Camels (wandering way OT... well, they do that if you let them)

[Wilson Gray]

On 6/25/05, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re : Camels (wandering way OT... well, they do that if you let
>               them)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson replies to my rant:
>    >>>>>
> Mirabile dictu, it has never been my misfortune to have had to deal
> with any aspect of cameldom., potnuh.
>  <<<<<
>
> From my ever-growing list of things to read, as described by the person
> recommending this to me:
>
>  lovely series of historical-adventure novels about the captain of an
> Austrian submarine. Titles:
>  -A Sailor of Austria (covers most of WWI, including his time in submarines)
> pub. 1991
>  -The Emperor's Coloured Coat (prior to WWI and the first year or so,
> including how he learns to fly)
>  -The Two-Headed Eagle (his time in the Austro-Hungarian air corps during
> WWI over the Italian front)
>  -Tomorrow the World (the protagonist's childhood, youth at the A-H Imperial
> Naval Academy, and first voyage in the broken-down sailing warship
> _Windischgraetz_)
>     They're very engaging novels, IMNSHO, and the author's familiarity with
> Eastern and Central Europe helps keep them authentic.  They include the
> immortal line:
>  "I have lived over a century now, and I can say with certainty that nobody
> who has not shared the fore-cabin of a submarine with a live camel knows
> what misery is."  (Otto Prohaska has to take a camel from North Africa to
> Europe aboard his submarine-- it's a LOOONG story about just why he did)
>
>    >>>>>
>  But my point wasn't that smoking is good, if only one is able to restrict
> oneself to cigarettes made from fragrant tobacco. Rather, my point was that
> the use of a mixture of tobaccoes with an extremely pleasant fragrance was,
> for me, the aspect of cigarettes that caused me to decide, while I was still
> in short pants, long before I had formed the concept of looking or being
> cool, that I was going to become a smoker.
>  <<<<<
>
> I confess, I got carried away. I do kind of like the smell of some tobaccos,
> when they are sitting there quietly and not burning.
>
>  >>>
> I have full empathy for your point of view. Given that I was a smoker
> for more years than your late father lived, I realize that I'm lucky
> still to be alive and relatively well.
>  <<<
> And I'm glad that you are!
>
> -- Mark
> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]
>


--

In the immortal words of Barretta, "Me you, too!"

-Wilson Gray