Happy Back to the Future Day!
Memories in a time capsule! Gosh it seems like only yesterday that I
was taking my son to see Back to the
Future II at his young age of 5, and October 2015 seemed like a long ways
off. That was the year that Santa Claus had to find a toy DeLorean car for the
little guy. Santa had to write a letter to Universal Studios by hand, as I
recall. There were none to be found in any toy stores that year. Universal came
through and Santa delivered it, too.
I should have done a time capsule for him
in 1990! For one thing, we’d both remember the time better. And now, it's here, the date October 15, 2015, just like in the movie. And not.
While everyone is wondering “What did the
movie get right” about 2015, I’m reminiscing about my son’s childhood and if
Doc’s messages about ‘the future’ still stay with him. After all, the future IS
what you make it.
Yes, we should have done a time capsule.
Our company was just getting started, and went from 1 customer in 1986 to a
handful in 1987 to many more in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. My son even
drew the DeLorean BTTF car for one of our catalog mailers! But sometimes life
gets in the way of doing things that one doesn’t ‘need’ to do.
Most people do not ‘need’ to do a time
capsule. Indeed, most people don’t even think of doing one. It’s most usual for
an event to stimulate time capsule thought. “Oh the church is celebrating a
centennial, let’s do a time capsule,” or “Wouldn’t it be nice for us to do a
time capsule when we’re married so that we could open it at the (10th)
(25th) year?”
You there, do you have young children?
Start a time capsule right now. Don’t wait! No you don’t need a special
container - but here are some affordable ones. The container should be protective of the contents you put inside. And there are more
reasons to get a nice container than you might think. For one thing, don’t ever
consider burying a container that’s not good enough to protect the things in it
once it’s underground. And then, even if you keep the time capsule indoors,
what container you choose should be an archivally safe one so that it doesn’t
cause any harm to the contents inside because it’s made of vinyl plastic or
acidic cardboard.
What could you show about 2015? Why so many
(white) cars nowadays look like Star Wars storm troopers; why so many other
cars look a lot like athletic shoes; why the Republicans have so many choices
for presidential candidates; why the Democrats have so little to choose from;
and so on.
As Doc says, “Go forth, time travelers, and
remember....The Future is what you make it!”
And maybe, just maybe, we can say, as
President Reagan mentioned in his State of the Union speech in 1986, “Where
we’re going, we don’t need ... roads.”
To get excited about Back to the Future
day, visit the site for the Back to the Future Campaign, at http://www.backtothefuturecampaign.org/.
See how they’re “saving the clock tower (that is, future present, and the past
itself)”. The website wants us to believe “the future is malleable, that we can
imagine better.” The time period is from October 21, 2015 to January 31, 2016.
The campaign, says the website, “champions a new kind of thinking, one that
that prioritizes the ideal over the cynically-defined, one that believes that
to create a wonderful world, we have to imagine it first.” Check the site out
and then, do your own time capsule!
And since you’re reading this from me,
check out the time capsules at https://www.futurepkg.com.
Our time capsules range from the personal & family size to larger box time
capsule projects complete with cast plaque or engraving.
We almost always have some of the family time capsules on sale! Check it out today.
