Bob CollinsNothing, other than a M*A*S*H reunion, can make you feel older than finding out a group of fifth graders in Cloquet have dug up a time capsule that was buried almost 10 years after you graduated from high school.
The Carlton County Pine Journal has the goods on the goods buried by the 1981 5th graders at the Churchill Elementary School.
Sorenson held up the baseball glove he’d put in the time capsule, while John Thomas chuckled over the die-cast cars he’d stashed: including a Pacer and a replica of the “Smokey and the Bandit” Trans Am made famous by Burt Reynolds. Chris Mostoller laughed at his meticulous explanation of a “future wheel” and exactly how it works.
They pulled out a cassette tape of that year’s greatest hits and several books, including “Charlotte’s Web,” a box of Pillsbury cake mix, photo collages of the students who participated in the project, blue jeans, and reports on that year’s fashion trends, art, sports teams, computers, politics and the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.
The fifth graders who buried the items also showed up for the dig and read the predictions they’d made about what life would be like in 2011.
Sonja (nee Swenson) Mackey was spot on, having predicted that she would have a Ph.D., live in the Twin Cities and be married with one child.
Baker accurately predicted the most significant change would be the use of electronic devices in everyday lives, while Thomas (less accurately) predicted there would be space colonies and space travel in 2011.
Many of the bigger issues 11-year-old children faced in 1981 are still unresolved: storage of nuclear waste, the possibility that fossil fuels will run out, gas shortages, population growth and problems with pollution.
The 2011 kids also buried some goodies for the kids of 2041.
If you were burying a time capsule for them, what would be in it?
