WOMAN GETS MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE SENT BY HER FATHER 56 YEARS AGO

A message in a bottle sent out to sea by a New Hampshire man more than five decades ago has been returned to his daughter. The bottle was discovered by Clint Buffington of Utah while he was vacationing in the Turks and Caicos. He found a Coke bottle half-buried in the sand. The note inside the bottle said, “Return to 419 Ocean Blvd. and receive a reward of $150 from Tina, owner of the Beachcomber.” The Beachcomber was a Hampton, New Hampshire, motel owned by the now-deceased parents of Paula Pierce in 1960. Pierce’s father had written the note as a joke and cast it into the Atlantic Ocean, in New Hampshire. Buffington flew to New Hampshire to deliver the message to Pierce. She gave him the $150.
* Less ten cents for the deposit on the bottle.
* I hate to nitpick, but in today’s dollars shouldn’t it be closer to $225?
* Did the $150 at least pay for the plane tickets?
* Did he write anything sentimental or was it just another bill for his daughter?
* Meanwhile, the daughter’s thinking, “How many more of these damn things are out there that I’m going to have to pay off?”
* The note was a joke? Look I know some jokes take longer to get than others but 56 years?
* Screenplay alert: the phony message in a bottle that draws someone into a plot line.
* Hey, give me a second. I’m just thinking of the plot.
* Okay, the bottle is planted as the victim is walking down the beach. He takes it to the address for a reward. Then all hell breaks loose.