along with Sarah Winnemucca (Dianna Borges) and Governor Sparks (Michael Fischer). Then Waddie Mitchell laid a poem on us that knocked the spots out of any poem I ever heard, and he wrote it himself.

When it came my time to read the Governor’s Proclamation I was busy eating cake and asked one of the servers to read it, but she said she had work to do.

So I passed the proclamation off to David Bugli, but he said he had to lead his youth symphony in “Home Means Nevada,” so I had to get up there with Battle Born Cake in my mustache. The room got so quiet that everybody heard my last swallow go down as I adjusted the microphone.

There were so many whereas’es in the proclamation that I asked everybody to deliver the whereas’es when called upon to give my lungs a rest. Well, you never heard better whereas’es in your life. They could hear them up on the third floor, and we got through that proclamation without losing the speaker. Then, being acting Governor and not one to pass up an opportunity, I signed a bill into law allocating Nevada’s entire 2015 budget to extending our NV150 party into the next year.

To learn more about McAvoy Layne, visit www.ghostoftwain.com.