Greetings! As you may know, the annual Twain-Twichell walk was postponed last fall because of rain, and we now have a date for the rematch with the slopes of Talcott Mountain: Saturday, May 30 (the weekend after Memorial Day Weekend.) In the current economic climate, this is a bargain. Where else can you get a free day of healthy enjoyment and exercise, and an absolute lack of fundraising or other worthy ends? And a chance, as Sam Clemens said of one walk with his friend, the Rev. Joe Twichell of Hartford, to extend the subject of conversation from "everything we knew" to "the glad, free boundless realm of the things we were not certain about"? Many of you have not been on the walk before, so let me recap quickly. In 1995, in the course of writing an article about Mark Twain's friendship with Twichell, I got John Boyer of the Mark Twain House and the Rev. Jim Kidd of Asylum Hill Congregational Church (Twichell's church) together. We followed a route similar to Clemens' and Twichells' autumn and spring walks from their Nook Farm neighborhood to a wooden tower that stood near where Heublein Tower now stands in Simsbury. The custom has persisted, with groups large and small, for the past 14 years. Jeff Nichols, Executive Director of the Mark Twain House, and I lead the walk. The distance is about eight miles and the last mile is uphill. We meet at the Mark Twain House and leave promptly at 9, walking city streets, suburban roads and finally woodland paths. We stop for a picnic lunch at Auer Farm, the 4-H farm in Bloomfield, and read from Twain and Twichell. We return to the Mark Twain House in cars, which early-rising volunteers have left at the Heublein Tower parking lot. We don't rush, but get back to the Mark Twain House, say, around 2. If you'd like to come, or need more information, email back or call me at 860-589-6412. As usual, I'll need volunteers to leave cars at Heublein Tower before the walk. Steve Courtney Terryville, CT 06786