A Glance Back at History...

My niece Elisabeth reminded me of our family time capsules on her blog. I had completely forgotten about them. The year was 1999, and as you recall, the world was about to end because of the fearsome Y2K. The computers were out to get us with their evil double-00's. What were we to do? Write letters to ourselves, of course. And wear pipe cleaner glasses in the shape of 2000. Only these two actions would save us from imminent doom. That and some common sense which seemed to be in great supply since the rest of the nation had it falling off of themselves like dead weight.

In our time capsules we filled out a personal survey of our favorite things and then wrote a letter to ourselves. Elisabeth's time capsule is far cooler than ours because she has my sister-in-law Cari for a mother, therefore by default it will be more creative and exciting. If you don't believe me, read her description. After you have done so you will better appreciate how my time capsule lacks in excitement when I say it was locked away in a lock box in the back of our closet with our social security cards and birth certificates.

Now on with the show.

In 1*9*9*9

Some of my favorite things were:

• Color: blue.
• Food: cheesecake.
• book: The Sin Eater by Gary D. Schmidt
• Game: Trivial Pursuit
• Song: "When You Say Nothing at All" -- Allison Krauss
• Music: Country
• Movie: Roman Holiday

My most important event of 1999: "I got my first real job of my career. Accepted into graduate school. Pres. Hinckley's Larry King interview. And the new Assembly Hall."

As for my letter, I don't know what I was thinking, but I don't sound like myself at all. Perhaps the fear of Y2K was finally beginning to sink in to me. But here it is:

"I can't believe it! It will soon be 2000! The next 10 years will fly by, I'm sure. In these next years, I hope to accomplish many things. I will finish my graduate work and continue teaching. Most importantly, I hope we will have a family to read this letter to. We have been trying to have a family, but we have nothing to report so far in 1999. I hope that in 10 years we will be living in a house of our own, strong in the gospel, with a strong marriage"

Once we were all finished with our letters, we all sealed them up and let our late night festivities continue. This was a great New Years. I especially enjoyed ringing in the New Year's with Lee and Cari's pots and pans out in their front year, whooping it up good and loud, only to find that we were the only ones out their with the kids. Where was everyone else? Who knows? Perhaps they were huddled under their covers expecting Y2K to come rolling in on its double 00s and come eat them in their sleep. We didn't care, we were going to welcome it with a band and a parade.

Finally, we left for our little Wymount apartment. Slept in, and were greeted with January 1, 2000 sunshine and the world still rotating. Who knew. The world would end another time. But it wouldn't that year. And ten years later we could open up our little letters and capsules, a brief record of time and how we saw it ten years ago, and giggle a little at ourselves.

Thankfully, a child was born to us in 2000, and he was here to listen to us read our letters to him.
That makes me smile.