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Paul Hudson was lurking in the basement of
Hearst Hall, flashlight in hand, when he first
discovered the Crypt of Civilization. The
silver door shone for a moment in the
restricted area of the building, and Hudson
soon forgot about it after returning back to
the light of the campus. It was 1970 and
Hudson was at the time a student, with no clue
that this metal box tucked away on campus was
one day going to figure so highly in his life.
Now Registrar and Lecturer in History at
Oglethorpe, Hudson has been bitten by the time
capsule bug and balances his OU
responsibilities with his duty as co-founder of
the International Time Capsule Society (ITCS)
headquartered at Oglethorpe.
"I get twelve to fifteen calls a day right
now concerning inquiries into time capsules
from all around the world. Today alone I was on
Canadian TV and radio, was contacted by a
curator at an Austrian museum, and a company in
Thailand had some questions about a project,"
said Hudson.
Why the immense interest? Well, it's about
time for the millennium, and people the world
over are trying to make a permanent mark upon
history, and there are no books or courses that
you can take on how to make the best time
capsule. There's just Paul Hudson.
A writer and historian, Hudson studied time
capsule history and development because of his
early interest with the concept after coming
across the Crypt of Civilization located at
Oglethorpe. After that shadowy beginning the
New York Times has come to call Hudson "the
foremost authority on time capsules."
It makes sense to have the ITCS located at
OU due to the fact the Crypt of Civilization,
sealed in 1936 by Oglethorpe President
Thornwell Jacobs, is firmly entrenched on
campus. Described by The Guinness Book of World
Records as "the first successful attempt to
bury a record of this culture for any future
inhabitants...,"
the Crypt isn't to be opened until the year
8113 AD.
But Hudson hasn't just focused on the past.
He is clearly excited about the high profile
time capsules are receiving as we near the
millennium.
Hudson has leaped from simply an expert to
something of a world authority recently. In
October Hudson will be speaking at the
Smithsonian for their workshop "Time in a
Bottle: Creating a Time Capsule Project." In
November, Oglethorpe will also be the location
for the premiere of Time in a Bottle, a
documentary by Cathleen O'Connell for which
Paul Hudson was a consultant and featured in
the film as an authority on the subject of time
capsules.
Hudson doesn't seem to fear a waning
interest in time capsules once the millennium
comes and goes. "Anyone who has ever buried
treasure as a kid is interested in time
capsules. They're almost as American as apple
pie, and we have the granddaddy of them all
right here."
The Crypt of Civilization is still located
in the basement of Hearst Hall, but now
flashlights aren't needed—it's right next to
the university bookstore and can be viewed
daily. A plaque clearly signifies the purpose
of the Crypt to opened in 8113 AD. The contents
of the Crypt include over 640,000 pages of
micro-filmed material, a set of Lincoln logs, a
Donald Duck doll, and a device to teach the
English language to the Crypt's finders, as
well as thousands of other items.
by Jerry Portwood '99
(Originally appeared in Atlanta Intown magazine
in 2001.)
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