My thoughts were well that is interesting and I liked the image of a bottle on a sandy beach, ocean in the background with the modern device inside the bottle waiting for anyone to open up the secret messages inside.
Then I thought well water would destroy the memory stick. Then I thought sealing wax like on a wine and booze bottles would fix that problem and that would have made the photo look even cooler if the person taking the photo had thought of that little addition.
Alas they did not. Still it was a good photo.
It also reminded me of when I was kid. I grabbed a coke bottle back when they were made of glass and not the thin glass that they are today, it was thick ass glass that took a beating. For some reason there were corks lying around the house too various sizes and shapes and I found one that fit the bottle.
I then wrote a note in the bottle saying that I was this kid living in this particular town, going to this particular school, what I liked and if this message was found would you please, please, and probably threw in another please for good measure and as I was a kid I didn’t think it would be annoying to write please so many times in a row, write me back. I included my address as well.
Which in retrospect probably wasn’t really all that smart because and today everyone would be like WTH dude, do you want a stalker to come kill you.
Admittedly that isn’t very high on my list of things to get done in my lifetime.
So thinking ahead I put my letter in a plastic bag in case the bottle leaked and like the photographer didn’t think to seal the bottle in wax at the cap point. I was a kid though and while we had corks lying around we did not have sealing wax, so there is that in my favor.
Then once I had my message in the bottle I ran down to the town bridge which crosses the Cheat River. It was raining and the river was up and moving very fast. The water was brown with dirt and stirred up silt, and for what ever reason I tossed the bottle out as far as I could, because dropping it straight down seemed less dramatic I suppose.
It was dark and raining and I couldn’t see the bottle any longer a second or two after it left my hand. I don’t think I even saw it hit the water it was a very exciting moment. But from there the bottle was out in the world on its’ own waiting to be found where would it go, how far would it go. The excitement lasted for a few days and my daydreams of where the bottle might actually end up filled my head.
Well technically it could have possibly made it to the Gulf of Mexico
The progression would be from the Cheat, to the Monongahela to the Ohio River to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico… to the whole wide world
Well to a kid probability means squat and that bottle had a great chance of making it to anyone in the world who might be near a body of water.
The reality is that the bottle survived and made it a pretty good distance and made it to the second river in that chain to the whole world and as luck would have it a kid found the bottle. An adventurous kid who liked to play on river banks like myself, except this adventurous kid was a girl.
I got her letter a few weeks after tossing my bottle into the river, closer to two months. So the bottle just sat there for a while I suppose. And largely I had forgotten about the bottle but the when the letter was there when I got home from school. It was one of those confetti moments when you just explode with happiness.
The girl and I wrote for a while and then we just stopped. I don’t remember why just that we don’t write anymore. This was before computers and easy photographs. So I never knew what she looked like and she did not know what I looked like. Hell we may have met later in life. I don’t remember her name and if the letters still exist then they would be in my mother’s house probably in the attic hard to say. Would be fun to find them if they are still there. I wondered about this person after seeing the bottle photo and thought what her life if like today and does she remember a childhood adventure of finding a message in a bottle on the banks of a river one autumn day.
Because I’ve had success with that little experiment I’ve done the same thing a few other times and tossed bottles into the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and a few rivers here and there. It has only worked that one time. But I have moved a lot so if it did work other times it was after I moved and the letter probably got sent back to the person.
I suppose GeoQuests replace the message in the bottle sort of adventures and my blog to letter box challenge is very much like the letter in the bottle thing. Except that the river this time was cyber space. That adventure continues and it is never too late to jump on board if you want to play as always the PO Box is below. I like to get cards and letters and it makes the spider happy.
I would encourage people to participate in this type of adventure but certainly use so precautions like a PO Box or just and email address that you set up specifically for the adventure. You will be surprised by the amount of excitement it actually creates in your life.
In other news…
Confirmation of the acronym in this last week from an unlikely source so that was fun
Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely
Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday
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Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood.
Ciao,
PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don
PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015
