Thoughts on time capsules - and what I'd put in one

I have a little page in the notes app of my phone where I enter column ideas as they come up because the hardest part of this whole deal is having a topic.

Last week I knew I had something written in there but I couldn’t recall what it was so I opened it up to find the words “time capsule” as the last entries. Something came up somewhere in an email, a TV show, a story someone was telling or a Facebook post that made me write that down, but a little over a week later I can’t recall what the heck it was.

The way my brain is running lately a time capsule would be pretty interesting — I could put stuff in there in the morning and entertain myself in the afternoon taking all the interesting things out and looking at them in wonder.

But time capsules as a rule are pretty interesting topics for columns. I’ve written about a few that have been opened over the years and I’ve watched as people put stuff in one.

What are the top five things you would put in your time capsule if you were sealing one up today?

I guess I would put my old “Indiana Jones” Australian crusher felt hat inside. I found it at a Western wear store in Montrose, Colo., along about 1993. I’d been around the ski areas of the Western Slope long enough to know I needed a hat to keep the snow off my neck and that crushable waterproof brown hat filled the bill.

It wasn’t so unique in Colorado but trying to keep it on your head in a February windstorm in eastern New Mexico set you apart.

I would put my Yeti mug in there as well. It changed my world mainly because it kept iced tea or water cold for a long time, even out in the sun. It also doesn’t sweat on a muggy summer evening when I set it next to my recliner.

I would put the TV remote in there as well. We all became couch potatoes when they started sending one of those things out with every TV. I don’t use it much anymore, however, I have my remote app on my phone.

I would probably stuff a fly swatter in my time capsule, too. The materials it has been made out of have changed but the basic design hasn’t in the last couple centuries or so. If they don’t have a fly swatter in the future I figure they’ll be looking for one — I know I always am.

Finally I would put a laminated photo of my wedding. It represents all the love I’ve had over nearly half a decade with a wonderful woman. From the direction we’re headed already, in a hundred years that wedding photo could be the biggest oddity of all. I pray I’m wrong though.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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