Author: Jessica Leigh Hester / Source: Atlas Obscura
Candy Duke and her husband, Jim, spend their weekends combing for treasure. They bring a lunch and make a day of it at the Padre Island National Seashore in Texas, keeping their eyes peeled for shells, sea glass, and bottles—some green, some brown, some barnacled, some clear and wave-beaten.
Candy estimates that they’ve stumbled across at least 100 little glass vessels, plus hydraulic jacks, trash cans, and “I can’t tell you how many nets that have come off of who knows what.” Some of the haul goes straight into the trash—just to get it up off the sand—but they salvage their favorites and arrange them across their yard in Corpus Christi.One recent Saturday, Jim came across a bottle with something to say.
Through the scuffed glass, they could make out a yellowing piece of paper—almost the color of the sand. It was wound into a tight scroll, and it bore an instruction scribbled in big, capital letters: “BREAK BOTTLE.”
But, Candy says, the couple had no plans to do that. They figured, they collect bottles—they don’t bust them. So she and Jim set out to free the thing inside without destroying the rest of it.
The couple took the bottle home and got to work, broadcasting their efforts on Facebook Live. Jim went at it with a standard wine bottle opener, while Candy’s brood of birds—several dozen parakeets, lovebirds, cockatiels, finches, and canaries that she raises for a local pet store—chirped loudly in the background, and their deaf rescue cat, Handsome, preened, disinterestedly, on a chair. “It’s a real hard rubber cork,” Jim said, as Candy filmed. He needed to put more muscle into it, and stood up to get more leverage. “By George, it may be coming,” he said, cranking his wrist. He grunted a bit. The thing didn’t budge. “Come on, baby,” Jim muttered to the cork, scrunching up his face as…
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