"Alan Dean Foster - Some Notes Concerning A Green Box" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

my stock of envelopes and stamps. Now it so happens I have a friend who is also desirous
of obtaining a position on our departmental expedition, and so I had placed my first copies
in an envelope and sent them off to him by way of the library mail chute. As things turned out,
it was unnecessary for me to write him and request the return of these copies, as the original
envelope was returned to my apartment the next day, unopened, stamped "insufficient
postage." Despite all my efforts to relocate that mysterious green box, I could find not a
trace of it in its former cubbyhole, and deemed it injudicious to make inquiries. f
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Some Notes Concerning a Green Box
The few copies I had succeeded in making consisted of the hand-marked letters and the
scraps of yellowed paper. A quick survey of the materials convinced me that I was fortunate
to obtain what little I had, as there was apparently a considerable defect in the copying
machine. The old scraps, which had been printed in a dark black ink and covered with faded
red stains, had failed entirely to be reproduced. It is most curious, as the stains themselves
had been reprinted with perfect clarity. I have written to complain to the company, and in
typically evasive manner, they replied that they never heard of such a thing.
The letters were apparently the work of two UCLA professors, and I was able to obtain
some little information concerning them, which I here include:
"Jonathan Turner, Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics. Born, Providence, R.I., 1910.
B.A., University of Maine, 1931. Worked way through college at height of Depression
performing heavy manual labor. M.A., Yale, 1932, Ph.D., Yale, 1935, doctoral dissertation,
Some Inquiries into the Nature of the Minor Religions of Southern Louisiana and Alabama,
with emphasis on the Cajun Peoples. (This work, I found, is still available to the interested
scholar from the Yale University Research Library, upon presentation of the proper
credentials.) Member of American Anthropological Society, Academie Francaise, etc., etc. .
. . Married Emaline Henry of Boston, 1937. Following her tragic death in 1960, moved to
California and accepted full professorship with UCLA . , . Author of numerous books on a
wide range of subjects, including a famous essay on the Atlantis-Lemurian myths.
"Robert Nolan, Assistant Professor of Archeology. Born, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1944. B.A.,
M.A., University of California, Berkeley. Ph.D. thesis in preparation. Winner of numerous
prizes for originality of theory in the archeology of the Pacific area. Son of a wealthy Los
Angeles lawyer."
As to more personal details regarding the two
29
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . .
scholars, I was" able to gain some insight from certain of their former students. This line of
research was made necessary because the erudite colleagues of the two men displayed a
marked hostility toward any questions. Turner was a tall, leonine individual equipped with a
full spade beard and an unkempt shock of equally white hair. In contrast, the much younger
Nolan was squat and almost entirely bald. Built from the innocuous base of a common
interest in skindiving, the friendship of the two men grew rapidly despite the difference in
their respective ages.
In 1966, both men took their sabbatical leaves together. With the money Turner had saved
and Nolan's not inconsiderable resources of prize monies and family accounts, they
purchased and outfitted a small, powered schooner and announced their intention to sail to
Easter Island and the South American coasts. Turner had always wanted to visit the area,
and Nolan was desirous of carrying out some field work of an unspecified nature.
At this juncture information on the professors begins to grow sketchy and unreliable. It is
known that they returned to Los Angeles hi September 1966, in excellent health and high
good spirits. Surprisingly, both men proceeded to resign their positions with the University.