Latest news from Hermie

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Dear Mr. Menick:

Hello. How are you? I am fine.

Thinks are pretty quiet here at HQ, as you can imagine. The first herd has been shooed out of the stables, we've mucked everything out after them, put in new hay, and are ready for our next session. Now we're just waiting.

I thought you might be interested in my job during all of this. As you know, when little kids go away to summer camp, the administrations often do elaborate web pages for mommy and daddy back home to keep abreast of what junior and juniette are up to. We understand that some parents consult these pages with maddening frequency, although we have also heard tell that other families, after shipping off their spawn, ship themselves off to obscure love nests with heart-shaped jacuzzis and can't even remember their children's names during the ensuing festivities. Be that as it may, we have taken a leaf from the pages of these sites, to coin a phrase, and here at JLA we too publish a website full of photos and diaries of the activities of the day. Unfortunately, when those activities are actually taking place, we are too busy to publish any photos and diaries. So my job, in the interlude between sessions, is to make up photos and diaries. I have been busily visiting summer school sessions at La Jolla High (pronounced La Hoy-a Joll), where there are actual classes taking place—mostly remedial work for LD students where the LD does not stand for Lincoln-Douglas—and photographing these students as they learn their numbers and ABCs. Also, I have been creating diary blog entries for each day of the session (all of the names are taken from the many high school debate soap operas that infest the internet; we figure no one will recognize them as fictitious). When the session starts, we will post these pictures and diary entries one right after the other, bang bang bang. Every time a parent logs on, they'll see us in action. Sort of. They'll never see any real JLA kids, of course, and more to the point, they'll never see their own kids, but our guess is that they'll just assume that their kids will show up on the next posting. Or the next. Or the next... Eventually they'll give up and go off to one of those obscure love nests, or assume that their LDer (where the LD does stand for Lincoln-Douglas) is just out of the picture, on the right, next to Ham Buglaroni. ("Look, Ma! Isn't that Timmy Mae's left elbow?")

I hope you will follow our adventures when they begin next week, even though I may have spoiled your enjoyment by pointing out that they are entirely a fantasy. Meanwhile, I hope you have been enjoying your summer. I look forward to seeing you on the circuit next year.

Your friend,

Herman Melville
Cub Reporter