There’s one hitch, however. Most time capsules get lost long before it’s time to crack them open. Historians, for instance, may dig up something at Valley Forge in 2076, but it’s not going to be the time capsule containing the signatures of 22 million Americans that President Ford was supposed to bury there in 1976. After touring the nation, the capsule was stolen from an unattended van at the burial site. Kind of a fitting tribute to mid-’70s malaise, actually. A capsule interred in the Twentieth Century Fox parking lot by the cast of “MAS*H” in 1988 is now believed to await retrieval from somewhere beneath the hulking Marriott hotel that was later built on the site. And what more eloquent testament to the effectiveness of American government than the fate of the time capsule buried in 1958 by the state of Washington to mark its territorial centennial? A two-ton capsule somewhere under the capitol grounds in Olympia is lost because the legislature failed to approve funds to mark the site.
Some of the best capsules that we can still find aren’t slated to be opened for thousands of years. The Crypt of Civilization, a swimming-pool-size repository sealed up at Oglethorpe University in 1940 by Thornwell Jacobs, won’t reveal its treasure until 8113. Jacobs, a poet and Presbyterian minister who headed the school, loaded his chamber with microfilm of books “on every subject of importance known to mankind,” materials detailing 6,000 years of history, photos and recordings of contemporary world leaders, and a quart of Budweiser. “Jacobs figured that by then everything would’ve changed except beer,” says Hudson. “Whoever opens it in 8113, that Bud’s for them.” They’re welcome to it.
Plan on getting thirsty sooner? You’ll have plenty of options. On May 26, 2045, for example, revelers are expected to gather in Sandusky, Ohio, to open a capsule meant to capture “the triumphs and tragedies of life in America during 1995.” Officials at the Cedar Point amusement park used a Faith Popcorn book for guidance. Among the booty: a purple Wonderbra, a “Buns of Steel” video, Pop-Tarts, a Twinkie, crayons and the May 29, 1995, issue of Newsweek. Alternatively, you could head on over to Euclid, Ohio, where in 2043 they’ll bust into a seven-foot torpedo tube packed with videos of local assembly lines; a history of town organizations including the Polka Hall of Fame, and a “Not Too Young to Polka” cassette recorded by the Slovenia Junior Chorus. And mark your calendars for the 2022 opening of National Car Rental’s Minnesota-based capsule containing 50 years of rental-counter-culture memorabilia. Sample item: Converse high-tops in the company’s trademark green. Says spokesman David Schoeneck: “You see pictures of uniforms from various decades and go, ‘Oh, jeez, what were they thinking?’” It’s a question likely to be echoed at capsule openings for millenniums to come.
