Message in a Bottle -5

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Becky Dingle

Dear Reader:

Today’s message in a bottle is all about the mystery of love and how love opens our eyes to what is most important. Enjoy!

“To Someone Beautiful and Far Away…” That’s how Swedish sailor Ake Viking started his message. Bored at sea one day in 1955, Ake penned a letter to a potential love interest, hoping the waves would take care of the rest. He asked whoever found it to “write to me, whoever you are.” He included his mailing address in Sweden. Then he slid the letter into a bottle and threw it over the side. 

Two years later, Ake returned home from another voyage to find a surprise in the mail. A letter from Paolina, a 17-year-old Italian girl in Syracuse, Sicily. She’d found Ake’s message in a bottle and taken it to a parish priest to translate.  “Last Tuesday, I found a bottle on the shore,” Paolina wrote in her reply, which one of Ake’s shipmates translated. “I am not beautiful, but it seems so miraculous that this little bottle should have traveled so far and long to reach me that I must send you an answer….” Ake and Paolina became long-distance pen pals, exchanging letters and photos over the course of a year. They wed in 1958, brought together by the currents of love.

(I think I need to start walking the beach shores more often looking for messages in a bottle…you just never know where love will find you 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

 

About Becky Dingle

I was born a Tarheel but ended up a Sandlapper. My grandparents were cotton farmers in Laurens, South Carolina and it was in my grandmother’s house that my love of storytelling began beside an old Franklin stove. When I graduated from Laurens High School, I attended Erskine College (Due West of what?) and would later get my Masters Degree in Education/Social Studies from Charleston Southern. I am presently an adjunct professor/clinical supervisor at CSU and have also taught at the College of Charleston. For 28 years I taught Social Studies through storytelling. My philosophy matched Rudyard Kipling’s quote: “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” Today I still spread this message through workshops and presentations throughout the state. The secret of success in teaching social studies is always in the story. I want to keep learning and being surprised by life…it is the greatest teacher. Like Kermit said, “When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.”
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3 Responses to Message in a Bottle -5

  1. isaiah46ministries says:
    September 13, 2018 at 10:16 am

    What a great love story. Douglas and I met on the Internet, and the odds against us marrying and being happy were great, but God placed in my spirit to accept emails from men of all races, not just black men, just after I prayed so hard for a life partner. And we have been married for 14 years, heading toward until death do us part. You are right: We don’t know where love will find us when God is in charge of the search.

    Reply
  2. bcparkison says:
    September 13, 2018 at 12:35 pm

    It will be interesting to see if the storm stirs up a few bottles.

    Reply

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