"The Letter"

Please excuse Mama's impetuousness for calling you over the long-distance telephone on Tuesday evening. This is the way it happened:

Early Sunday morning my thoughts were leisurely cruising on fleecy clouds in azure skies, to the accompaniment of soft radio music. The announcer interrupted, to report one of the worst snowstorms in recorded annals, and extending from New York to the westermost limits of Ohio State. All means of communication were at a standstill; telephone and telegraph wires down, trains stalled, cars buried under, the death of 247 directly attributable to the storm, deliveries of milk, bread, fuel, impossible. The storm had been bad enough, but overnight it had veered upon itself, thus giving most all localities a double dose.

From my lofty perch I swooped down upon the Valley of the Ohio. What a dazzling beautiful sight to gladden the heart and uplift one's soul; what brute wild force waiting to be tamed: Oh, Infinite Intelligence, the seed of "Which" or "whom" is in each and everyone of us, and of which, only and perhaps, one in a million is just beginning to sprout, with the rest going to pot; Oh Infinite Intelligence, how long and arduous the road to our destiny, where mind is king and matter the pauper. Nevermore shall we then bicker and quarrel among ourselves, but instead harness all the rampaging forces (of which at present our minds seem to be the worst), to your everlasting glory and our own comfort.

The whole state looked to me as one big white sheet. By some miscalculation I found myself in Cleveland instead of Columbus. A milk truck had stopped in the middle of nowhere, possible the middle of a block. Women pushed like gophers from under the snow, frantically surrounded the truck, shouting, pushing, gesticulating, arms uplifted clamoring for the milkman's attention. It reminds me of the New York Stock Exchange in October, 1929. All at once the noise subsided, then a lull and a hushed silence, but only for a moment. In quick succession I heard a noise as of distant thunder, then as of a fast-approaching earthquake, and then in less time than it takes to relate, pandemonium broke loose, with shouts, shrill and angry, of "lynch him!"

I approached the truck. The ladies were infuriated because of the milkman's demand for $1.00 per quart of milk. Oh Infinite Intelligence, here is a man venturing forth in uncharted land, far and beyond the call of duty, far from a family whom he loves and supports, beyond the call and assistance of his pals and friends, ready to be sacrifices like so many other martyrs before him for misunderstood devotion to humanity. This man is deserving of the Congressional Medal of Honor and, if denied, should run for the office of congressman himself. Many a congressman has won his election for less cause and for less value than a quart of milk.

I approached and quieted the ladies as follows: "Ladies, please. I am a licensed accountant from Los Angeles, which is the equivalent of an M.D. degree conferred upon a practicing hit-and-miss midwife, self-taught, and without the benefit of a college attendance, and very eager to make an honest dignified dollar. Here and now I shall compute the price of this milk. Will you, milkman, give me your word that you will abide by my findings and pay such price?" They said they would.

To proceed: "An accountant deals in exact figures arrived at by virtue of reasoning. Now, the cost of milk delivered to your door on regular days is 20 cents per quart. Such price has been arrived at to cover the milkman's operating expenses, his standard of living costs, and your ability to pay. You will agree with me that this is not by any stretch of the imagination a usual day, but certainly a very unusual day. The cost of gas and oil is at least triple through this roadless snow waste; the wear and tear on the motor and body enough to lower the truck's life expectancy from five years to less than one year. I assure you this truck will never be the same again. I also understand that garage and repair men have of late engaged the service of cost accountants, who have added to the former bills the cost of their own services.

Now consider the wear and tear on this unselfish milkman, the double flannels and other accoutrements he must wear, the cold and pneumonia he might catch, his wife's and children's anguish at his bedside, the doctor bills." (I noticed tears in several ladies' eyes). "Please stop, please stop," they cried. I had summoned Irv, who was tabulating figures for me. "Well," I said, "if I stop here the quart will amount to $1.25, and there are other and graver considerations involved. A licensed accountant is at all times willing to compromise. Would you, ladies, be willing to accept the price so arrived at?" We would," they said. Oh Infinite Intelligence! Thus have prices always soared farther after congressional investigation into the high price of some commodity.

This episode attended to, I found myself in Columbus in front of your home. Oh what fun I had with Irv and Skippy. We snowballed, made snowmen, built tunnels in the snowdrifts, pulled their sleighs up and down snowbanks.

I was awakened out of my reverie by Mama's lamentations about the misery and suffering of all the millions from Ohio eastward, and your and your children's suffering in particular. She must phone or fly to you immediately. I had great trouble in quieting her down. I assured her that the storm could not possibly last longer than a week, that any home with children is supplied with fuel and food for at least that long and, if not, one neighbor would help another; that of the 247 dead, 102 were hobos riding the rails, 75 tramps living mentally in perpetual sunshine on fleecy clouds in azure skies, a few perambulating salesmen who had no wives to look after them, and five such lamenting individuals like Mama, who died of heart failure. I told her that to my mind you must be sitting before a cozy fire lamenting, and with more reason, the fate of the smog-bound Angelenos.

This treatise on your recent wintry experience should prove that although old in years our hearts are still young and gay and that all is well hereabouts. We enjoy your letters very much. Keep up the good work.

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