Dearest Friends,

It becomes my painful duty to write you a letter of apology instead of sending
you the Christmas remembrance that I had intended for you.

Knowing so well the appetites, likes and dislikes of my close friends, I made up
a list of twelve of my best friends and went down and bought twelve quarts of
eighteen-year-old Glenmorangie single malt whiskey. Nothing but the very finest
for my friends. I took this home and put it in my closet and intended to put it
up in nice Christmas packages and send it out to you late this week just before
Christmas.

K0CKB got to fumbling around in the closet and found the liquor and didn't
understand just what I intended to do with it. So she came up and told me to
empty the contents of every bottle down the sink, or else. So I proceeded with
the unpleasant task.

I withdrew the cork from the first bottle and poured the contents down the sink,
with the exception of one glass which I drank. I extracted the cork of the
second bottle and likewise poured the contents down the sink, with the exception
of the glass which I drank. I pulled the sink from the next bottle from the cork
of the next and drank one sink out of it and threw the rest down the glass. I
pulled the sink out of the next glass and poured the cork from the bottle. Then
I corked the sink with the glass, bottled the drink and drank the pour.

When I had everything emptied, I steadied the house with one hand and counted
the bottles, corks, glasses, andsinks with the other, which were twenty-nine.
And, as the houses came by, I counted them again and finally had all the houses
and bottles and corks and glasses and sinks counted, except one house which I
drank.

So this accounts, dear friend, for your not receiving a more stimulating
Christmas present than this letter. I sincerely hope that from some other source
you get all the joys and happiness that come from Christmas remembrances.

"May the Good Lord take care of you, but not too soon."

73, Hans, K0HB
--
"1944 Poster Child for The National Precocious Little ******* Campaign"

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