Dear Inquirer,
There are chapters in one’s life best edited out of a public biography, or at least greatly abridged. My time, my dark period, as you are calling it, spent at Crescent Lake is such an episode. I have no wish to make public a period in my life I do not myself dwell on. I have done all I can to forget. I make to myself no recitation, and I have no intent of providing one to you.
You are not the first to ask, and so I know the game fairly well by now. My refusal means, for you, a little “working vacation.” You’ve probably plans for your own trip to Crescent Lake by now, may have already bought tickets before my inevitable refusal. One of these days, I expect I’ll receive one of these inquiries already postmarked Crescent Lake.
Well, journalists are not an intelligent nor original breed. Look ahead. Everyone before you has felt the need to go, but none have come back with a story to tell. I think you will find something there, but I think you will agree with me that, on the whole, some chapters are best left out.
I hope you’ll enjoy your stay in my old haunt. If old missus Larch is still running the Friendly Cobbler, she’ll probably be the friendliest resident you’ll find there, and she has helped others recover who, like you, feel the need to dig up this bit of my history.
Go to Hell, otherwise known as Crescent Lake,
The Thinker
Tale Told 