NEW!

Mark Twain: The "Roughing It Years"

Thursday, October 1

11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Zoom Virtual Classroom

Tuition: $19

Prior to becoming the world-famous author Mark Twain, young Sam Clemens experienced years of excitement, hard times, heartbreak, prosperity, poverty, and adventure. Known collectively as the "Roughing It Years,” it was these events that propelled him to international fame. With humor of course, our discussion focuses on his young adult years, his short-lived career as a riverboat pilot, his Civil War experience and his opportunity to live life in the old west towns among gunslingers and desperadoes. Discover how he became a millionaire and lost his fortune within days! We learn how he accidentally burnt down a mountain at Lake Tahoe, became a newspaper man who covered the great San Francisco earthquake, was the first American to surf the waves at Waikiki, and, without realizing it, became an overnight literary sensation while touring the Sandwich Islands.

Jim Maurer is a recently retired policy writer for the State of South Carolina with a lifelong interest in history and the biographies of fascinating people. He is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and has recently been an instructor at OLLI at Furman University, where he made presentations of interesting people such as Winston Churchill, Samuel Clemens, Harry Houdini, and Frankenstein's Monster.