A lot can change in 50 years. Landlines have fallen out of fashion, people can now find information with a click of a button and AI is in its experimental phase.
It’s also been half a century since a collection of students, residents and Long Beach officials buried a time capsule to mark the United States’ 200th anniversary.
After recently unearthing the bicentennial time capsule, the City of Long Beach opened its contents Wednesday afternoon, with sixth graders from 1976, city officials and members of the Historical Society of Long Beach (HSLB) all gathering inside the City Hall Chambers.
The time capsule was made following the Vietnam War, the Watergate break-in and the resignation of the president of the United States, according to HSLB President Julie Bartolotto.
“A time capsule is more than a box; it’s a message to the future. It’s a seed you plant your hopes and dreams in,” Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said during his opening remarks.
A copy of one of the letters in the time capsule happened to be lying in an old suitcase inside a closet.
Former Bret Harte Elementary School student and teacher, Sharon Schreiber-Fisher, found the letter she wrote 50 years ago after her air conditioning unit stopped working a month ago.
“My husband was emptying the closet so we could get to the attic and get the air conditioning repaired, and I was going through the suitcase and I found the letter and realized, ‘Oh my gosh, 2026.’ I wondered if something happened and it just kind of took off from there,” the Long Beach native said.
Inside that suitcase were what she called old treasures, such as remnants of lost teeth and archaic report cards.
“It was surprising at first, but then it really did make me pause and reflect on how has this affected me over the course of my lifetime. And it really did without me even knowing it,” she said.
Schreiber-Fisher, alongside five of the participating sixth-grade students from 1976, read their adolescent letters and took a trip down memory lane.
She was the first 1976 student to read her letter to the audience. Schreiber-Fisher’s essay depicted what life was like in her eyes when she was around 10 years old.
“There are many things to see in Long Beach. There are trees, grass and schools for children to learn in. There are many other things too. Some of the people are not too nice but everyone isn’t the same,” Schreiber-Fisher read, with some audience members chuckling.
The letter also talks about what the then-preteen predicted, such as good transportation and having a television that goes to any station a person wants. She also had out-there predictions in the letter, notably moving streets and water-powered televisions.
“I don’t believe my teacher chose me because of this essay; I believe my teacher chose me because she knew I needed a win,” Schreiber-Fisher said after reading her letter aloud.
“The impact that this letter and this contest, winning, carried with me throughout my 34 years of working in the Long Beach Unified School District,” she said. “Because, I became the person [who] was able to choose that student. That student who was the ‘Cub of the Month’ or ‘Bear of the Week’ … and I didn’t always choose the popular choice. I chose the student that needed the win.”
By far the wildest predictions were from Russell Riopelle’s letter. The former Los Cerritos Elementary School student read the first and last paragraph only, which laid out his predictions.
“Long Beach, the year 2026. The gentle buzz in the skyway can be heard as you walk through Long Beach Boulevard. You call for a cab with what seems to be a small spaceship, [which] comes around a corner to a narrow track. Most young adults have never seen a car except in the museum; you decide not to take a cab and ride the escalator up to the skyway,” Riopelle’s first paragraph reads.
Then it takes a funny twist.
“UFO’s have been making contact with us for 10 years,” he reads as the audience busts up laughing. “And we have a special center and airport for the studies of UFO’s.”
Among the letters inside the steel one foot by one foot box were unique items from the time period, such as a vial of crude oil, a bracelet for the mayor’s wife and a City of Long Beach flag.
While each letter had its quirks and wild forecasts of the next 50 years, they each had attributes in common.
The letters were optimistic, blunt and honest.
“Follow your dreams, follow your passion, realize you got a good head start coming from Long Beach,” Riopelle said to the future generation. “The world is your oyster, all sorts of information and opportunity here and [so] just chase it.”
The bicentennial time capsule opening is part of the Seeds of Resilience campaign, which invites residents to deepen their understanding of history that shaped Long Beach.
The series will conclude on Sept. 22 in Civic Center Plaza (411 W Ocean Blvd.) with Seeds of Resilience: The Story of Long Beach, where the community will come together, honor and witness the living people who have shaped Long Beach, according to Bartolotto.
