It was a children's book I read when I was about 10 years old. A man carves a wooden canoe with an Indian sitting in it. He pours a molten lead keel into a slot carved on the bottom so the canoe will float upright then he sets it in a small creek in Canada. He gave the little carved warrior the Indian name Paddle To The Sea. The story follows Paddle To The Sea's journey from brook to stream to river to lake, over a dam, through a city with it's pollution and, finally, to the sea. He washes up on a far away beach and lies among the driftwood for a long time but is found by a man who repaints his faded colors and sets him afloat once again.
I always think of that story when I toss one of these messengers into the water.
Every once in a great while someone finds one of them and sends me an email. Maybe people have found my earliest messages but they would have sent letters to an address where I no longer live. I'll never know.
One of my wanderers washed up on a beach recently. Two girls found it, snapped a pic and sent it to the email address I included on the note.
ReplyDelete