Bob Noorda

Introducing Tobacco To Civilization

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, ha! ha! ha!...
And you shove it up your nose. ha! 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 coffee, 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 cigarette in the morning, huh?...
Is that what you call the burning leaves, Walt?...
cigarettes?...
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!...