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"Wa'ter you Think?"
March 27, 2008
In 1981 Frank his brother Frank and their little brother Frank took all their deposits down to the general store and with the money they collected put in a bid for 1000 empty quart bottles to a local distributor. There idea, to create the first complete see thru home made house boat. Figuring on only needing the bottles and a couple of quarts of white glue their eyes shown with visions of maritime notoriety and late night appearances on talk shows as they assembled the bottles into their blueprint of this "The Ultimate Transparent Houseboat."
With the whole town of Whatchamacallit, Idaho in attendance the brothers launched their creation in the traditional way by breaking a bottle of champagne across her bow. Frank, his brother Frank and their little brother Frank did not understand the dynamics and properties of plastic, force, glass and resistance and the bottle hit the bow full force only to recoil and hit the elder Frank square on the chin knocking him unconscious. The cheers of the local town folk were deafening. Loading said unconscious brother onto the houseboat they proceeding to guide her out into the bay hoping to catch the ebbing tide of the Atlantic to help transverse the 10 nautical miles to the next town on the shore.
For the next three weeks or so Julia and Lori Kirkwood walked the 100 yards or so from their house to the shoreline. They both brought a couple of those larger garbage bags. Ever since the accident where Frank, his brother Frank and their little brother Frank put their boat to sea hundreds of plastic bottles were collecting themselves daily along the shoreline. It seems that neither Frank, his brother Frank nor their little brother Frank ever really read the label on the glue which stated quite clearly, "Water Soluble." No more than 5 minutes after leaving the shoreline and immediately after they'd caught the ebbing current the glue and the bottles dissolved their partnership sending all three brothers who also refused to utilize lifejackets stating that the plastic boat was all the floatation device they needed and who could not swim a lick to the bottom of the Atlantic.
Julia and Lori kept the bottles in their basement not really knowing why they collected them or exactly what they should do with them. Neither could think of any craft project that would use so many plastic containers although they both agreed that the labels were nice looking with the sun and a river set on a blue background. On this particular afternoon, hours after their last collection mission to the beach; they could not find any more of them washed up upon the sand and totaled only 12 bottles for that morning, had to play in their softball game. At the last minute Lori took 4 of the bottles rinsed them out and filled them full of water and put them in her backpack to take with her to the game. Neither had any money for sodas so Lori thought that rather than wait like the other kids in line for the fountain she and Julia would skip the line today and have nice cool water at their disposal when ever they wanted.
It just happened that this afternoon would be one of the more talked about afternoons for years to come as the late afternoon summer sun brought the temperatures to record breaking levels and at the time of Julia and Lori's game it was easily 99 degrees in the shade heading to a high of 104. There were a lot of programs and a lot of hats trying with little success to bring their owners a bit of breeze as the ball game wore on. One couple noticing the water bottles that the girls were using approached and asked to have one. Lori said, "No, they're ours" and dismissed him. Without a seconds hesitation the gentleman offered Lori one dollar for the remaining two bottles. Lori, always with better business sense sold both bottles to the gent for one dollar per bottle. During that summer the girls got rid of every bottle they has collected and even wound up recycling some 430 bottles that made there way back into their collection. They filled the bottles, used a lighter to melt a small part of the cap, then put the whole load in their mom's basement freezer which was more empty than not.
In 1997 Julia and Lori sold their remaining interest and bowed out of the water business taking with them nothing short of 655 million dollars to share with a 10% interest in all net profits over the following 20 years. Julia was quoted as saying, "We started making our product and never had to change a thing, we did have to get a bigger freezer!"
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For too long I've messed with the wiring in my head. Now it shorts out more oft than not. But at my age I just sit and enjoy the sparks. RJM '07
Many Exceptional Free and Pay for Images Available here Fotosearch.com
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