This is from Terrell in Hannibal.

Dear Forum:  Greetings from the lovely banks of the Mississippi River in
dear old Hannibal.  Wonder what letter to the editor appeared in today's
Hannibal Courier Post on the day before Ken Burns comes to town with a
sneak peak of his new biography?  We got us a homegrown book banner!
    For those of you who have been following my lonely pursuit of the
real Sam in Hannibal, you will be able to discern just the tiniest bit
of progress in Ms. Dietrich's letter.  Note that she refers to our boy
as "Sam Clemens."  In a town where Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain are
deliberately blurred into one incredibly white-bread, inoffensive
tourist attraction and Sam Clemens is seldom mentioned, it is refressing
to see that one of the natives knows his birth name.
    I am about to pop with pride.
    Here is Ms. Dietrich's letter:

Dear Editor:

Three weeks ago I had a discussion with the principal of the middle
school
regarding the reading material my granddaughter was subjected to read.
It
was a book written by Sam Clemens in which he used many unacceptable
slang
words. Today in a court of law these words are considered as "verbal
harassment" and "discrimination." The teacher was supposed to call me
back
to discuss this, so far I have not received this call. Tonight I find
out
that this same teacher is now reading a Harry Potter book to the class.

There are many excellent books available in today's society, why fill
our
kids' heads with witchcraft and the occult and then encourage them to
escape
life? What's wrong with this picture?

The education system has a responsibility to all of us. That means good
examples, good teaching, as well as good books.

I encourage parents, grandparents, priests, ministers, rabbis and people
of
the community to get involved with the program, to help bring back godly
values to our education system and take a stand against the ungodly
garbage.

Janet Dietrich
Hannibal

Terrell's note.  If any of you parents, grandparents, priests,
ministers, rabbis and people of the Twain Forum community are game, I
think we might consider digging ol' Sam up and baptizing his bones to
take care of this Godliness problem.  Ms. Dietrich seems to be pretty
ecumenical.  I think you can get dead folks baptized in Salt Lake City
and it sticks.  That may be our way out.   I'll talk to my friend Father
Brendan and get us some holy water.

td