On the lookout for forgotten treasure
Middle schoolers buried a time capsule in 1997 and now no one can find it
STAMFORD — The guest of honor at a time capsule opening Wednesday afternoon at Dolan Middle School never appeared.
After hours of digging in front of the west wing of the school, the capsule in question wasn’t found.
But that didn’t seem to bother the gathering of former students who helped pack the capsule — a large red cooler — 25 years ago when they were in the seventh grade. Standing on the lawn in front of the school, the former Dolan students enthusiastically greeted each other and reminisced for hours on their middle school days.
“The whole thing was exactly what I hoped it would be, except we didn’t open the time capsule,” said Michael Rinaldi, the former teacher who buried the capsule in 1997. “We just couldn’t find it.”
Rinaldi is the current principal at Westhill High School, but in 1997, he taught a class on world cultures at Dolan. Anticipating a move to an administrative role the following year, Rinaldi realized the class would be the last one he’d teach.
At the time he thought, “If this is it, I want to do something to commemorate it,” he said Wednesday.
Since his class was about cultures, Rinaldi challenged the students to create a time capsule that would define what culture was like in Stamford in 1997. He had every student write a letter to a future student in 2022, describing what their lives were like and what they hoped for the future.
Rinaldi also used a camcorder to film interviews with the students, which are captured in a VHS tape inside the capsule.
Although the contents were not verified, since the capsule was not located, many former students shared the items they placed
inside.
“I know we put a 3.5 floppy (computer disk) in there, because universally we were like, ‘This is going to be obsolete pretty soon so let's put it in,'” said former student Adam Bull.
When asked what she put in the time capsule, former Dolan student Karesia Batan remembered that she contributed a collection of toys from the time.
“I think I put my whole Weepul collection in there,” she said, referring to the pom poms with googly eyes and flat feet kids were acquiring at the time.
As far as what she put in the time capsule, one-time Dolan student Kendall Gilbert first said, “I have no idea.”
“I might have a Beanie Baby in there,” she then added, even though Beanie Babies, the national mega fad in the late 1990s, often were purchased as an investment.
Among other items mentioned by those in attendance: a copy of the Stamford Advocate from the day, tie dye shirts, slap bracelets that were popular at the time and a couple of magazines from the era.
The former Dolan students were mostly in party mode for the event, but at the dig site, Rinaldi and others were hard at work excavating much farther into the dirt than they anticipated.
The fruitless labor continued when a crew of custodians from Westhill volunteered to help dig. At about 8 p.m., four hours after the event kicked off, the organizers called it off.
Rinaldi said he was convinced the capsule is there, and is already in the process of acquiring a backhoe to continue the search for it.
“When” he finds the cooler, he said he'd set up another time to gather his ex-students for another event in which they'll open it.
Now adults in their mid-tolate-30s, the one-time seventh graders took divergent paths from their days in middle school. Among the crowd were a tattoo artist, a Zamboni driver, a dancer and at least two former teachers.
George Beratis was one of the students at the time, and in 1997 was given a list with names and numbers and the responsibility of bringing all his former classmates together in 2022.
“When he gave me that list, I was 13 years old, and he said, ‘Don't lose it.' It was in an envelope and on it it said, ‘Open in April of 2022,'” said Beratis, a former band director at Stamford High School.
Somehow, he said, he kept the list, but it turned out to be unnecessary.
At the time, Rinaldi and the students had planned to notify others 25 years later by calling them and placing an advertisement in the newspaper. Clearly, they didn't anticipate that the internet and social media to be what they are today, Beratis said.
He put out a call on social media looking for his former classmates and “the whole thing was done in 45 minutes.”
At the event, many of the former students who showed up to Dolan spoke highly of Rinaldi.
Elizabeth Cobbs called her former teacher an inspiration.
“He was the person I always went to when I was going through issues,” said Cobbs, who now lives in Norwalk. “He was more than just a teacher for me. This means a lot right now.”
For Katrina “Spunky” Lomax, Rinaldi played a vital role in her education in 1997, she said.
“That was the year where Mr. Rinaldi pretty much turned my life around,” she said.
Lomax described herself as “a little bad kid.” Rinaldi saw something in her, she said, and challenged her to work harder. Lomax remembered Rinaldi asking her, “If you give me honor roll every quarter, what can I do for you?”
“I said, ‘Well I want to go to Red Lobster,'” Lomax responded at the time.
Rinaldi agreed, and after Lomax made good on the promise, she got her trip to Red Lobster each quarter.
“I never forgot about it,” she said.
Dolan Principal Charmaine Davis was an eighth grade teacher at the school in 1997, which meant she had many of the same students Rinaldi had the following year.
During the event, Davis looked around at all of the former students hugging each other, laughing and enjoying themselves, seemingly unworried by the prospect of not finding the elusive capsule.
“If we don't find it, how beautiful is all of this?” Davis said. “It brought everyone together.”