Los Angeles, California
November 8, 1958
To an eighteen year old Christopher Trumbo
My dear Son,
I have at hand your most recent letter addressed, I believe, both to your mother and to me. That portion which I assume was designed to capture my attention has. I refer to your addled account of an exchange between you and Mike [Butler] relative to mensal checks from home. You may be sure I shall give it much thought.
You also inform us you haven't made holiday travel reservations because you haven't the money to pay for them. Artful fellow! Do you truly think me so stupid as to send the fare directly to you, who'd squander it in high living and end up stranded on Christmas Eve begging poor-man's pudding in some snow-swept Bowery breadline?
The procedure is this: go at once to an airline office and make round-trip reservations [not deluxe, not milk-run either]. Do it immediately, for the seasonal rush is already at hand. Notify me of the airline, flight number, date and hour of arrival, and within twenty-four hours a check made over to the airline will be delivered into your greedy fist. Take it to the seller and the deal is consummated without laying you open to temptation.
I am sending you two books I think appropriate for a young man spending five-sevenths of his time in the monkish precincts of John Jay Hall. The first is Education of a Poker Player, by Henry O. Yardley. Read it in secret, hide it whenever you leave quarters, and you'll be rewarded with many unfair but legal advantages over friend and enemy alike, not to mention that occasional acquaintance who has everything including money.
The second book I think you should share with your young companions. It is Sex Without Guilt, by a man who will take his place in history as the greatest humanitarian since Mahatma Gandhi-a manual for masturbators. That is to say, in one slim volume he has clarified the basic theory of the thing, and then, in simple layman's language, got right down to the rules and techniques. This in itself is a grand accomplishment; but what most compels my admiration is the zest, the sheer enthusiasm which Dr. Ellis has brought to his subject. The result [mailed in a plain wrapper under separate cover] is one of those fortuitous events in which the right man collides with the right idea at precisely the right time. It makes a very big bang indeed.
- Excerpt of a Dalton Trumbo [1905-1976] letter in Additional Dialogue: Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 1942-1962, pp.443-451
