Mark Twain has been a household name since he wrote his first classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in 1885. Although he was a Missouri native, he raised his family in Connecticut to be close to his publisher. The restored Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Conn., offers tours, allowing literature fans an opportunity to become acquainted with the classic author.

Jay Brown has worked at the front desk and as a tour guide for the Mark Twain House and Museum for 10 years.

“Our goal here is to represent a man who was an outstanding writer and traveler and speaker, and to really show his heritage and to share that with people of present and future generations,” Brown said.

Kathryn Bigelow, a local Connecticut visitor, considers Twain an inspiration for aspiring writers like herself.

“Seeing where he came from and what he made of himself is kinda cool,” Bigelow said. “He’s a big part of our culture and of the writing culture of today in America.”

Behind the stage with Branson’s Blues Brothers impersonators

Horton, who was studying aviation at the time, didn’t know the impersonator band would turn into a life-long career. For almost 20 years, Horton toured the world performing as one of the Blues Brothers with Legends in Concert, an impersonator show that began in Las Vegas and now has a location in Branson, Mo., at Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Theater.

Legends in Concert is known for its high-caliber vocal performances, authentic choreography and realistic look-alikes of various celebrities, from Britney Spears to Elvis Presley.

“When you’re impersonating you’ve got to go 120 percent,” Horton said. “You’ve got to go over the top. You’re imitating these legends [at] a small snippet of the best of their life, that small little fraction of time when they’re on top of their game.”

Columnist seeks hometown adventure

St. Louis seems bland to me lately. Jazz shows elicit less finger-snapping, the Arch appears less colossal and the toasted ravioli feels less crunchy since I spent my last two summers trekking across China.

Needing a cure for my doldrums, I yearned to interact in real time with a melting pot of personalities like I had done for three weeks in China’s youth hostels. Within the crammed pages of a guidebook, a youth hostel simply looks like another place to stay, albeit with an attractive price. Travelers quickly find that they’re paying for much more than a dorm bed — they’re experiencing cultural cultivation without booking costly tours.

In China, my personal “cultivation” involved guzzling $1 bags of Tsingtao beer, discussing photojournalism with Belgians, watching “Amélie” with a French tourist who had never seen the movie and cheering on a Mongolian tween in traditional dress performing her well-rehearsed moves to Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance.” And it was all thanks to the resources of China’s youth hostels.

I didn’t expect to find anything but Holiday Inns and Super 8s in my hometown, and their cold, contemporary décor and secure suites hardly create a vibe for comfortable socializing. A Google search, however, led me to the Huckleberry Finn Youth Hostel, located on a cobblestone street in the Soulard District.

At the entrance to the Lessman Farm in Topeka, Kansas, a metal statue of a man and woman, each holding a hand in the air, greets visitors. The piece is hardly more than stick figures welded from metal rods, but it gives an early glimpse into the experience awaiting guests. Artist Ron Lessman said the statue can imply different things to different people.

“That’s me and my wife either flipping you off or waving you on,” Lessman said.

His cynicism comes from more than a decade of fighting with Shawnee county. Lessman has never been one to lie down in the face of adversity, a characteristic reflected in his art. In the mid-1990s, the county ordered Lessman to “pick up” six broken-down trucks that his pigs were using for shade. Lessman did just that, placing each truck at a roughly 45-degree angle off the ground with over 4,000 pounds of concrete.

“I can’t say it any better than what the county said: ‘a cynical attempt to get around the law,’” Lessman said. “You told me to pick my trucks up. I did my patriotic duty and did what I was ordered; I picked my trucks up.”

The piece, named “Truckhenge,” is the most well known of Lessman’s exhibits. Lessman later created its compliment, “Boathenge.” The trucks and boats are painted with phrases reflecting Lessman’s views on society. One truck says, “If these trucks can’t stand, why do we fight the Taliban?” while another reads, “Rise up. Excuse me while I touch the sky.”

Still another reads, “Freedom isn’t lost,” a point that Lessman said is proved by the fact that visitors can come drink a beer and fish at his pond, in contrast to city parks where alcohol is banned.

Rosenblatt Stadium, Omaha, Nebraska

Bruce Henrickson sits with his two sons in the left-field bleachers at Rosenblatt Stadium on a beautiful June afternoon.

The three of them sit only 10 rows from the field, drinking in the University of Texas and University of Florida players warming up beneath them. Fans dressed in Longhorn burnt orange and Gator blue and orange fill in the seats around them, cheering on their players and teams.

In a few hours, Game 1 of the Div. I college baseball national championship will begin – and for the fourth time, Henrickson and his family have traveled from Grayslake, Ill., to Omaha, Neb., and paid only $8.50 to attend.

The national championship caps off the two-week event known as the College World Series, an eight-team tournament played every June.

“Rosenblatt comes close to echoing Wrigley Field,” Henrickson said. “The competition, the people and the atmosphere is what makes it great. I would be really upset if they ever moved the tournament from Rosenblatt.”

Over the past few years, Henrickson’s sons have chased batting practice home-run balls, met the 2004 national champion University of California St.-Fullerton players and held the CWS-winning trophy – but this day will yield a new memory.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, Indiana

A high whine begins in the distance, reverberating in that place between the chest and the pit of the stomach.

The smell of burning alcohol (used for fuel) hangs heavy in the air, alongside waves of heat.

The speedway stands are silent.

The whine deepens a little, grows louder, and then those listening hear another chasing the first … then two … then 10.
Suddenly, an Indy car bursts into view of the Turn 1 bleachers and thousands of people surge to their feet with a roar.