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Howdy friends!

We’ve come to the end of the road, or at least my road as Wally, which means it’s time for the big reveal. 

Picture it like the end of a Scooby Doo episode: 

The anthropomorphic eagle sits, trapped and surrounded by Scooby and the gang.

Fred yanks off the mask, and they all shout. 

Jinkies! Jeepers! Zoinks! SYD?!

Yup, it is I, Sydnie Barrett. I begin my villainous monologue:

It was almost the perfect crime – there’s no way anyone would guess Wally was secretly the one journalist who somehow managed to avoid writing for 2 straight years. GP and I conspired. No one would recognize my writing style; they’ve never seen me write. For all they know, I could be illiterate. We were wrong. I was nearly the whole Chatterbox staff’s first guess, and unfortunately, I’m a mediocre liar.

But I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

In all seriousness, The J-lab has been my home for 5 years now (seriously, I basically live there), and both the Chatterbox print and broadcast are a huge part of my life, so I’m honored that I got to restart the Wally avatar cycle, post COVID-hibernation. In retrospect, volunteering to take on a role that is intended to provide in-depth and insightful commentary on polarizing topics every issue was probably not the best way to reintroduce myself to the world of journalistic writing, but live and learn. 

For those who’ve been keeping score, I didn’t write every issue as I had promised in my first letter. When I first got the job, I spent hours reading old Wally articles and writing down topics I wanted to cover, but when it came time to write about the topics I so enthusiastically listed in my color coded chart, I worried that I didn’t have anything valuable, profound, or “Wally” enough to say, so the list stayed just a list, and my drafts stayed just drafts. I regret this.

To my future Wallys, the anonymity of Wally isn’t about playing a character. It’s about giving you the freedom to be yourself, so don’t get in your own way worrying about being a good Wally –just do what you gotta do to do you, my dude.

Love, 

Wally 

Syd 🙂

P.S. 

I’d like to sincerely apologize to my dear friends who had the misfortune of editing my articles. Kat and Sarah, I am so sorry for my gross disregard for deadlines.