Every Friday I send out a real love letter that I’ve transcribed from a stack I bought at the flea market. Missed one? Check the chronological list.
If love letters aren’t your thing, don’t fret. More View-Master and related content is coming along next month.
Last week, I wrapped up the letter portion of the letter because it took a turn for the weird. This is the weird:
Continued from January 18, 1961
I’ve suddenly become taken with the idea of smoking two cigarettes at the same time. Must be true nicotine addiction. Either that or — well, a man who knows something will end within a given period of time will often get as much as he can before that period ends. But I am not faced with that situation.
You can smoke anywhere and everywhere in 1961. Did you know you could smoke on planes back then?
From Wikipedia: In 1969, consumer advocate Ralph Nader was among the first in the United States to call for a smoking ban on airlines. Pressure for an inflight smoking ban also came from flight attendants' unions, such as the Association of Flight Attendants.
United Airlines created a nonsmoking section in 1971, the first airline to do so. In 1994, Delta was the first US airline to ban smoking on all worldwide flights.
In 1988, airlines based in the United States banned smoking on domestic flights of less than two hours, which was extended to domestic flights of less than six hours in February 1990, and to all domestic and international flights in 2000.
Must be addiction. I am stimulated by the patter of little nicotine feet in my bloodstream. Does nicotine have feet? Purely irrelevant. It still patters. The mechanism is beside the point. Maybe this is what Longfellow spoke of in his disconnected verbiage about the patter of little feet unlocking the chamber of his heart. Maybe he was suffering from nicotine coronary. Wrote a very good poem about it anyway. (This is back at the dorm. My handwriting is smaller as I haven’t warmed up again, yet) More ink.
Full of gas again. All tanked up. Just think of that. Nicotine molecules playing with milk crystals. A charming pastoral scene. Nicotine doesn’t mix too well with milk, however.
Nicotine is an alkaloid, a poison. Nicotine acid is a vitamin necessary to prevent pellagra.
Fun fact: Pellagra is a disease caused by a severe deficiency of niacin (vitamin B3).
It has always been a desire of mine to extract nicotine from tobacco in relatively large quantities. Not gallons or even quarts but enough to see. Maybe I could perform a quantitative analysis. For the future, however. Near future though.
This would be a real breakthrough. Maybe someday someone will invent a gum or patches or something.
I don’t know what’s up with this short story we’re about to drive into here, but this is what he wrote to his girlfriend in a 14-page tome back in 1961, so here it is:
Getting to our friends, the nicotine molecules and “Stormy Day.” We have a romance beginning between Nicotine Hydrochloride, husband of Nicotine Picrate, and Lolly Lactose, star at the Crystal Milk Palace. Nicotine Picrate, young and naïve, is completely unaware of the unfaithfulness of her husband Hydrochloride. Lolly Lactose, sweet and inviting as pure milk, and her mother Elsie, are planning Picrate’s downfall since Lolly has hated Picrate every since Picrate won the contest in high school for being the most active girl on campus.
The word “active” is doing a lot of work there.
Lolly has also always been jealous of Picrate’s success in life. Now Lolly plans to fight Picrate with the only weapon she knows Picrate can’t fight back with: Seduction. Lolly tells her plan to her mother, Elsie, who works on the Borden mansion and Elise expresses her contentment with the scheme.
Lolly is to meet Hydrochloride that night where she works, after the show. Her plan is to destroy Hydrochloride’s reputation. Hydrochloride is the handsome middle-aged doctor in town, loved by young and old alike. If Lolly can get the doctor in a compromising situation the photographers she has hired from the Big City can take his picture and Lolly will either publish the picture or blackmail the doctor which will depend on how long the series lasts.
But Dr. Hydrochloride’s old Mother Nicotine gets wise to Lolly’s plan after seeing her son with Lolly in the Crystal Milk Palace.
Friendly reminder that this young man claims to HATE soap operas like Peyton Place.
Mother Nicotine is from the Big City herself. Mother Nicotine therefore digs up some embarrassing parts of Lolly’s past and is waiting for the time when she can use them against Lolly. Meanwhile, through clandestine dealings of her own, Mama Nicotine has discovered the identity of Lolly’s photographers and threatens them with exposure unless they leave town. The photographers are not exactly white sheep themselves.
When Lolly calls her photographers to arrange a meeting place, the sweet old lady who runs the rooming house, and who is loved by young and old alike, tells Lolly the photographers left last night and gave no forwarding address except that they were headed for the West Coast. Lolly contacted them on the East Coast and had no idea where to contact them on the West Coast. Actually, Lolly had no idea where the West Coast was. She was not as cosmopolitan as she liked people to think.
The photographers had left instructions as to where they could be reached but the sweet old lady who ran the rooming house was a friend of Sweet Old Mother Nicotine and lied. You gotta watch out for these Sweet Old Ladies.
The moral of this story is that you can’t trust women of any age! Funny.
But now Lolly is without her photographers. She is also without $50 she paid them. She is afraid to tell her mother, Elsie, because it might upset her and impair her work. And Elsie worked at Borden’s and at Borden’s everything had to be good.
Today is the day that Lolly is supposed to meet Dr. Hydrochloride. She has only 6 hours before showtime. During that time, she must think of something. She must have her revenge on Picrate. Dr. Hydrochloride is only a pawn in her scheme. She must find some way to carry out her scheme or the show will lose its rating.
Dr. Nicotine “The Pawn” Hydrochloride is blandly unaware of what is happening to him. He is going about his business, being known and loved by young and old alike, and earning all kinds of money from them. He wonders to what his attraction to Lolly might be due. His wife, Picrate is everything a wife, mother and future Sweet Old Lady should be. He racks his brain for answers. Could it be that he’s not happy with Picrate? But that’s absurd. Picrate and he are utterly in love and content. The good doctor doesn’t realize it yet, but Lolly’s attractiveness is based on a complex and unfathomable set of attributes. But mainly she’s built.
But, as Lolly often says, “I owe it all Elsie, my mother.” Dr. Hydrochloride will soon see the light, however. Lolly’s costume at the Crystal Milk Palace is rather scanty, and the good Dr. is not blind, although a trifle unobservant at times.
The scene is a table at the Crystal Milk Palace. That table is an inconspicuous part of the establishment since Lolly is meeting him secretly. He quietly drinks his tenth Manhattan and wonders what is wrong with him — for coming here, that is …
(Continued in the future)
Let’s hope not.
And that is another chapter in the lives of our nicotine friends.
And now I can get back to the original point of the letter, you, of course.
Yes, on page fourteen. Let’s do that.
Can’t get away from that, and I don’t want to. This is Thursday. I had to do some more studying and get some sleep. This is my Thursday afternoon break.
Incidentally, it snowed down here last night. We are having our third or fourth winter. Don’t know which, I’ve lost count.
It’s just January. You’ve got a ways to go.
I’ve more or less resigned myself to staying out of school for a semester. It’s the best thing to do, but it’s not what I want to do. However, a couple night courses will keep me in the habit of studying, which is a habit easily gotten out of. But getting rid of my digestive problems will be worth it.
Darn! Can’t keep my mine on one thing. I’d better quit while I’m ahead. 7 days until January 26. I’ll be moving out of here sometimes between January 26 and 29, probably the 28th. Why don’t you come on down with us. Will you? Well, that can be answered later, I suppose.
Meanwhile, take real good care of yourself. Don’t worry too much about finals. I know you won’t have any trouble. Just don’t get too worried because they’re not that important. Your health is worth much more. Remember that we’ve got everything in our favor. Just take care of you and everything else will take care of itself. Will see you soon, sweetheart. Sweet dreams,
Love ad infinitum,
Russ
And with that? Russ leaves the University of Illinois for home, and we don’t have another letter until spring…
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