Those of you with an interest in the portrayal of Sam Clemens in Hannibal need to read the lengthy letter in today's Hannibal Courier Post www.hannibal.net from Herb Parham, president of the Mark Twain Home Foundation. Herb writes in part, "Mr. George A. Mahan's 1912 vision of Hannibal's tourist potential as Mark Twain's Boyhood Home in this hospitable Mississippi river town was right on target. His desire to promote the fantasy, so well portrayed in Mark Twain's writings about his Hannibal experiences, has been sought out by thousands of visitors throughtout the world for more than 90 years." Mr. Parham goes on to set forth the Foundation's plans to build a house it is going to call the "Huckleberry Finn" House and restore the "Becky Thatcher" House. Give the letter a read. I would be very interested to hear from any of you. If any of you are interested in seeing copies of the 1989 document (which is referred to as a long range plan -- but is really notes from a weekend meeting attended by a number of people, Lou Budd and Tom Quirk among others, I believe.) I will be glad to get to you if you will send me a large SASE. It included discussion of portraying the real history of Sam Clemens, slavery, and Twain's works besides Tom Sawyer -- notably Pudd'nhead and Huck -- and other very reasonable suggestions that have never seen the light of day. My apologies to those of you who are weary of me and are weary of the continued tourist schlock in Hannibal. History does matter. I have cleaned up a number of fact errors that the museum was making. There are many more and the Foundation is about to embark on a program of misleading another generation of school children and tourists as to the world that created America's greatest writer with this Huckleberry Finn House. There is not even a clear historical connection between Tom Blankenship and the house. It is Hannibal "folk history." I'm going to do everything I can to straighten it out. If you want a copy of the 1989 "plan" send that SASE to Terrell Dempsey, P.O. Box 510, Hannibal, Missouri 63401. Terrell