From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 18 - August 1994
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
Classic Comment
by Terry E. Scott, England
Old Cuffs
Back in the early days, Ron used the term 'Old Cuffs' occasionally
in Professional Auditor's Bulletins (PABs) and the like. I'd like
to share with you some data about this that, as far as I know, does
not appear in any official Scientology publications.
'Old Cuffs' made its first appearance in PAB number 45, dated
4th February 1955. We received PABs by mail every two weeks in those
days, four to six printed pages in about A5 format (in today's paper
sizes).
The subject of PAB 45 was Mimicry. After three or four hundred words,
it finished with a copyright sign, but then there was an addition
in Ron's own hand-writing. Under the heading 'Old Cuffs' (and
he wrote that within quotation marks) was an eleven word postscript.
Such notes in later PABs were usually short, and not all were headed
'Old Cuffs'.
So what were 'Old Cuffs'? Ron was an excellent story-teller,
and wrote science-fiction, westerns and much more. One character that
he created appeared regularly in Astounding Science Fiction
in the 1940s: Ole Doc Methusaleh. Ron used the pen-name Rene Lafeyette
for his Ole Doc yarns.
Ole Doc's territory was the galaxy, and his spacecraft was called
the U.M.S. Morgue. The U.M.S. stood for Universal Medical
Society, which 'ruled the universe of medicine...owed allegiance
to no government because it had been born to take the deadly secrets
of medicine out of the hands of governments...'- I quote
from the story Plague in ASF for September 1949. Ole
Doc looked 25, was nine hundred and six, and he and his fellows were
generally accorded tremendous respect, and were dubbed Soldiers of
Light.
Anyway, Ole Doc had gold cuffs to his shirt sleeves. Whenever he
wanted
to make a note of something, he would write it on a cuff. There were
stacks of these Old Cuffs filed around the ship. And legend has it
that Ole Doc Methusaleh came out of some of Ron's own track. So now
you know what Old Cuffs were and maybe a bit more about Ron's
background.
Ole Doc is being welcomed aboard a navy spacecraft, and he's in a
bit of a hurry. 'Belay the honors,' he says to the commander
at the airlock, 'I want to attend this conference'. When Ole
Doc has gone into the ship, the commander looks in his book of
courtesies
to find what honors would have been required. A chief warrant bosun
remarks, 'It won't be there, commander, that's a Soldier of Light'.
'It isn't here,' said the commander. 'Neither is God,'
said the bosun.