Community Chat

[BirkiLady]

@Kachina624  It was a great dream for us as children and for my son as a youngster. In reality, do corks last long in water? Highly doubtful. Would any paper or handwriting last? Of course not! But it was great fun to send those bottles flying into the unknown with hopes of hearing back from some far-away, exotic place! (It wouldn't be a blah place.)

[Noel7]

---

@BirkiLadywrote:

@Noel7Thank you, Noel. My mom was a journalist, an editor, and Director of Publications. She loved history and the written word. I speak English and French fluently and have traveled in all areas of Europe; my sister speaks English and Spanish and prefers to travel in South America (and was also a journalist). Grammar, writing and a love of reading is a favorite in our families. Cannot think of a better legacy for mom to have left us!

---

@BirkiLady

That’s nice to know. You obviously inherited her talent 🙂

[Noel7]

---

@Kachina624wrote:

Does anyone else think it's strange that paper in a leaky bottle would last over 100 years?  You'd think at some point it would disintegrate.

I don’t think so, the water could have gotten in when they opened it.  There was a record of it being sent, if I recall, and it was authenticated by the German experts, I’ll take their word for it.

[BirkiLady]

@Noel7 @Kachina624  Old documents are kept in hermitically sealed cases to protect them. Otherwise, our Constitution and all precious documents around the World would have decomposed naturally.  Great question.

[Noel7]

---

@BirkiLadywrote:

@Noel7 @Kachina624  Old documents are kept in hermitically sealed cases to protect them. Otherwise, our Constitution and all precious documents around the World would have decomposed naturally.  Great question.

---

@BirkiLady

i know, climate and light control.  We saw several in D.C. including the Constitution.  Low lights and in a sealed display.

[BirkiLady]

@ Philadelphia. 

[RainCityWoman]

When my dad passed, I went to the beach on Whidbey Island to write a eulogy. I wept as I put my thoughts together, and I read it aloud over and over till I thought I could get through it with my composure at his memorial.  I looked up at the water in the Straits of Juan de Fuca and there was a green plastic pop bottle floating way out in the water. I kept watching it because it looked as if it had something white inside it. I decided that my dad was trying to send me a message somehow from beyond, so I waited till the bottle washed ashore in a kelp bed. I waded in and got it. When I finally got the message out of the bottle, I laughed. The bottle had been thrown into the water a few miles up the shore at Fort Casey. A visitor who lived only a ferry ride away threw it in hoping to hear a year or so later from whoever found it on the other side of the world. He left his address, so I sent him a note telling him where it came ashore. I was disappointed because my desperate need to have a sign from my dad had been thwarted by reality. I am a spiritual but not religious person, but I can believe in the mystical at times. Anyway, I'm sure the guy who threw the bottle in was disappointed as well. Months later I came to the conclusion that it was a sign from my dad, reminding me that there's no such thing as magic,  that life goes on, and he wanted me to live my life and not be consumed with sadness and loss. 

[Noel7]

---

@RainCityWomanwrote:

When my dad passed, I went to the beach ion Whidbey Island to write a eulogy. I wept as I put my thoughts together, and I read it aloud over and over till I thought I could get through it with my composure at his memorial.  I looked up at the water in the Straights of Juan de Fuca and there was a green plastic pop bottle floating way out in the water. I kept watching it because it looked as if it has something white inside it. I decided that my dad was trying to send me a message somehow from beyond, so I waited till the bottle washed ashore in a kelp bed. I waded out and got it. When I finally got the message out of the bottle, I laughed. The bottle had been thrown into the water a few miles up the shore at Fort Casey. A visitor who lived only a ferry ride away threw it in hoping to hear a year or so later from whoever found it on the other side of the world. He left his address, so I sent him a note telling him where it came ashore. I was disappointed because my desperate need to have a sign from my dad had been thwarted by reality. I am a spiritual but not religious person, but I can believe in the mystical at times. Anyway, I'm sure the guy who threw the bottle in was disappointed as well. Months later I came to the conclusion that it was a sign from my dad, reminding me that there's no such thing as magic,  that life goes on, and he wanted me to live my life and not be consumed with sadness and loss. 

---

A beautiful story @RainCityWoman  Thank you for sharing it, it is meaningful.