Message in a bottle brings back great memories of summers at the beach
Thanks to Nancy Rosen of Bluffton for sharing the story of the unusual ebb and flow of life.
"Notes in a Bottle"
By Nancy Schnurr Rosen
In the late 1970s and early 1980s I enjoyed visiting my grandparents on the south shore of Long Island in the town of Lindenhurst. My sister, my cousins and I spent our time fishing, swimming and embarking on amazing adventures that only preteen girls can conjure.
My sister and I had decided it was a good use of our time to send some messages in a bottle into the Long Island Sound. Mine was a note to the people of China, expressing my interest to visit one day.
"One day I would like to go to China, but I don't have the money. I heard that you cook and eat seaweed so I hope that this little bit helps ..." Dropping a bit of seaweed into the bottle, I tossed it in the water in the general direction of China. I provided my address and phone number so that my new Chinese penpals could locate me.
Flash forward 30 years and eight moves that ended in Bluffton, and a surprise was waiting for me last week.
My parents, who retired to Bluffton in 2002, received a note in the mail from the current homeowner of the residence in which I lived as a girl. They had received a note from a family in Sexton Island, N.Y., who had found my bottle with note and seaweed included.
They were still able to make out the text and sent the note to the address I had provided as a girl.
They could have easily thrown the bottle, note and seaweed away, rather than sending it to the Valhalla, N.Y., address. And certainly the family in my old home in Valhalla didn't have to look up my parents in their new Bluffton home.
The kindness of strangers allowed me to relive happy memories of fishing for eels, boating at Garbage Cove, honeysuckle growing on my grandparents' fence ... and writing notes in a bottle.
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This story was originally published August 20, 2013 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Message in a bottle brings back great memories of summers at the beach."