Ode to Lance Wherry

 Ode to Lance Wherry
         by
  Elizabeth Hibbert

Published May 3, 2002

Lance Wherry is a mystery man: he's called The List Enigma -
For he's a master of disguise; resides in Venezuela.
He's the bafflement of ringing-chat; he's Jean Edouard's despair:
For when they try to email back - Lance Wherry is not there!

Lance Wherry. Yes! Lance Wherry. That hoaxer of humanity.
He breaks through every list device, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare.
Yet when you try to email back, Lance Wherry is not there!
You may try the r-c digest, call up websites here and there -
But I tell you once and once again, Lance Wherry is not there.

Lance Wherry's a pale eminence, his stature vaguely known.
Would you know him if you met him? - such persona, all its own.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;
His garb is understated and his whiskers neatly combed.
He watches quite intently though his eyes no movement make
And when you think he's half asleep he's always wide awake.

Lance Wherry: prestidigitateur extraordinary -
For he's a fiend in email form and quite illusionary.
You may see him in the street, you may see him in the square
But when his email reaches us, Lance Wherry is not there!

He's outwardly respectable (Yet has he rung a peal?);
Compositions in the Ringing World? - or yet Campanophile?
And when the Admin's out at work and protocol is breached
And innocent subscribers to this list are then impeached
With having worn the mantle of this chimeral debonair -
Ay - that's the wonder of the thing - Lance Wherry is not there!

And when the Foreign Office find that passports have been forged
And Customs man the barricades for flights from Ecuador -
The scourge has "gone to Mexico" - or Kabul (What's he doing there?")
It's useless asking questions for Lance Wherry is no longer there.
And when the "coup" has been deposed the Secret Service say:
It must have been Lance Wherry - but he's half a world away!
You'll be sure to find him resting when the mischief has been done
With a pint of Young's, a curry and a large Peshwari naan.

Lance Wherry. Yes! Lance Wherry has hoodwinked our fraternity.
There never was a ringer of such virtual versatility.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare.
At whatever time the deed took place, Lance Wherry wasn't there!
And they say that all the chaps whose wicked deeds are widely known
(Such as Tibbetts ringing methods with appallingly long names)
Are nothing more than agents of the Admin who, the while,
Just controls their operations - the Napoleon of guile!