Curious Find

[rsc]

I'm currently reading a copy of Robert Caro's Master of the Senate (the third volume of his immense biography of Lyndon Johnson) borrowed from the Cambridge Public Library, and as I was riffling through the notes at the back a loose sheet of paper fell out, on which is handwritten the following :

Dear {masculine-first-name1} & {masculine-first-name2}

Thank you for your generous donation of a 2 night stay. You have been an amazingly thoughtful and giving supporter of GMDVP. The event was a huge success. We had a large crowd and the feedback from the attendees has been overwhelmingly positive. We beat our very aggressive fundraising goal by nearly 20% and earned almost 5 times as much as we did last year. I look forward to seeing you soon.

{masculine-first-name3}

GMDVP, Google tells me, is the Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project. This suggests that a recent borrower of this copy was also a gay man. I can't think of any reason why this book, fascinating as it is, would be of particular interest to gay men.

Of course, the note could have been in the book for some time -- it might even have been found and replaced by one or more successive borrowers. There's no date or any other indication of when it was sent or when (or where) the event referred to took place.

Just another one of life's entertaining little puzzles.

Comments

[jwg.livejournal.com]

The book I was reading had a much less interesting left-over: a Greyhound/Peter Pan NY - Boston bus schedule. But it makes a good bookmark.

The Cambridge public library doesn't put a due date card in each book, but instead puts a single printout of what was borrowed in one of the books or other items checked out so from my point of view it is convenient when someone leaves a bookmark substitute in the book.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

But neither of these is as exciting as the one I found in one of jwg's old Nevil Shute paperbacks when we were packing up for the renovation in 2001 (if we'd had LJ then one of us would surely have posted about it): a hotel registration slip in his father's name, which we deduced must have been from Oklahoma City ca. 1952.

Bookmarks

[willyumtx.livejournal.com]

I use playing card jokers (bugs) for bookmarks.

I often leave the card in the books I like that I have borrowed from the library.

My contribution to "found" objects.

A couple of times I have left sticky notes with commentary about a story in a book. Instant mini-review.