By Mike Johnson
Scrolling through e-Bay for 1960’s comic books, I found a 19-copy group of Betty and Veronica issues from 1965-1969.
I loved those dates because that's when I started my interest in comics.
The price was on the cheap side of reasonable so I looked closer.
Better, it added the phrase, “or best offer.”
It was a nice surprise to find so many comics, in my date and price range, from one seller.
So I made a slightly lower offer.
I was pleasantly surprised again when the offer was accepted.
Sweet.
A week later the comics arrived, packaged well and just as described.
The seller even tossed in an unexpected free issue thanking me for the purchase.
Another pleasant surprise.
Yesterday, I pulled out the pile and started reading.
I was halfway into issue #125, May of 1966, when I came across an order form for an upcoming 25-cent “spectacular” issue.
As sometimes occurs, the original owner of the comic had completed the order form but never got around to cutting it out to mail.
I love these finds because they're time capsules from the past, documenting some child’s little dream.
Mail-order was a rare and exciting event in the 1960’s.
The process of completing the order form, sending the money (cash or coin!), and the long anticipation of arrival, was delicious fun.
In this case, the owner was a girl named Cynthia.
She’d filled in her last name and full address, in neat penmanship, all grown-up proper-like, including zip code.
Zip codes didn’t start use until 1963.
While smiling, a thought popped in.
I climbed out of my little beanbag comic-reading chair and sat at the computer.
I entered the girl’s unique name into the browser and up popped a Cincinnati phone number.
The girl’s address in the comic book was Cincinnati.
Could she still be there 58 years later?
What the heck, this might be fun.
I dialed the number.
An answering machine picked up.
I started a message saying this would be an unusual call.
A woman picked up curious, but suspicious of some stranger.
Now it was her turn to be pleasantly surprised.
I told her the story, read her the old address written in the comic and amazingly, it was her!
She had owned that comic book at age 13!
She’d loved Betty and Veronica and Archie and his entire tribe of characters.
She was now 71.
She couldn’t stop laughing from astonishment.
I could feel her beaming through the line.
My call took her back 58 years and she became a little girl again.
I felt as giddy as her, stunned I’d so easily found this comic book girl with the nice handwriting and unfulfilled order.
She asked for my name and location.
Lost in the moment, neither of us thought of sending her the comic.
I hope she wakes up today and connects to ask.
This is her comic book more than mine. Her name's in it!
If she doesn’t ask, she’s going to get another call from me for her current address.
I need to mail her this time capsule from the past!
Then she'll re-experience that delicious childhood anticipation of mail-order magic working its way across the country to her in Cincinnati.
And of course, a dose of the Betty and Veronica she loved as a child.
What a pleasant surprise for us both!
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