Anyone watching Big Brother James wandering around searching the ground for what only he could see would think there was something wrong with him.
As he explored the playground in back of the old school undergoing renovation, he kept repeating over and over, “A rock – a really, really big rock. It’s there. It’s gotta be.”
When you add to the scene that he was holding a shovel on one shoulder and a pick on the other, you might even call the police. Which is exactly what the foreman started to do as he walked over to the strangers trespassing on his construction site.
Oblivious to the approaching foreman, James had just dropped the pick and started to dig with the shovel. What happened next surprised everyone except James. But perhaps we should start this story at the beginning.
A long, long time ago on an old familiar street not so far away called Flamingo stood a house. Behind that house snaked Cripple Creek. Jump the creek, climb up the hill, walk a short distance and you’d be at the elementary school where this story started over 55 years ago – where James’s second-grade class buried a time capsule somewhere on the school grounds.
His teacher had instructed each child in her class to choose something that had a special meaning to them and place it into the capsule. The year was 1964, and the nation had just lost a President. Because of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, James had chosen a new Kennedy half-dollar for placement in the capsule.
Thinking back to that place and time, I remembered something else: watching from my own classroom windows as James’s class followed him outside. He was the one the teacher had chosen to carry the capsule over to the spot where it was to be buried. “She picked a spot right next to a big rock just outside our classroom. After digging a hole, we buried the capsule under the rock’s edge, then put a smaller rock on top so it wouldn’t accidentally be disturbed.”
My brothers and I never heard what, if anything, happened to that time capsule buried so many years ago. You see, we moved away soon afterwards. That summer we lost Older Brother Richard. My two brothers, The Sister, and I never returned to Flamingo or the school.
That is, until last month. I had read about the $39 million renovation of four schools currently underway. Our elementary school was one of the four. When I called James, he immediately shouted into the phone, “We got to go and go now!” And that’s how I found myself on a grand adventure with James and his family searching for something that hasn’t seen the light of day for over 55 years.
The large rock was still right outside his old classroom. The smaller rock was there also. Was the time capsule still buried underneath? Stepping on the shovel, plunging it into the ground, James said “It should be just and inch or two under ….”
Suddenly he stopped in mid-sentence. The undeniable sound of metal striking metal was clearly heard by all of us — and the construction foreman.
Walking around to the front of the school to leave, James tapped me on the shoulder and pointed, “If the leaves weren’t on those trees, you’d see our old Flamingo Street house right there. Want to drive over?”
“No,” I replied sadly, “going back will change childhood memories.” We walked to the car in silence. Before getting in, I gave my big brother a big hug. “So glad you’re still here.” He replied the same.
Unfortunately this story remains unfinished for now. The construction foreman, stopping our excavation, told us we’d have to get permission from the school system before digging any further. It may take months. With a promise that the site would remain undisturbed until then, he gave us the contact information of the person we needed to receive permission from to continue.
Until then we wait and wonder. Is it still there or had it been dug up, removed, and discarded long ago? Without knowing, the good memory of that special day has been frozen in time for all of us to look back on and enjoy, preserved forever like the items in that capsule.
The future will simply have to wait to be revealed, but I wonder — Is not knowing better than knowing? Maybe, this time, the past should stay in the past.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
