Commentary HANNIBAL, Missouri—During a visit here in 1882, Mark Twain wrote to his wife Olivia of the rush of sentiments he experienced returning to the town of his childhood. “I have spent three delightful days in Hannibal, loitering around all day long, examining the old localities and talking with the grey-heads who were boys and girls with me 30 or 40 years ago,” he said. “It has been a moving time. I spent my nights with John and Helen Garth, three miles from town, in their spacious and beautiful house. They were children with me, and afterwards schoolmates.” Garth was Twain’s childhood friend, and Hannibal was their playground. It was here the boys roamed the hills, rivers, and caves that surrounded this Mississippi River town. Twain, known as Samuel Clemens in his youth, would leave here as a teenager and go on to spin his youthful adventures into “The Adventures …