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

[Jonathan Lighter]

I didn't think it was *that* bad....

JL

"Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mark A. Mandel"
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.]

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