Up Up and Away

I just read about a high school student who put a message in a wine bottle and sealed it and tossed it into the Atlantic Ocean. Six years later a young lad and his dad were out walking along the coast of Ireland when they found it. I've always wanted to put a note in a bottle, but the ocean is so clogged with debris, and I figured my bottle would surely roll back in on the first wave and be found by an environmentalist intent on punishing me for fouling the sea or shore. So I never did it.

However, many years ago when I worked at another school, we had some sort of celebration and did a helium balloon release. I attached this laminated message to each balloon string: I released this balloon into the sky. If you find it, please reply. Well, a week later we received a telephone call from a Shriner's clown who said he'd found one of the balloons about five miles away near the railroad tracks. He brought the students a bag of balloons. We were thrilled. Then a week later we received a letter from a farmer's wife in Ohio. She and her young son had spied the balloon which had landed in a flooded field. They anxiously waited days for the water to recede, then they pulled on their boots and ran out to retrieve it. What excitement that response generated. St. Louis to Ohio... what a head wind that must have been!

Did you ever send a message off into the air or sea or to heaven for a deceased loved one?