Dear Zits:
Your filthy familiarity is loathsome, and your clumsily veiled threats can only spur me to pursue you to your total collapse. Your bluffs concerning what my colleagues and students have implied to you about my tenure are obviously fallacious and woefully small. The thought of you knowing Dean Curry, much less being his "former classmate", is ludicious; in fact, I no longer believe that you even attended Harvard, much less graduated.
Piss off,
Richardson
29 July 1975
Dear Jerk-off Gerry:
I am aware this is what your students call you. Are you? Your students tell me they don't believe half of what you have to say on your subject; do you think they will honor what you know about typewriters? There is not actually a world of Gojmerac owners abroad in the land.
By now you will have heard from my classmate, Dean ("Pete") Curry. I am sorry, but letters which tell longtime members of the business community to "piss off" are perhaps what the Faculty Code of Ethics refers to as "morally reprehensible." We'll see, jerk-off.
Groh
31 July 1975
Dear Groh:
Up yours. I have painfully addressed myself, at some length, to the points raised in Dean Curry's letter to me (you obviously misrepresented the facts), and in no time, I'm sure, that embarrassment will be settled. As for you, I have a list that is growing-- some twenty-odd names!-- of students who feel they have been abused by your slop which passes for repairs, your hideous overpricing, your dishonorable intentions. For example, Jeremy Theobald writes from his mother's summer home in Great Leg, "The man is a crook and I will do everything I can to see he is locked up." And Peter Twombley writes from New York, where he is an assistant librarian, that "Zeke Groh is slimy. My Olympia has never worked right since I let him clean it." Olympias are not Gojmeracs, Groh. The evidence will be piling up here all summer; I am collecting it. I am also informing my department chairman, Dr. Lipsy, of your crude attempts at blackmail. You've had it.
Richardson
5 August 1975
Dear Richardson:
I have had to write good old Bob Lipsy, with whom I have played squash for years, to tell him of your petulant and irritating juvenilia. Also, my lawyer says that "piss off" (one time) and "up yours" (another) could constitute something called a sustained obscenity. As opposed to an isolated ejaculation, a sustained obscenity is a tougher charge. And, lastly, for your information, Jeremy Theobald and Peter Twombley are both dropouts whom I had to ask to leave my shop when I caught them playing with each other in the erotic-book section. Some evidence you got piling up, for sure. I suggest we end this whole thing. You chuck the Gojmerac in the goddamn Atlantic and see if it can float back where it belongs. Then stop in, during our fall sale, and pick up one of the new Olympias. No doubt you've heard what a wizard I am at cleaning them.
Good Old Groh
9 August 1975
Dear Zeke:
I have been advised by my department chairman, Dr. Lipsy, to discontinue what he refers to as my "plaguing" you. He has told me he expects me not to "threaten" you again. I am hopeful that when I see Dr. Lipsy, in the fall, I can make my position in our dispute perfectly clear. I do not believe that the love of playing squash with you can run thicker in "good old Bob" Lipsy's veins than his respect for scupulousness. I am, temporarily, ceasing fire; you will not hear from me again-- for a while. You are not to take that remark as a threat. I was quite unprepared for the extent of your malpractice and the baseness of your tactics. My lawyer, for example, told me there is no such thing as a "sustained obscenity" or an "isolated ejaculation". Even your lawyer lies! You are not to construe that remark as abusive; I am merely speculating. Have a rotten summer. May the Charles flood; may your typewriters rust. Now forget I said that.
Richardson
