‘What does this all mean?’: Rundlett Middle School displays artifacts from unearthed time capsules

A Red Sox vs. Yankees ticket stub from May 31, 1976, was Concord Historical Society volunteer Bill Kretovic’s favorite item from a time capsule buried at Rundlett Middle School.

The game took place just 11 days after the famous bench-clearing brawl between the Red Sox and Yankees when Boston catcher Carlton Fisk tagged out Yankee outfielder Lou Piniella. Tensions were still high as angry Red Sox fans threw debris and exploded firecrackers at the Yankees players.

The red, white and blue stub, partially ripped on the bottom, still displays the date and price of the game — $5. Kretovic found an old retainer buried alongside the ticket. While less historically significant, it still intrigued him.

“I think of that as like someone coming home from school that day and going, ‘I lost my retainer, Mom!’ And it’s actually in the time capsule,” Kretovic said.

Dozens of artifacts, including the ticket and the retainer, sprawled across tables inside a basement storage area in Rundlett Middle School. The items were found in two containers buried in the middle school’s courtyard back when it was a junior high school. On Sept. 11, Kretovic dug up the time capsules and has since been drying and researching the items inside.

“Throughout this process, it’s kind of funny, because I really kind of have a little bit of like, ‘Am I Indiana Jones? Am I Marty McFly in ‘Back to the Future?'” Kretovic said. “I come down here, and that stuff is 30 years old; this stuff is 50 years old. Then, I go back upstairs, and it’s 2026.”

Alumni get a first look

On Friday, the Concord High School Class of 1976 gathered for its 50-year reunion. As part of their tour, alumni got the first look at the newly recovered artifacts.

“While this stuff is technically not theirs, they may have information as to where maybe their time capsule is,” Kretovic said. “But it’s from their era. And I think they can see and they can go, ‘Okay, yep, saddle shoes, we all wore those.'”

In addition to the 1976 artifacts, visiting alumni got to see items from the time capsule buried in 1992 by the class of 1995. The four trash bins that made up the capsule were uncovered in June.

The 1992 capsule contained VCRs, a cassette tape, Nintendo games, Rolling Stone magazines, a class schedule and pop culture items.

Cathy Dawson and her husband, Michael Painter, came up from Florida to join the reunion.

“It’s amazing and fun, I mean, just to think, ‘Wow, 50 years ago, they buried it,'” Painter said.

His wife completed his thought: “And just remembering it now and to have it on our 50th high school reunion, too, it really just makes it special,” she said.

Painter said the tour reminded him of how simple life was back then.

“I’ll be looking forward to what they got 50 years from now,” Painter said.

Finding the 1976 time capsule

Nathan Amsden carefully drew a map to his class time capsule in June 1976. Next to an arrow pointing to the time capsule, Amsden wrote, “To be opened in June, 2004.”

Kretovic used this map, the Pythagorean Theorem and his tape measure to find the marked spot and dig over the course of two days.

“We weren’t really sure what material it was made out of,” Kretovic said. “So, if it was metal, it could have been rusted away. If it was wood, it could have been rotted away. Just had no idea.”

As he dug, Kretovic maneuvered around some metal plates and the large root of a nearby tree, planted after the time capsule was buried.

“As I was doing that, I was about ready to call it quits, because I said, ‘I’m down this far, I don’t know if it’s gone, if someone already found it'” Kretovic said. “So, as I’m digging some of the dirt out and tossing it up onto the piles over here, I notice that piece of plastic.”

That plastic was the top of two hard plastic barrels: the 1976 time capsules.

After finding the containers, Kretovic walked middle school students through the process of how he found the spot using the map.

“We asked them how old their parents were, and one girl said, ‘Oh, 39!’ I’m like, okay, how old are your grandparents?” Kretovic said.

Having located, unearthed, restored and researched many of the artifacts, Kretovic asked himself, ‘What does this all mean?’

“There was some thought going into what we’re putting in here for people to see, in this case, 30 years from now,” Kretovic said, pointing to some of the items buried in 1992. “What we had on our minds and what was going on.”

The 1976 and 1992 time capsules are not alone.

One buried in 1989 by the class of 1992 has been located, but is paved over and will be dug up later. Another, created in 1988 by the class of 1991 was never buried and is not yet opened.

The hunt for time capsules started when Rundlett librarian Regina Wall told Principal Jay Richard she wanted to create another time capsule to mark the new building. Richard then remembered a box he found when he arrived at Rundlett. It contained envelopes with hand-drawn maps from students showing where their time capsule was buried.

Since then, Richard has contacted alumni and sought the help of the historical society to find and uncover past time capsules as construction continues for the new middle school.

As the middle school considers creating another time capsule, Kretovic recommends an above-ground model.

When he opened up the 1992 bins, Kretovic discovered each bin had three plastic liners with items put in multiple bags and sealed inside Ziplocs as well.

Despite that effort, Kretovic said some of the bags were like fishbowls that he had to pop and drain out. Many of the items sustained water damage. To ensure items are preserved going forward, he suggested a room inside the new school with drawers to store artifacts for each year.

As of now, Kretovic said he is not sure what will happen to the items recovered from the time capsules, but he plans to support Richard with what he and the school choose to do.