Boating Mystery

Greetings, readers!

Today is another mystery, just like the one about the shoulder chicken. However, today’s mystery is about boats. Yes, that is right, boats. Now we do not actually have any boats here at Hometown Heritage (where would we put it, after all), but we do have something from a boat: an old life preserver (or life buoy). Glenn Theulen donated this ring, and as you can see in the picture, it was white with three P’s on it. Here lies part of the mystery. What do the three P’s stand for? Peace, Perseverance, and Patience? Or maybe Partying, Poker, and Pajamas? Unfortunately, searching Google for “PPP life preserver” only brings up a life jacket product… for dogs. What do you all think that the three P’s stand for? Contemplating the problem it seems the two most likely things that they stand for is either the name of an association or company that distributed this life preserver, or the name of the boat that it belonged too. This brings to light the second mystery of this object: where did it come from?

Now obviously this came from a boat (I am not THAT silly) but where was that boat? Here in Perry there are not exactly many places to go sailing. The closest place in Perry that would count as a body of water is Frog Creek, and I highly doubt one could put a standard sized boat into that little stream. There are a few other places nearby, like Saylorville Lake or Lake Panorama, but I am not sure that a boat with this kind of life preserver would be sailing around those lakes. It seems likely to me that this life preserver belongs to a boat that was sailing somewhere out in the ocean. Maybe it was some kind of Navy boat that was used during a war? Or maybe it was just an old sailing boat, used during a vacation on the beach? Unfortunately, the answer is unknown. Once again, there is not enough information in our system here to answer these questions. If you have any answers about this life preserver (or just ideas in general) I would be very happy to hear them so that this mystery can be solved!

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