Message In A Bottle

So, a friend of mine, Greg, came home late one night, to find a letter in his mailbox.  It was addressed to:

Any Boys and Girls
123 Broadway Street
United States of America
 

He read the letter and laughed and laughed for hours.  Greg, a fine artist, lives in a loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  As all New Yorkers know, Broadway is just Broadway without a “Street”.  However, the Post Master General decided Greg’s loft was the right place. He couldn’t have made a better choice, as you will see.

The letter was written by Sergei and Natasha, two young Russian children.   It began:  Hello New Friends!  They were studying English, they were ages 9 and 10.   They talked about their lives, what their home life was like and how they hoped their new friends would write back to them.

He showed me the letter and we laughed and laughed.  I happened to mention this letter to a friend, a teacher of third graders, at a private school in the West Village.  Her eyes lit up.   I said, do you want the letter?  Indeed she did.
 

The class wrote a reply letter to their new friends Sergei and Natasha.  They responded.  They spent the entire school year writing back and forth to each other.  It became a special class project.  At one point Natasha asked, “what is this doll called Barbie?”

The next day every girl brought in Barbies hoping to send them to Natasha.  They chose a cross section of Barbies and shipped them off to Natasha.  Unfortunately, what they didn’t do is pay off the corrupt Russian civil servants because Natasha never received the Barbies.

This happened several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  It truly was a message in a bottle.  These two clever Russian children with sense of adventure, reached across the ocean.  Knowing we are all the same, and with a deep sense of humanity - they took a chance.

They are young adults now.  I like to think that a few have maintained contact.  That lasting friendships were made.  Perhaps even a few visits.  That the world is a tad more amicable.