A message in a bottle travels 21 years and 1,735 miles
Dan Brawner
March 25, 2008
They tell us the polar ice caps are shrinking and so is the dollar. We´ve just started the sixth year of a war that could last forever and it´s beginning to look like spring never will get here. And yet, this week there was a piece of news that could cancel out all the bad news.
On March 21, Merle Slapsey of Nelson Lagoon, Alaska, a fishing village of about 70 residents, was beachcombing along the shore of the Bering Sea when found something that appeared ordinary. Instead, it turned out to be a miracle.
Slapsey, 34, a part-time bear hunting guide, often walks the beach looking for Japanese glass fishing floats or other such anonymous junk washed up from distant shores, battered reminders of the outside world. But this time, he found something different. It was a plastic soda bottle. And there was a note inside.
Slapsey cut open the bottle to get at the envelope and the typed letter it contained. It was from a little girl in Seattle who explained this was part of a science experiment in her 4th grade class. She wrote, "Please send me the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung." It was dated 1987.
The plastic, 2-liter bottle had traveled 21 years and 1,735 miles, buffeted by high winds and brutal waves along rocky coastlines to end up in a quiet, backwoods town with more moose than human beings. The North City school where Mrs. Aguayo´s 4th grade science class (according to the note) launched their soda bottles to "study oceans and learn about people in distant lands" is now closed. Slapsey was intrigued. With some difficulty, he tracked down little Emily who is now a 30-year-old accountant (now Emily Shih) and still living in Seattle. She was delighted to hear that her bottle had been found after all these years, although she admits she has no memory of the school project.
If this story had been a made-for-TV movie, Emily and Merle would fall in love and get married, the emptiness in their lives finally fulfilled. But that´s not going to happen. The real message in the bottle is not that "true love will find a way" or "there´s somebody for everybody". The real message is ...hope.
When faced with overwhelming odds–when all else fails, put your faith in the power of pure, dumb luck. Mrs. Aguayo´s class didn´t construct meticulous computer models of ocean currents. They just threw some bottles in the Atlantic and hoped somebody would find them. And somebody did. Little Emily Hwaung innocently promised to send her photograph to any stranger who found her bottle expecting he or she would be nice. And she was right. Miracles do happen. But sometimes it takes a while.
On March 21, Merle Slapsey of Nelson Lagoon, Alaska, a fishing village of about 70 residents, was beachcombing along the shore of the Bering Sea when found something that appeared ordinary. Instead, it turned out to be a miracle.
Slapsey, 34, a part-time bear hunting guide, often walks the beach looking for Japanese glass fishing floats or other such anonymous junk washed up from distant shores, battered reminders of the outside world. But this time, he found something different. It was a plastic soda bottle. And there was a note inside.
Slapsey cut open the bottle to get at the envelope and the typed letter it contained. It was from a little girl in Seattle who explained this was part of a science experiment in her 4th grade class. She wrote, "Please send me the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung." It was dated 1987.
The plastic, 2-liter bottle had traveled 21 years and 1,735 miles, buffeted by high winds and brutal waves along rocky coastlines to end up in a quiet, backwoods town with more moose than human beings. The North City school where Mrs. Aguayo´s 4th grade science class (according to the note) launched their soda bottles to "study oceans and learn about people in distant lands" is now closed. Slapsey was intrigued. With some difficulty, he tracked down little Emily who is now a 30-year-old accountant (now Emily Shih) and still living in Seattle. She was delighted to hear that her bottle had been found after all these years, although she admits she has no memory of the school project.
If this story had been a made-for-TV movie, Emily and Merle would fall in love and get married, the emptiness in their lives finally fulfilled. But that´s not going to happen. The real message in the bottle is not that "true love will find a way" or "there´s somebody for everybody". The real message is ...hope.
When faced with overwhelming odds–when all else fails, put your faith in the power of pure, dumb luck. Mrs. Aguayo´s class didn´t construct meticulous computer models of ocean currents. They just threw some bottles in the Atlantic and hoped somebody would find them. And somebody did. Little Emily Hwaung innocently promised to send her photograph to any stranger who found her bottle expecting he or she would be nice. And she was right. Miracles do happen. But sometimes it takes a while.
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