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Hartwood resident and former St. Matthias youth leader Ray Davis looks through
Twenty years ago, youth group members buried magazines, Polaroid photos, baseball cards and textbooks in a trash can.
Mike Trant holds the trash-bag time capsule unearthed George Pearson, former pastor at St. Matthias, is first to break ground in the quest to unearth the time capsule. |
Sweat poured from Cameron Trant's face in the felt-like-100-degrees heat as he steadily dug into the earth 6 feet from the point of the St. Matthias United Methodist Church sanctuary in southern Stafford.
Trant, 28, was joined in his quest at various points by his dad, Mike Trant, Adam Bray, Spencer Courtney, David Payne and others.
Somewhere underneath the hardened dirt was a time capsule the United Methodist Youth Fellowship had buried 20 years earlier.
"That's mighty hard," Payne, 38, said as he first struck the ground. He was one of the youths who buried the capsule following a yearly retreat. "I don't remember the ground being that hard," he later reminisced.
The event July 22 was billed as a homecoming of sorts. The two dozen or so people who participated in the 1986 retreat were invited back for the unveiling. Now, they were thirtysomethings. Back then, they ranged in age from 12 to 18.
Except Cameron. His sister had just entered seventh grade, which allowed her to go on the retreat. His parents had just joined the group as junior leaders. So Cameron, age 8, was the group mascot. But he never felt that way. "I was just part of the group," he said.
The Rev. George Pearson was pastor at St. Matthias in the '80s. The 1986 retreat focused on the way things were then and the way they would be in the future, he said.
Part of the lesson was to create a time capsule. Instructions were precise, Pearson said. They included the types of things to place in the container--trendy items, magazines, letters to themselves--as well as how to build the container--galvanized steel and lots of plastic. The students were videotaped making predictions about the future.
Once the capsule was sealed, it was buried just off the point of the sanctuary. Pearson drew a treasure map. That map, a copy of the videotape and a list of what was in the time capsule were placed in an envelope, sealed and stored in a safe deposit box to be opened this summer.
Pearson, who recently retired from a church in Roanoke, returned to St. Matthias to make the first ceremonial dig into the ground during the unearthing of the time capsule.
No one was sure if the small steel trash can had held up for all that time. "It would be somewhat of a miracle if it survived all these years," Pearson said.
"I remember burying it that day," said Courtney. Two feet of dirt on top of a galvanized trash can with several layers of "old green garbage bags."
Nearly 100 people gathered to watch the capsule come out of the ground. Even in the late afternoon, the air was sticky and humid. A slight breeze was the only comfort for the men breaking through the hard surface.
Just when doubt began to creep in, one of the diggers uncovered the handle of the trash can. As the dirt pile grew larger and larger, the young ones--the kids of the kids who attended the long-ago retreat--started to creep closer and closer to play in the dirt. Admonishing adult voices kept them away.
At last, the cover was clear enough to try to rip it off. "Duct tape!" someone in the crowd exclaimed. "We'll never get it off."
"I was involved in the taping," Pearson replied. "We didn't spare the tape."
"Twenty years and it's still sticking," mused Brenda Trant.
The process, which started at 5 p.m., neared its end at 5:45 when someone produced a pocket knife to slice the duct tape, loosening the cover from the can.
"One, two, three " Cameron and Mike Trant and David Payne ripped back on the cover. The sound of crunching steel brought a cheer.
Cameron Trant was elected to carry the brown trash bag to the nearby picnic table and given the honor of cutting the top. Out spilled the smell of mildew and plastic zipper storage bags holding trinkets of all types. Baseball cards in pristine condition; Polaroid pictures that looked as if they were taken yesterday; letters; drawings; even bubble gum.
Thirtysomething women squealed like teenagers again as they gathered up their mementos. The guys were too cool.
"Once I saw it, I remembered [what I saved]," said Payne. "It's amazing what you forget."
Payne didn't have too many memories of that retreat. "It's been 20 years. I can't remember last year," he laughed.
But he did remember one incident that he and his brother Neil, 36, still bicker about. After lights-out, someone got pots and pans and started running up and down the halls banging them. That upset Courtney. Because it was something that Neil and his best friend would do, they got blamed for it. "To this day, Neil still says it wasn't them," Payne finished.
The four adult leaders all remembered how tight-knit that youth group was.
"I got so close to some of these kids it's unbelievable. Some of them I'd go 100,000 miles to help if they needed me," Larry Vida said.
Payne agrees that the youth group was a great experience that created close relationships.
"I carry it with me, even if I don't remember it."
To reach ANNETTE JONES:
Email: abjones@freelancestar.com
