I'm surprised I seem to have the honor of being the first person to echo Hal's thoughts (unless someone else beats me to it before this note goes online). It goes without saying that we all owe a big debt of gratitude to Barbara Snedecor, Christy Gray (why do my fingers insist on typing "Christy Brown"?), and many others at the center for all their work. This was my fifth conference, and I've always been amazed at the amount of work that goes into them. The attention to detail is quite astounding. I got home to California very late last night and am still a little tired and disoriented. Rather than try to sum up my feeling about the conference--except to say it was wonderful, perhaps the best yet, I'll follow Hal's lead by rattling off some random observations ... --I too was impressed by the Japanese contributions to the conference and the dedication and energy the Japanese scholars put into their presentations. I counted ten Japanese paper presenters. Wouldn't it be something if that many people participated from each of many different countries! --I was fortunate to be in Elmira in May, when blooming flowers made the campus more beautiful than I had ever seen it, but it still looked awfully beautiful during the conference, which was blessed with cool weather. The grounds of Quarry Farm also looked more beautiful than ever, thanks, I'm sure to Tim Morgan. And Hal is right about the view from there! --Speaking of the weather, the air conditioning in the new dormitory, Meier Hall, was almost too cold. Imagine that in Elmira! It's a wonderful, old-school-style building, by the way. Its spacious commons room has a nice old-fashioned fireplace, by which John Bird read an unpublished (for now) fairy tale by Mark Twain, and at least one aging scholar (if that's the correct) word comfortably drifted off to sleep. --I can't remember a conference with more papers that I wanted to hear. As virtually every time slot had concurrent sessions, I missed nearly half the presentations I wanted to attend. I've been lobbying Barbara to add another day to the conference to reduce the number of scheduling conflicts. Sure, some people would miss sessions because they couldn't come on Wednesday ... but would that be any worse than missing them because of scheduling conflicts? Another suggestion I'd like to throw out is that it would be good to have a web site where ALL conference papers would be posted. Not necessarily the scholars' full-length papers, but at least the truncated versions they present at the conferences. --I've been to Elmira seven times and was stunned to realize I had never before been inside Cowles Hall and seen its chapel! Its magnificent woodwork and stained-glass windows are gorgeous. Its acoustics aren't good for speakers, but no one visiting the campus should miss a chance to visit the chapel. --I'm not sure it's appropriate to single out individual papers for praise here, as I don't want to hurt the feelings of people I fail to mention. I'll merely say that keynote speaker Peter Kaminsky's praise of Horst Kruse's presentation was right on the money and that there were many, many fine papers at the conference. I'll end by enthusiastically seconding John Bird's call to everyone to attend the next conference at Hannibal in 2015. I'm not an officer of the Mark Twain Circle, so I speak only for myself, but I'd like to see these conferences unified into a single-series biennial conference with alternating venues. Why not? Okay, I will single out another person. Mark Twain Project editor Ben Griffin's talk in the chapel about Mark Twain's "A Family Sketch" was wonderful--informative, fascinating, and occasionally hilarious. I heartily concur with another attendee who suggested that perhaps he should have been the keynote speaker. Next time? Incidentally, Bob Hirst was no slouch of a follow-up speaker. Kent Rasmussen