Time Capsule: Heir to the Heirless

To my heir, whoever you may be:

I suppose this letter amounts to a message in a bottle, addressed to someone who may never be born. At this writing, I, Karen Funk Blocher, have no children, not by choice but due to procrastination. John and I spent several thousand dollars in the late 1990s, belatedly trying for a kid: going to doctors, taking tests and temperatures, walking into pharmacias in Nogales, Sonora for prescription fertility drugs, and...well, you don't want to hear the rest. Eventually we gave up.  Aside from a few friends, the only person younger than I am who could conceivably be my heir is my godson, Jacob Ballangrud-Marks. So how can you exist, my heir of 100 years hence?  Still, John Scalzi says you will come into being someday, and I'm pretty sure that Scalzi himself exists and can be trusted. In the hope that somehow, someone a century from now will still claim a personal connection with me (and some part of my estate), I have prepared this time capsule for you.

Just yesterday, a radio network called NPR (I could rant about radio here, but I won't) had a story about the time capsules of 20th Century artist Andy Warhol. Rather than throw anything away, he used to periodically brush the contents of his desk into a box, which would then be sealed, numbered and stored.  Anything could be in there - promotional T-shirts, film, conventional art by himself and others, newspapers, contracts, even food.  Your time capsule is probably less historic than that, and more selective.

Item One: my first photo album.  I first put this together in elementary school, probably when I was about eight years old. I finished it off when I was thirteen years old, with lots of pictures taken during my last summer with Joel Rubinstein before he moved away. That's him on the tree stump. The little girls are mostly me. The extra girl in the reindeer ones is Cindy Miller. Don't ask me which of the baby photos are of me and which are of my brother Steve.  Even when I first put this together, my parents weren't sure of the identifications. 

Most of the pictures were taken in Manlius and Dewitt, two towns in Central New York. (Don't ever let anyone tell you that the dead center of New York State is "Upstate!") A few were taken on vacation elsewhere.  These are mostly labeled in my childish handwriting.

Item Two: a CD-R. I hope you have access to someone who can convert this format to whatever technology you use in the early 22nd century.  I put jpgs of hundreds of photographs on here - childhood photos, our honeymoon, trips to Disneyland and Mexico, the Grand Canyon and Ellison Wonderland, lots of photos from all the traveling John and I did in 1986, and lots more nature photos from in and around Tucson. I hope none of the species are extinct in your time. For me, the Disney photos are potentially the most historic ones, but you may have a very different perspective.

Item Three: Heirs of Mâvarin. This is my first novel, which I started writing back in high school and finished working on - well, I can't make myself stop tinkering with it. Do people still read Albert Camus in your time?  In his book The Plague (La Peste) is a character who has been writing a novel for twenty years, and still hasn't gotten past the first sentence.  I've probably revised the first sentence of this book as many times as the fictional man in that one.  I'd give you the sequel, too, but it's too big for the time capsule, and I haven't quite finished writing it.  I mean really - I'm not just tinkering with words. I'm missing whole scenes.  Others need to be moved or revised.  Even so, I've put the files on that CD-R along with all those photos.

Item Four: a set of Doctor Who trading cards from Cornerstone Communications. I wrote the text on the backs of all but a few of these, not counting the autographed cards and stuff like that. John designed and published the cards. If I had room, I'd give you his Monty Python cards, too.  They're amazingly creative.  Do you know about Doctor Who and Monty Python in your time? I hope so.


Item Five: The Observer, Issue Four. I edited this, wrote a chunk of it, and designed the cover.  It's a parody of a Time magazine cover.  If you've never heard of the tv show Quantum Leap, this won't mean much to you, but read it anyway.

Item Six: Star Trek lemon-soaked paper napkins.  John and I agreed that this is the weirdest thing in his collection of licensed products from that show, with the possible exception of the Star Trek Silly Putty.  You must know about Star Trek, at least! This moistened towelette (which I'm sure has dried out by now!) was produced back in the 1960s, when there was only one television series with that name.

I hope all this stuff tells you a little about my life, and about the people and places (real and fictional) that have meant something to me over the years. If you ever get access to a time machine, come back and see me - and bring a time capsule of your own.

Love,
Karen

Tags: Weekend Assignment, Time Capsule, Memories, Fiction