Just returned from our annual desert hiking trip, where windy weather
and temps in the 70's and 80's (instead of those summer 110's/120's!)
made for some great sand dune and canyon exploring! We also managed
to increase the number of letterboxes in Nevada by 200% - by dropping
off 2 new letterboxes yesterday on our way back to the Las Vegas
airport!! ( More on that later...)

Meanwhile, it seems that folks have been pretty busy in other parts
of the country these past couple of weeks,too! Lots of new boxes have
come out, as well as a few curious responses to my previous messages,
including several personal ones from people still wondering just what
had been going on here in Southern New England last month! I guess I
still wasn't direct enough about what the real problem around here
was, and quite a few people got sidetracked, so I'll try one more
time to explain as clearly as I can.

The only real problem I had recently was with Melissa and Dan's
attempts to deflect responsibility for the red-tongued hitcher
kidnapper episode onto OTHER PEOPLE. That whole messy business could
have been simply written off as a poorly-timed childish prank, had
those two only had the decency to come clean privately during any of
the various opportunities that presented themselves in the entire
preceding month. However,when in their message to me on Mar.13th,
they continued to choose to obfuscate and deny the fact that they
would ever go back to look for hitchers, and then proceeded to
actually try to pin the blame for the "kidnapping caper" on "new
boxers"(!),that is when I finally ,as they say, "saw red"!

After all, it just so happened that one of the spots at which a red-
tongued hitcher kidnapper stamp appeared on Feb.15th was at a
previously unpublished bonus box site called "COOL DOWN",which only a
very few people would have had occasion to even know about. J,S + J
did the whole series impeccably. V+V (the recent hitcher complainer)
got to the spot where the bonus clues were on Dec.2nd, but apparently
didn't follow through on going back to the bonus box later, as we had
originally thought they would. That left ONLY D+M, who had
previously picked up the "Poison Ivy" hitcher there in August, so
they would have known that that was a good spot to look for another
hitcher - this time our "Little Tiny Lighthouse". It was also
apparently not coincidental that they would revisit other sites known
to them to be big enough to harbor hitchers, and thereby take several
other hitchers all on the same day - Feb.15th - even though we had
repeatedly asked folks to take only one hitcher per trip and leave
any others they could conceivably find for the next person to enjoy.
It seems that D+M even took a brand new hitcher called "Traveling
Valentine" that had been left by James and Amanda only the day before
at one of our former Kimball Audubon boxes, which were confiscated
shortly thereafter due at least in part to Melissa's having written
in her first entry that she had snuck her dog Max in - something the
Audubon people really did not appreciate reading about!

Anyway, to get things back in focus here, the point is not about
going back to boxes to find hitchers, which is OK in most cases, but
about lying about doing it and then, most of all, about trying to put
the blame on others, which is NOT OK, at least not with ME! ( I
really did begin to feel thigs were getting a bit pathological,
especially when newcomers were being blamed for something that they
could not possibly have even known about!) Anyway, that is what
finally got to me, and made me want to speak out about what I
consider to be unconscionably deceitful behavior, in comparison to
which bragging about being first (no matter how redundantly) or
complaining about hitchers (no matter how obstreperously) seem to be
only small and palid issues!

All in all, I guess we just have to deal with the fact that there are
many different types of people: some will be remembered for their
sweetness and nice comments, others only for their complaints; some
will be recalled for being open and sharing, others for being
secretive or dishonest; some known only for writing their PFX counts,
others for not writing anything at all except for when they are
first! And then there will always now be those two, who - whether or
not they are actually capable of feeling shame - at least in our own
minds will from now on be inextricably linked with their RED FACES!

Well, let's hope that at least some lessons have been gleaned from
all this! Maybe now we can get back to putting out our boxes along
with a few new ones, and maybe even a hitcher or two for new folks.
(Don't worry - only hitchers we find; we only had 2 of our own
anyway, and they are probably both currently "out of circulation",
seeing as V+V and D+M were the ones to get them!) We also have a bit
of spring-cleaning to do at some of our Burlingame area box sites,
like Old North Camp and Cool Down, which were trashed, so please give
us a week or two to get things back in order.

Here's hoping for a kinder, gentler
more thoughtful and considerate
"Springtime of Letterboxing"!

Wanda