Searching for Lost Time When

¶ … Searching for lost time

When my brother and I were young, we liked to play 'explorers' during the long, hot, lazy light-filled nights of summer. This game involved us packing flashlights, my toy binoculars and walkie-talkies, and a bunch of blankets and sleeping in the yard at night. We would set up a tent, draping the blankets on a rope from one tree to another tree, and then look for buried treasure in the wildest parts of the yard. So long as we avoided digging up the grass or her flower beds, my mother didn't care. We kept the stones and things we found on our exploration missions in glass jars. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we would find a marble, a snail shell, or some coins.

"Dr. Livingston, are you ready?" I said to my brother. He was Dr. Livingston, and I was Nancy Drew -- those were our explorer names. The blankets were more suitable for winter, and I needed my brother's help to drag them into the yard. After setting up camp, which also involved creating an unlit fire of wood and stone, we began our serious exploration efforts. We ran through the yard, dragged ourselves under hedges, and screamed into the scratchy, barely working walkie-talkies when we found something. Finally we began to dig in what seemed like a promising hole.

I don't know what it was about that day -- there was no reason why we should have persevered so long. Perhaps it was the still-glowing sultry heat of the setting sun that made us less apt to run far afield that day -- normally we would dig holes in several, shallow areas in the hard summer grass. Perhaps it was because it had just rained and the dark, moist soil was more forgiving. Or it may have just been that we had some boxes of Girl Scout cookies back at base camp and we didn't want to run too far away from the Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties. But we dug and dug, and suddenly -- the old spade hit something metal.

The box was the color of lead and ugly. Without thinking, without fear because we were children, we opened the box. I don't know what we expected to find. Inside the box, there was a piece of yellowed paper with careful cursive writing, a small statute of a horse covered in dirt, and oddly shaped papers, some of which I realized were paper dolls. There were also some faded labels: for pear soap, a Hershey's candy bar, and a box of Cracker Jacks, the front page of a newspaper.

I felt excited holding these things, but confused. "What is that?" said my brother, grabbing it away from me for a closer look. He threw down the box with disgust. I suppose he was hoping we had found some sort of buried treasure of coins and jewels. History did not interest him -- he liked to find dead mice, crushed bugs, or strange-looking weeds. But I was fascinated. I resisted the impulse to bury it and keep it for myself, a secret, and showed it to my mother.

"It's a time capsule," said my mother. "It must be, oh, from the 1940s. Yes, you see this yellow piece of paper -- this is a ration coupon for meat." My brother and I looked blankly at my mother. "Sometimes it has been a fad, to create time capsules and bury them. Look, these paper dolls are from the 1940s and 1950s. I recognize them from watching movies with your grandmother."