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Page 1 · column 5 of 9 · from the scan, no model involved
On a summer afternoon in 1969, Greg Bright celebrated Christmas in August by tossing a glass bottle with a message sealed inside into the Thornton River at Sperryville. Nine years and 100 miles later, Greg’s message reached its destination.
Richard C. Payne, a procurement official with the U. S. Navy Center at Dahlgren, was walking along the banks of the Rappahannock at Port Royal two weeks ago when he spotted a small glass bottle half hidden in driftwood and marsh grass.
Payne said he'd hoped to find a check for $1 million inside so he could quit work and retire. “I knew the thing had a message in it. My hands were wet and 1 was so anxious to get it out, 1 broke the bottle.”
But instead of a check, the shattered bottle held a faded blue Christmas card that told the story of Christ’s birth in a clear typewritten message. “His mother knew that Jesus would grow up to do wonderful things. People who saw the baby knew he had been sent from God,” it read.
Payne took the message home to his family and they contacted Greg Bright who’d signed the short note nine years before.
According to Greg, he’d almost forgotten about his bottle launch until contacted by Payne and a reporter from the Free Lancethe Free Lance-Mar in Fredericksburg. He was only seven years old when he wrote his name underneath the Christmas message and nine years is a long time. Greg said that the Paynes were planning on a trip to Rappahannock to meet him and added that he was looking forward to seeing them.
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