Posted on 10/07/2008 1:45:27 PM PDT by BGHater
Evan Buffington knew what he had found as soon as he spotted it in the sand.
The bottle was imbedded in a small island no more than 48 square miles called Middle Caicos, part of the British West Indies. Buffington found it while vacationing with his family in late August, on a hike with the men of the family. Buffington, a resident of Makanda, Ill., dug out the bottle and brushed off the sand.
It was a clear glass Tab cola bottle, with a cork inside and an aluminum screw top to keep it sealed. Some moisture had seeped in, but its contents appeared to be preserved.
Inside was a note.
Buffington, 26, waited until his return to the United States to retrieve the note - allowing time for the excess moisture to dry. Upon opening the bottle, a note scribbled on a piece of stationery from a Norwegian America cruise ship, parched and aged from the sun, fell out.
"I am on the Vistafjord. Write back to Andrew Tallos," the message said in a child's handwriting. "324 Haviland Rd, Stamford, Conn. 06903."
Evan Buffington, right, 26, and his father pose on a beach in August on Middle Caicos, where they found a bottle there with a message from a Stamford boy
The note on stationery from a Norwegian America cruise ship dated Dec. 29, 1973, was found in a clear glass Tab bottle.
Andrew Tallos of Stamford, now in his 40s, placed a message in a bottle in 1973 that was recently discovered in Turks & Caicos. 'I really had forgotten all about the bottle, the vacation, so it's interesting to hear that it's turned up and survived,' he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at stamfordadvocate.com ...
I’m surprised that the left doesn’t have someone to file suits against these people once we can identify them for their past littering.
Is that a Titleist?
Are you a Marine Biologist?
No kidding. You know that’s the true cause of global warming. ;>
It was Obama’s birth certificate.
I’m not convinced it’s the real bottle.
It was the bottle before it wasn’t...
“My sister, Lisa, remembers the vacation really well,” Tallos said. “She’s even more excited than I am. I really had forgotten all about the bottle, the vacation, so it’s interesting to hear that it’s turned up and survived.”
Tallos was a shy, quiet child, said Lisa Seabrook, Tallos’ sister. He was respectful and smart, but the two had an “unusual” childhood. His father, Wallace, was a pilot for Pan American World Airways and his mother, Wilhelmina, was a stewardess. The family traveled a lot, and the two were often pulled out of school to go on extended family vacations around the world.
That changed when their parents fell ill, Seabrook said. Tallos’ father died of pancreatic cancer and cancer of the lymph nodes in June 1973, six months before the message was written. Their mother died of lung cancer in 1975. Tallos was about 13 then.
Before she died, Seabrook said they went one last vacation - the maiden voyage of the Vistafjord, a 25,000-ton passenger cruise ship, and the largest ship at the time. It left from New York and traveled the Southern Caribbean.
One night after dinner, Seabrook said, the Tallos family gathered at the stern of the ship and helped compose the message in a bottle. Using stationery from their cabin, a pen and a Tab bottle from dinner, Tallos wrote his name and address, with a request for the finder to write back. Together, they sealed the bottle and threw it off the back of the Vistafjord.
It is the last happy memory they had as a family, Seabrook said.
“I don’t think he ever recovered,” Seabrook said. “He was always shy, but never nervous like he is now. It’s been very hard on him - he works and keeps to himself at home with few friends and no dates.
“It rocks your confidence to the core to lose both of your parents so young. We never had anyone to ask questions to - what’s right or wrong.”
I wonder if he would like to register to vote 0bama.
The Liberal spin on this:
Ocean trash is Bush’s fault!
Thank you for this wonderful post and a break from the political nonsense!
I throw bottles in the water with messages all the time- never got one back yet.
I question the timing of this find...
OH NOES IT’S THE OCTOBER SURPRISE!!
I think all he would need for identification in Ohio is that note!
Free-for-all VOTING in Ohio! Vote Early, Vote Often
Pretend to be a democrap to make sure you get the VIP treatment *wink*
It rocks your confidence to the core to lose both of your parents so young. We never had anyone to ask questions to - whats right or wrong.
Heartbreaking.
My heart aches for children who have to cope with such circumstances.
I found one once on the beach of Litle Saint Simons Island, Georgia. The note came from some class project in S. Carolina, and had been launched about 3 months earlier. I wrote back to the kid as instructed, but never heard back. It was a bit exciting to find a note in a (plastic) bottle... would have preferred to find an IBM stock certificate from 1946.
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