“Dear Peter White: I never thought I would be writing to a Miss Lonelyhearts columnist…”
A Letter to the Host of WMNH 95.3-FM’s “The Morning Show”
NOTE: The following letter is printed as a public service. Recently, I received a copy of this tome from my college roommate, George, who was an acquaintance of the former radio personality who authored it. George & his missus have visited me many times in the Queen City, where they became familiar with the fine programming of Manchester’s public radio station, WMNH 95.3 FM. Entranced by the “Lonelyhearts” segment of THE MORNING SHOW WITH PETER WHITE, Mr. and Mrs. George asked me to forward this letter to the appropriate parties. Typos have not been corrected , since they might give Mr. White a clue as to the correspondent’s state of mind.
Debuting in 2016, THE MORNING SHOW has become a Queen City Institution, as is apparent from Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig’s & The Board of Aldermen’s declaration of September 18, 2020 as “Peter White Day.” — JH
Dear Peter White, host of the Morning Show with Peter White:
I never thought I would be writing to a Miss Lonelyhearts columnist, but I am at a crossroads in my life. Please excuse me beforehand for the length of my communication, as I know long letters can irritate you.
Recently, after a consultation with my veterans hospital doctor, I was told I had many long and productive years ahead of me, but I don’t believe her.
My physician is very young and though she speaks English perfectly finely, I detected a slight accent that may indicate she was born abroad (no pun intended) and may have been educated at one of those cut-rate medical schools in the Caribbean that they stock the V.A. medical staff with. What’s an old vet to do, I ask you?
As a sexagenarian, a stone’s throw from the ripe and frequently terminal age of 70, I feel, upon consulting Wikipedia and other online sites here at the senior center, that I have at best, another six, maybe nine months to live, before I either am shoveled into a ditch to push up daisies or become a dribbling, raving simpleton, stuck up in the Old Soldier’s Home in Tilton, where I will be given the infamous “black pill” to finish me off and free up bed-space for some other unfortunate old duffer of a vet, who, like me too, has also been thrown onto the Great Garbage Pail of Life.
I need advice, and I believe you are the one to give me the straight skinny, as you will soon understand, as I tell you my tale of woe from oh so long ago. (How do you like them love apples. Pretty good, eh? I was known for the delightful rhythms of my banter. I was a well known warbler of popular music and wrote that anthem of the early post-Stonewall inverted vet set, “Blow Me, Baby, Down Your Breezeway.”)
Many years ago, I was a disc jokey at WQST (“The Quest”) in North Adams, Mass. I did a light jazz program from 3–5 pm weekday afternoons, and while the minimal salary was not enough to keep body and soul together, my wife Ernestine had a great job at the phone company, so everything was hunky-dory, finance-wise, if not not so, relationship-wise. But that’s how it breaks, cookie-wise.I found that marriage to such a demanding woman did not suit me, though I showed her every courtesy, such as moving my buttocks away from her when I farted in bed.
The source of our marital troubles?
Well you see, at The Quest, my engineer was a young rascal whom, we’ll call, let’s say, “Paul.” In fact, Paul did look more than a little bit like that rock ’n’ roller who had the best career after the The Beatles breakup, with a slightly asymmetrical but still pleasing face and a mop of black hair, but let me pause now while I collect myself, recalling the breakup with Ernestine (not her real name) and my exile from Paul (not his real name as you probably know), who would soon become dead to me….
“Paul,” as I’ll recall him, was of a kind that those in the so-called “gay” community call a “bear.” B-E-A-R. Like the animal, though Paul was always a real gent to me, though he would get upright when I would sidle-up to him at the side-by-side urinals at the studio john for a pee.
Long story short: My marriage counselor said — my marriage counselor, and Ernestine’s — he said I was obsessed with Paul. Paul had become, in the words of the psychologist, a “sensual obsession.” Ernestine, frankly, could not understand my attraction to the young man.
Miss Lonelyhearts of The Morning Show, I can honestly say that, at the time, neither did I.
When I mentioned to our marriage counselor, who I assumed was a strict Freudian, that perhaps it was the dark piercing stare that admitted a kind of laser light or USS Enterprise-like force field (I mean transporter beam) from the coal-black orbs he stared at me with during our daily broadcasts, that it reminded me of the button eyes of my childhood teddy bear, Judy (whom I still have, by the way, unlike my wife), the counselor laughed.
He laughed at me…. Ernestine was appalled.
I know your time is precious, and short — as is the lifespan still allotted to me — so let’s get on with it.
I was fired from The Quest after “Button Eyes” (that is, Paul) alleged that I had stolen his jacket. It was the early ’80s, and Paul wore like a second skin a cordovan red leather jacket, one of those tight-fitting shorties that ended right above the buns that first became popular with the disco craze. I had sported one myself in the 1970s, when Ernestine and I would go disco dancing, but she gave it to the Salvation Army after it became “ratty” (her words, not mine) after so much use.
The real story is, Paul’s birthday was coming up, and I merely borrowed the jacket so I could get it dry cleaned, as a gift to him. He wore it everyday to the studio, and such overuse can cause hygiene problems. I didn’t want him to suffer as I had, from faded cracked leather falling off a favorite garment, opening one up to ridicule and disgust. I merely wanted to save his jacket. For him.
The truth behind all tragedy is always simple. I misplaced the ticket for the dry cleaners, who promised me a fast 24 hour turnaround so that Paul wouldn’t be inconvenienced. (I purloined the jacket on a Friday so it would be ready, flesh and clean, on Monday. How surprised he would be, being reunited with his leather coat, something I could never count on, after what Ernestine had done to me. The jacket had been sold by the time I had got down to the thrift shop. Never more, never more, would I be able to strut in it, reflected in my glory.)
I still dispute the charges made my wife Ernestine at my trial for petty larceny (a class 2 misdemeanor in the Commonwealth of Mass.) that I had moved out of our marriage bed and into the den, so I could sleep with said jacket on the couch at night, using it as a “sort of comforter” she said. The bitch.
Whatever the truth of the matter, and things are never as simple as people say, those nights were troubled and sleep didn’t come. I had become an unemployed pariah, mocked in the North Adams newspaper both before, during and after my trial. What really broke my heart was when Ernestine produced said garment in court. I not only lost my most precious possession, linking me to Paul, but she filed a petition for divorce that very day in the Family Law division of the courthouse, claiming that my irresponsible actions had denied her the comforts of connubial bliss our marriage contract had entitled her to.
Now, I am an old man, left with only my memories, a pitiful pension, and my original “Button Eyes,” the tattered but steadfast bruin, Judy (if you’re wondering, Judy, his male the name a childish corruption of the name of my patron saint, Jude).
St. Jude has let me down repeatedly. I hope you will not do the same.
My question is: Recently, on a seniors bus trip to the East Boston casino, I saw Paul again, for the first time in many man years. He was still plying his craft, as a sound engineer, in a glass booth at the casino’s radio station, WJAK.
Miss Morning Show Lonelyhearts, my own lonely heart nearly burst and I was breathless when those coal black Button Eyes clamped on to me, for just a moment, as Paul looked up from his sound mixing board. I was just choked with emotion. In fact, so overwhelmed was I, I fainted dead away, there in front of the casino’s glass fronted radio studio. I had to be revived by paramedics, necessitating my trip to the V.A.
My question — my need — is advice on whether I should sign up for the next senior outing, and upon return to the casino, burst through the radio studio’s glass door, get down on my knees, and confess all to Paul.
Sign me,
Ever Faithful to Judy (and Paul)
