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Every kid I know is really into secrets. Whispering secrets (even if it's just "Psst psst psst!"), having secret hiding places for their important top-secret collections of shriveled balloons and acorns and things, and most of all, secret messages. Who doesn't remember sticking a message in a bottle and shipping it off down the creek, or attaching a note to a balloon and hoping for landfall in Australia? Maybe it's because their lives are so circumscribed (grown-up for "bossed-around"), but there is just a certain awesome kidly power that comes with having a secret, with reaching out to some mysterious pen pal they haven't met yet.

In the case of Sean Keown, a Vermont man who shipped off a message in a bottle some 35 years ago, the recipient of his letter ended up being, well, himself. A teenager found his ancient bottle with its hidden note intact, and, being a teenager, googled the name and located Keown. He then put the note in an envelope and mailed it to Keown, who then called him to say "he'd been waiting 35 years for someone to find it." Keown also told his local news station that he'd promised a reward to the bottle's finder: "I was thinking maybe a candy bar or a soda, at the time I was in elementary school. Yeah, it's going to be a cash reward now."

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