FOR POSTERITY
Claudia Peschiutta
GLENDALE -- Do not open until January 2025.
Those are the instructions current Glendale Elks Lodge members are
giving to whoever opens the time capsule they plan to bury this week.
For $25, members were given a large envelope in which to place the
memorabilia of their choice into the stainless steel cylinder that will
be buried in front of the lodge, underneath a plaque stating the capsule
should be opened in 2025. Proceeds from the envelope sales will benefit
the Elks National Foundation, which helps fund service projects at the
local lodge level.
Steve Heinitz, who heads the Glendale lodge, said the idea is “to
capture the moment that’s the millennium.”
His envelope will include an autographed “The Simpsons” comic book,
two one-dollar bills and a Seiko watch with voice mail and pager
capabilities for which service was set to expire on Friday.
There will also be an old Superman comic book in which the superhero
travels to the future, to a year that will already have passed by the
time the capsule is opened -- “a cornball thing like that,” Heinitz said.
Most people, however, are filling their envelopes with pictures and
letters, he said.
Among those writing notes for future readings is Harrison Clewley, the
esteemed leading knight, or vice president, of the lodge.
His letter is addressed to Dana, his wife of 36 years.
“I just thought it would bring a tear to her eye 25 years from now,”
Clewley said.
“As we get older, relationships change,” he said. “I just wanted to
bring back to her memory, if she’s still with us, how important a person
she’s been to me.”
Heinitz also said he is writing letters, including one to his
2-year-old grandson, Hayden.
“I would love to have something like that from my grandfather,” he
said.
The plaque above the capsule has Jan. 1, 2000, as the date of its
burial but the ceremony had to be postponed because it’s hard to find a
welder who works New Year’s Day, Heinitz said.
I don’t think they’ll mind in 2025 “if it’s one or two days late,” he
said.