Released Into The Wild

Released Into The Wild

By John R. Greenwood

I’m conducting an experiment. I want to take the simplest of ideas and use it to create a buzz, an interest, a conversation. It isn’t that I’ve run out of things to write about its that I want to try my hand at a visual art. The problem for me has always been a lack of patience and skill. I shake like a December chihuahua whenever I try to do something requiring a steady hand. I have the attention span of a first grader when it comes to creating something that might take more than 10 minutes to assemble. I can’t draw a bath, and almost every sweatshirt I own has the remnants of a room or building I’ve painted sometime in the last three decades. So, I tried to come up with something different that would allow me to exercise my bulky and uncoordinated creative muscles. 

Here’s my highly detailed and elaborate plan. I have old wooden boxes filled with antique bottles. My father dug the majority of them within miles of my home. My thought was to write a favorite quote on one and leave it in a random location nearby. I wouldn’t leave any detailed information with it but I would record via photograph each bottles authenticity and origin. Since my readership on this blog is limited,the chances that the person who discovers the bottle would have any idea who made it or where it came from would be slim at best. My hope was to light the fuse of interest on this end, plant the bottle a few miles away in a public place and see if there were any chance of getting the two to meet? If that ever happened, I would take the opportunity to ask the person who found it what their thoughts were when they first picked up the abandoned bottle with the simple message on it. Did it peak their curiosity? Did it bring a smile to their face? Did it stir up an emotion of any kind? Did they think someone was trying to speak to them from a different place? 

As a child I always loved the story of Johnny Appleseed. One reason was, I was called Johnny by my friends and family. Reason two, I liked the premise of planting a seed and waiting to see what would happen. Spread positive seeds over a large area and hopefully good things will sprout up all over. I feel the people in this country have gone mad and they're spreading their insanity over the heads of our children. I wanted to spread something less poisonous than criticism and hate. I want to plant optimism and wonder. It’s not too late to repair the damage thats been made. At least that’s what one old hope-farmer is counting on. 

So, if you hear of someone finding an old bottle with a quote made with a DYMO Label Maker, Sharpie Paint Pen, and the Initial’s RI on it somewhere, have them get a hold of me, we need to talk… 

Raining Iguanas