In the words of Alexander Graham Bell, 'Sasquatch, come here, I need you.'

Remember two years ago in the summer of 2011 when a large blue shark was found dead, decomposing in the woods off Teneriffe Road in Milton? 

Reporters ran around like Keystone Cops looking to get to the bottom of the story. How did it get there? Swim up the Salmon Falls, flop across White Mountain Highway into the woods? A real fish tale. 

Most of us weren’t falling for it. We knew it was the landshark from “Saturday Night Live.” 

We didn’t even bother to read the papers. 

Everyone on planet Rochester/Milton/Lebanon knew some fisherman had caught the poor shark, was gonna take it home, it started to stink in the car, so he dumped it in the woods. End of story. Right? 

Wrong. In the summer, especially August, it seems news slows down. A lot of folks, including reporters and editors, are on vacation. Investigative journalism takes a backseat as editors look for the easy story with some legs to fill the newshole.

Newspapers have to survive with less news, so we always look for that “summer story” to carry us through. 

Last year it was the Hoff’s iced coffee poster thefts. All over New England and Florida Michael Hasselfhoff fans like me (not) were running around stealing lifesize posters of a shirtless Hoff sipping on Cumby’s iced coffee. 

The posters are back this year, baiting would-be thieves with a new edition of an aging, yet still sexy-to-some (not me) Hoffmeister. But alas, no takers on the new posters. The kids barely notice he’s there. Poor, poor Hoff. 

So with August hard upon us, there’s not much time for that special “summer story” to appear before it’s back to school for the kids and back to paying that huge clothes bill so they won’t be embarrassed as they learn for the rest of us. 

The school clothes and supplies ads are already running. It’s so sad. 

So we’re looking for a news tip to keep it interesting these last few precious weeks of respite from the ravages of cold, oil bills, propane bills, cordwood bills, basically all the money we spend not to freeze to death in the winter. 

I’d settle for anything. If you see a couple of gators slithering around over in Townhouse Pond let me know. Or if you see old friend Sasquatch wandering around Gully Oven or Gonic. Or even if someone’s garden produces a squash that looks like Abe Lincoln or George Washington or Elvis, that works, too. 

I’ll be there with bells on and camera at the ready. 

With your help, we’ll get through this summer.