The actions of people throughout history have a way of finding their way back to us.

For example, one night Fred Trump said, “Hey! let’s forget about the condom this time”, and 73 years later we’re stuck with the Cheeto-coloured consequences of that decision, and it’s living in the White House (or rather Mar-a-Lago).

Then there are those times when history finding its way back to us is a good thing, like when you find a message in a bottle. 

That’s what happened at a Montclair State University in New Jersey, when a demolition worker was taking down a wall.

Over to People for more:

Robert Kanaby found the 112-year-old letter inside a beer bottle back in February while taking down a wall in the university’s College Hall building.

“It’s a very old brick wall, about 14 feet with three layers of brick,” he told CNN. “So I was going brick by brick with a tool.”

As he continued to chip away at the wall, he hit something odd and heard glass breaking.

When Kanaby cleared the debris, he found the legible letter, which read, “This is to certify that this wall was built by two bricklayers from Newark, N.J., by the names of William Hanly and James Lennon, members of No. 3 of the B.M.I.U. of America.”

He took the note to Sharon Mahoney, the university’s director of construction management, who was shocked by the century-old discovery.

Since then, the school has been researching the history of the men who wrote the letter.

The school used a 1920 census and found a William J. Hanly, who was 33 at the time and lived on Central Avenue in Newark. In a 1930 census, they found a bricklayer named James Lennon, born around 1875, who also lived in Newark.

I applaud the fact that the pair thought it best to put the message inside a beer bottle, and then inside the wall.

Sometimes you find history lessons in the strangest of places.

If you’re keen to find your own slice of history in a beer bottle, you don’t have to start bashing down university walls to do it.

In 1899, in a brewery near Pico de Orizaba, the highest peak in Mexico, a brewer created a light, refreshing beer made from the water closest to the sun.

The story goes that, as the brewer held up the beer, a ray of sun peeped through a hole in the roof onto the transparent bottle and, in honour of the sun, inspired the name Sol.

Sol has been around for 120 years –  even longer than the message that those builders left in the walls of that university building.

South Africans are embracing the message of vitality and the spirit of freedom in every Sol, in a very big way.

So put a Sol to your lips, tip your head back, and taste history.

Cheers to the future!

[source:people]