ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 14, 1997 TAG: 9703140039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BRADENTON, FLA.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Being a thief must have proven too heavy a burden for the parents of six who rejoiced when they found the billfold in a phone booth in 1967.
It was 30 years ago that 17-year-old Allen Bradley lost his wallet, containing $78. Bradley got the wallet back last week - with $122 more than it originally contained.
The tan wallet, Bradley said, is ``like my personal time capsule.''
Still inside the billfold were a 1967 Elvis Presley wallet-size calendar, old photographs of girlfriends he says he no longer remembers, a receipt for the 1965 Mustang he rented for his high school prom - and a 30-year-old condom.
The wallet also contained $200 in crisp $20 bills, and a letter of apology for not returning the wallet for 30 years and for spending the $78 it once held.
``Everything is still in your wallet like it was when I found it,'' Ernie Putt of Chesapeake, Va., wrote. ``I realize that the little extra I'm sending will not correct my misdeed, but it may help.''
Putt and his wife and children were on their way to Philadelphia to visit relatives during the summer of '67 when they stopped in New Castle, Del., and found the wallet in a phone booth.
``It seemed like a godsend,'' Putt's wife, Doris, said. ``At the time, we had six children and were on our way to visit their grandparents in Philadelphia, and we were short on money.''
``We were living a more or less hand-to-mouth existence back then,'' added her husband.
Bradley was in Delaware that summer after dropping out of 10th grade in Indian Harbor Beach in Florida. He had taken a summer job in New Castle, digging ditches for $2.10 an hour.
Ernie Putt contacted the Florida Division of Motor Vehicles this year and tracked down Bradley by the Social Security number on the driver's license.
``I always thought I had been pickpocketed, but I'm glad to know I was wrong,'' Bradley said.
Bradley now carries the wallet with him for good luck, and plans to frame its 30-year-old contents - except for the $200 - to display in his home office.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 linesby CNB