Now, where did we put that time capsule?
From `M*A*S*H' items to beer, many have sought to save a bit of history, but the package can foil the effort
By Dahleen Glanton

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- It had been 50 years since James Taylor saw the time capsule buried on the grounds of the Madison County Courthouse. And as he stood there recently watching it being dug up, it felt to him like an old friend was being resurrected.

He kept wondering whether the memorabilia he and others entrusted to the metal box had withstood the elements of time. Would the letters and newspapers be yellow and crumbled? The city, now home of the Marshall Space Flight Center, had changed so much in the past half-century; were they even digging in the right place?

"When we buried the capsule, it was like a death. We weren't able to even imagine life at the resurrection. But we have experienced marvelous growth here," said Taylor, 83, who was chairman of the city's sesquicentennial committee in 1955. "When the capsule is opened, and should there be any water in it, I will really cry."

Unfortunately, water had seeped into the rusty steel vault. And even what in the 1950s was a state-of-the art plastic-like bag developed by scientists working on rocket technology at Redstone Arsenal wasn't sturdy enough to keep many of the documents dry. Archivists now are sorting through the items--including a reel of the sesquicentennial events, a list of 1st-graders, a city history book and letters from two World War II Medal of Honor winners--to determine what can be displayed next month as part of the city's 200th anniversary celebration.

For centuries people have sought to leave a record of their existence. The notion of preserving a place in time dates to the ancient Egyptians, who built pyramids to house the dead and left a record of their lives some 5,000 years ago.

Lost or damaged goods

While a surge occurred at the beginning of the millennium, almost any occasion in America has served as cause for a time capsule. Though technology has advanced beyond what it was a century or even 50 years ago, those left to dig up time capsules often face the same problems. They can't find the buried treasure or the contents are too damaged to do any good.

"Time capsules have become almost institutionalized and are about as American as apple pie," said Paul Hudson, a history professor at Georgia Perimeter College near Atlanta and co-founder of the International Time Capsule Society. "They can be anything from a Hefty bag buried by a Boy Scout troop to a satellite swung out into space. The problem is that they are out of sight so they become out of mind."

The Time Capsule Society has registered 4,000 time capsules, but Hudson estimates that there are more than 10,000 major capsules buried, of which 9,000 cannot be found.

The group has compiled a list of the 10 most wanted capsules, and at the top is the Bicentennial Wagon Train Capsule holding the signatures of 22 million Americans that was supposed to be buried on July 4, 1976. President Gerald Ford was on hand for the ceremony, but it never took place because someone stole the capsule from an unattended van in the bicentennial wagon train.

The "M*A*S*H" capsule, containing props and costumes buried in 1983 by cast members of the television show, also is on the list. So is a series of 17 time capsules dating to the 1930s buried by the city of Corona, Calif. In an attempt to find them, officials tore up the concrete around the civic center.

And in 1793, President George Washington, a member of the Masons, performed the Masonic ritual of laying the original cornerstone, presumably filled with memorabilia, of the U.S. Capitol. Because the Capitol has undergone extensive renovation over the years, the Washington cornerstone has been lost.

Perhaps the best lessons are learned from Thornwell Jacobs, the former president of Oglethorpe University who buried what is considered to be the Rolls-Royce of time capsules, the Crypt of Civilization, on the Atlanta campus in 1940. But even this famed time capsule was forgotten for almost 30 years.

Do not open till 8113

Hudson, who was a student at Oglethorpe in 1970, stumbled upon the steel door that was welded in place while exploring the basement of Hearst Hall with a flashlight. Behind the door lies the crypt, once a swimming pool, which is not to be opened until May 28, 8113.

Historians consider Jacobs, who died in 1956, a man ahead of his time. He wanted to leave a record of how people lived in Atlanta in the 20th Century, their means of transportation, communication and pastimes. But even now, many of the contents would be considered out of date and obsolete. The most popular electronics now used in America, such as computers, cellular telephones and DVD players, were not around 65 years ago.

Among the more than 200 items there are three record albums, a plastic ashtray, a vanity makeup mirror with a light, a Lionel model train set, a cigarette holder, a dial telephone, 14 samples of Formica, a toy Greyhound bus and an ampoule of Budweiser beer.

"He thought that everything would be different in 6,000 years, except that people, just like the Egyptians, would still be drinking beer. So whomever opens the capsule gets the beer," Hudson said.

Though the capsule could survive, having been buried in a granite building on a stone slate, Hudson said, a problem remains: Who will know it is there 6,000 years from now? If history is a guide, he said, there won't be a United States and people won't be speaking the language as we know it.

"There is this sort of naive feeling that you can reach out to people 50, 100 or 6,000 years from now," Hudson said. "It was a good-faith effort to look across the millennium, but there won't be anyone around in 6,000 years to give a wake-up call."