Message in a Bottle

Washed shore, Aquatic Park San Francisco

The South End Rowing club is a raucous place. A club better known for its membership of longshore men, union workers, cable car operators and cops, it’s an unusual place to read a plaintive cry from a 10 year old.

Yesterday, the Sunrisers, a group of fast swimmers that jump every morning into the chilly waters of the San Francisco Bay, came upon this bottle floating near the opening of our cove. The Dolphin Club and the South End are two of the oldest clubs in the city, but cost less than a dollar a day to join. They host the famous Alcatraz swims and both have saunas at the end of their piers, a palliative to the otherwise curative waters of open bay swimming. How this bottle crossed an international shipping channel intact, and found its way into our sauna, caused a fair bit of excitement among our swim pod.

Tried as we did with wet hands and even a knife, it was eventually the small digits of Tiny Tim that pried the message out. A normally boisterous sauna fell quiet as 200 pound men listened in silence.

“Mama, I wish you could see me growing up” the note started. The young author’s age betrayed by pink hearts and floral but neat writing. “I miss you so much”.

Written on the back of a receipt for a blueberry muffin at a gas station across the bay, dated just two days prior. When we thought her pain barely relatable, and at an age most of us have daughters of our own, she took us many fathoms deeper:

“I hope you have found Dad.”