Milestones
are never really recognised right away... it takes fifty or
sixty years before people realise what an achievement it is.
Take for instance... tobacco, it was discovered by Sir Walter
Raleigh... and he sent it over to England from the colonies.
It seems to me, the uses of tobacco aren't obvious right off
the bat... and I imagine a phone conversation between Sir
Walter Raleigh and the head of the 'West Indies Company' in
England, explaining about this shipment of tobacco... would
go something like this...
Telephone rings:
Yeh?...
Who is it, Frank?...
Sir Walter Raleigh?...
Yeh?...
Yeh, put him on, will you!
Hey, Harry... you wanna pick up the extension?... yeh! it's
nutty Walter again!
Hi, Walter baby, how are you, guy? How's everything going?...
Oh, things are fine here, Walt!...
Did we get the what?...
Oh!, the boat load of turkeys, yeh! They arrived fine Walt, as
a matter of fact they're still here, they're wonderin' all
over London...
Well, y'see, that's an American holiday, Walt!!!...
What you got for us this time, Walt, you got another winner
for us?
Tob-acco... er, what's tob-acco, Walt?...
It's a kind of leaf, huh?...
And you bought eighty tonnes of it?!!...
Let me get this straight, Walt, you've bought eighty tonnes
of leaves? This may come as a kind of a surprise to you Walt
but come fall in England, we're kinda upto our...
It isn't that kind of leaf, huh?...
Oh!, what kind is it then... some special kind of food?...
Not exactly?...
Oh, it has a lot of different uses, like, what are some of
the uses, Walt?...
Are you saying 'snuff', Walt?...
What's snuff?...
You take a pinch of tobacco... and you shove it up your nose.
ha! ha!... and it makes you sneeze? ha! ha! ha!...
Yeh, I imagine it would, Walt! Hey, Goldenrod seems to do
it pretty well over here!
It has other uses though, huh?...
You can chew it!... or put it in a pipe!... or you can shred
it up... and put it in a piece of paper. ha! ha! ha!... and
roll it up. ha ha ha... Don't tell me, Walt, don't tell me.
ha! ha! ha! you stick it in your ear, right? ha! ha! ha!...
Oh! between your lips!...
Then what do you do, Walt? ha! ha! ha!...
You set fire to it! ha! ha! ha!...
Then what do you do, Walt?...
Ha! ha! ha! You inhale the smoke, huh! ha! ha! ha!...
You know, Walt... it seems you can stand in front of your
own fireplace and have the same thing going for you!
You see, Walt... we've been a little worried about you, y'know,
ever since you put your cape down over that mud.
Y'see, Walt... I think you're gonna have rather a tough time
selling people on sticking burning leaves in their mouthes...
It's going very big over there, is it?...
What's the matter, Walt?...
You spilt your what?...
Your coff-ee?.
What's coff-ee, Walt?...
That's a drink you make out of beans, huh? ha! ha! ha!...
That's going over very big there, too, is it?...
A lot of people have a cup of coffee right after their first
cigar-ette in the morning, huh?...
Is that what you call the burning leaves, Walt?... cigar-ettes?...
I tell you what, Walt!, why don't you send us a boatload of
those beans, too!
If you can talk people into putting those burning leaves in
their mouthes... they've gotta go for those beans, Walt!...
right?
Listen, Walt... don't call us... we'll call you!...
G'bye! |
