“Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes;
And, to begin, wench — so God help me, la! —
My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.”
~ Berowne, Act V, Scene II, Love’s
Labour’s Lost
So, a little over a year or so ago I was working for a
crappy little magazine that focused on the transportation industry. It was an
infinitely dull job…not helped by the fact that the most of the people that
worked there were myopic twats. I’ll even go a bit further to say that a couple
of them were, I’m quite sure, certifiably insane.
One of the much-needed respites I would take from this place
was during my lunch hour when I would visit a used record store that was nearby.
It was a cool store, with an equally cool vibe, that awoke many memories of my
late 70’s, early 80’s childhood, sitting in front of a “Hi-Fi” stereo listening
to classic records from the likes of
KISS, Queen, Rush, Aerosmith, Styx and AC/DC with various friends and
family members.
On one of my last trips there, I came across some buried
treasure of sorts. While a was checking out a near mint copy of the Rolling
Stones self-titled inaugural record, an envelope fell out of the sleeve and
landed at my feet. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I quickly snatched
it up.
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| Mick and Keith should write a song about this letter and call it "Carol" then set it to the tune of "Angie" |
It was a letter, and a rather old one by the looks of it. It
was address to a “Miss Carol Makers” who lived in Northeast Philadelphia (the
store where I found it is in South Jersey). It had a 5 cent, George Washington
stamp on it which
was made/used in 1962-63. But there was no return address and no postmark,
so it obviously was never mailed.
For a fleeting moment, I thought about taking the letter to
the counter and turning it in. But, my journalistic instincts got the better of
me: I needed to know what was inside this envelope. So I quickly pocketed my
find and made a hasty exit, as if I was a sketchy, teenage shoplifter boosting
a couple Beastie Boys cassettes.
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| Never mailed...why, I wonder? |
When I got back to my office at work, I opened the envelope to
find a love letter of sorts. It was nothing Shakespearean in stature or rhyme,
but it was endearing in its own ham-fisted way. And it even had a bit of wonky sexual
innuendo tacked on at the end as far as I can tell.
The letter is printed in brown ink, maybe with a felt-tip
pen or marker of some sort, and it’s in ALL CAPS. It reads as follows:
“Dear Carol,
“The boy you should hate is on the other end of this pen. I’ve had a
lousy Christmas this week. I thought I was having a good time. Thursday night I
finally realized I was being selfish, practically ignoring you. There’s NO
reason at all for not seeing you, I’m just not good to you, like, I just
realized having such a girl as you I should do everything I can to talk to you
& be with you.
“You’ve put up with me for almost a year now, I’ll never forget this
past year you’ve been better to me than you should have. I wasn’t half as good
to you as you were to me. You never did anything wrong to hurt me. But no I was
to (sic) foolish, first ‘Mary’ then
I didnt see you, or call you for a long time (you’ll never guess whats on the
radio) There’s an arrow drawn here
from the end of “radio” back up to the name “Mary.”
“But you are so great to me, that those things didn’t matter. (I guess
to you they’re both like scars.) All that I can say is if I lost you now Id
fall apart. I told you before Ill never hurt you again I’ve tried not to &
Im gonna try harder not to. I’m not going to hurt you. Lets forget all our hard
times Sunday and start (his “S” looks
much like a “B” here…not sure why) new.
“Well Im gonna stop cause I (this
“I” looks much like an arrow here…again, not sure why. My best guess is that
his hand was getting tired because after the first two paragraphs he started
skipping many apostrophes in his contractions as well) got to call you in about 20 min.
Love,
Bob”
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| Click on either page for the full-size version |
There are two rather odd postscripts to this letter. Off to
the left hand side and in a bubble of sorts is: “I got 10 finger-nails again.”
This seems to be a point of pride for ol’ Bobby, I mean, why else would you
mention something that fucking weird in a love letter? Was Carol appalled at
his lack of 10 fingernails? Did she say something along the lines of “Call me
when you have 10 fingernails again, you freak!?” The mind boggles at the
possibilities…
Under that is something ever weirder, and this is where the
sexual innuendo part kicks in. Taking up the last third of the yellowish
stationary is a crude drawing of a gnome (I guess?) with long cap pulled down
over his eyes. Over the gnome, written in rainbow fashion are the words: “BURT
CAN’T SEE ANYTHING.” The name, “BURT,” is written along the brim of the gnome’s
cap. To the right of Burt is written: “lets get lost on a country road with
Burt.”
Now I could be entirely incorrect, but I’m guessing Bob
named his penis “Burt” (why some men do this still confounds me to this day), and
he’s implying that he and Miss Carol should forget their troubles and just go
bang on a country road somewhere. The “let’s get lost” line is a pretty strong
indicator to me that this is what he wanted, but it’s the gnome’s hat that
seals the deal in my mind because it looks like the tip, or reservoir, of a
condom. Take a look at it below and make up your own mind:
Since I came across this letter I’ve been rather curious as
to how things turned out for Bob and Carol, and most of all why did Bob never
bother to send it? I would think it has to do with the very last line in the
letter when Bob writes that he will be calling Carol in “about 20 minutes.”
My guess is that call either went really wrong or really right and there was no
need to send the letter after that either way.
I’m a romantic at heart and I’d like to believe that the
call went well then these two Northeast Philly kids (where I was born and
raised, hence my heightened curiosity) went on to have a wonderful life
together…regardless of Burt, Mary or the dire fingernail situation.
But who the hell knows, right??
The main reason I’m finally writing this post is to use the
power of the internet and/or social media to find out what really happened with
Bob and Carol. So, if you are reading this and would like to know more
yourself, please share this anywhere and everywhere…especially if you live in
the Philadelphia area. Let’s see if we can use this 21st century
tech to track down these two, 60s love birds.
Here’s what’s known from the letter itself:
- It was written in the early to mid-60’s (the stamp seems to be from 1962-63 and the first Stones album was released in the U.S. May of 1964).
- It was written to Miss Carol Makers who lived at 2828 Sandyford Rd. Philadelphia, PA 19152.
- It appears that Bob’s last name is Martini and that he lived at 11606 Depue St. Philadelphia, PA 19116. If you look closely at the stationary in the pictures above, it has a name and address on it (Mrs. David Martini 11606 Depue St. Philadelphia, PA 19116) that is crossed out for some reason, so it may not be legit, but I’m guessing that ol’ Bob used his Mom’s stationary and didn’t want Carol to know.
