Boy finds love letter written by mom's friend for grandpa

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- You know when you're cleaning out your attic and find a decades-old letter to a family member?

One 9-year-old's recent find puts those types of discoveries to shame. While exploring an island in the middle of a lake, Nolan Rogers stumbled across a love letter written 45 years ago. It was signed by his mother's friend. Even crazier? It was addressed to his grandfather.

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His mother, Viki Garrick, had taken their family on a fishing trip when they stopped on the island where Nolan found the letter. Nolan's imagination had some ideas about what it could be.

"Some note from the pirates or something," he said. "I thought it was some weird, psycho treasure stuff."

The truth was perhaps even more far-fetched, the family would soon learn.

The note was written on a half a paper towel and stuffed inside an old glass screw-top bottle like the kind soda sometimes comes in, The State newspaper reported.

The family couldn't make out much of the writing, but they could see "I wish I could see you," "I love you so much" and a signature at the bottom: Diane.

Amused, Garrick sent a picture of the note to her friend Diane Bryant, whose signature she knew to be strangely similar.

Bryant immediately knew where the note came from. It was a love letter she had written as a 13-year-old. And she knew who she had written it to: Nolan's paternal grandfather, Mike Rogers, who she dated as a teen.

Bryant told The State she loved to romanticize when she was young, and it was not unusual for her to write notes and release them to be found by someone else. This one she sent floating on the lake.

"With my whole heart, I just knew one day he would find it," she said of Rogers' note. "I've thought about it through the years, thinking, 'I wonder if anyone ever found that bottle?'"

Now she has to wonder no more. Bryant accompanied Nolan, his mom and his grandfather as they all returned to the spot the bottle had been found, marveling at the discovery.

"The more you think about it, the more it blows your mind," the elder Rogers told the paper. "There's got to be some meaning to this."