The Region - News from April 28, 1987

Ervin Kendziorski dropped a wine bottle containing notes from him and his girlfriend into the Pacific near Santa Catalina Island on Sept. 1, 1985. It was a romantic lark that Kendziorski wasn’t sure would ever pan out. But he included a message promising the finder $20 if the two messages were returned. And now he has them back again. Kendziorski, 27, of Irvine, said they arrived by mail from the island of Leyte in Philippines, where a 19-year-old woman named Lany Cumpio found the bottle on a beach. Kendziorski has since split up with the note-writing girlfriend, but he has answered the note from the finder--sending along his picture as she requested and increasing the reward to $50. “Twenty bucks,” he explained, “isn’t worth as much as it was two years ago. And who knows what will come of this?”