I took it for granted that Hank was obsessed with History, Science, Time, and was armed with a photographic memory. Those qualities defined my father, so it wasn’t a stretch. Yet, even as a child, I laughed at the absurdity of the idea. Since it is fiction, I suspended disbelief long ago. But I find that particular work, despite its stretches, more likely than the alternative realities of our own times. Truth is stranger than fiction. On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 8:53 AM Carl Chimi <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I can only say that even as a kid I never believed that anyone could > remember such a thing so specifically. And react to it with such precision > in a time when the whole idea of clocks was so relatively primitive. But I > can’t remember. Did Hank have a watch and an almanac (with historical > eclipse information in it) with him? > > Carl > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Aug 1, 2022, at 8:43 AM, Daniel P. B. Smith <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > > > > In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the narrator says "But > all of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the > only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the sixth century > occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., and began at 3 minutes after > 12 noon.” > > > > When I read the book as a kid, I just took this at face value; and of > course Mark Twain didn’t have any problems using unlikely coincidences in > his other books. > > > > But since then I’ve always wondered: are we really supposed to believe > this? Or was Mark Twain poking deadpan fun at unbelievable coincidences in > literature? > -- *Alan Kitty, DGExecutive Director* *Mark Twain Education Society* [log in to unmask] www.marktwaineducation.org