Thursday, October 22, 2015

Back to the Future Time Capsules


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.