My Time Capsule Letter To My 5 Year Old Son in 1986

Shown below is the Time Capsule Letter (that I have shared with many) that I wrote to my first-born child, Johnathan, when he was 5 1/2 years old in December, 1986. This letter was inspired by his seeing Halley's Comet with me earlier in the year through my childhood telescope when I realized that, should he live to be age 80 in 2061, he will be one of only a very scarce few to be a Halley's Comet 'two-timer' as the 1986 apparition was so poor that very people of any age saw it.

My original draft in 1986 was rather messy with many scratch-outs and revisions and did not seem that significant at the time. However, in September, 1990, three months after a very bright and insightful man asked me the life-changing question, "If you are this person, what are you worried about?", I recalled this Time Capsule Letter, found it squirreled away in some box, reread it and thought, "That's not such a bad letter."

When one reads it carefully, they can spot my childhood suspicion (at age 11 in 1965) of the 1999 Leonid meteor storm fulfilling one of the celestial events described by Christ in Matthew 24:29.

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To My Beloved Son, Johnathan,

I picture you reading this sometime just after I'm gone, hopefully around 2035 or later. And then again in 2061 when you see Halley's for the second time. The book I am writing this "time capsule" in I have brought with me to Lincoln, Nebraska where I am attending an SCS Soil Mechanics course Dec. 1 - 12, 1986. On my way up today, I was struck by the idea of writing this message to you. As I think of the things that I wish to crystallize onto paper, I am overcome with emotion (and I am not a very emotional person).

The first 5 1/2 years of your life have gone by swiftly BUT we have had a LOT of good times together. It saddens me that you'll probably remember only a few things we did together when you were younger. When you were just a week old, I told your mother, "We're going to miss him being this little."

It gave me great delight that you wanted to do everything I did JUST the way that I did it even though retracing my steps to make you happy was trying at times. You would even put your shoes by my shoes, jeans by my jeans, check the fire when I did, stack firewood in freezing weather with me, watering trees with me.

I think, though, you will subconsciously remember our closeness of your early years. When we took you to your first day of school, I could not go in the office with your mother to check on your school bus because of the lump in my throat. My first day off without you was sad indeed. I'm afraid we're going to have to end our staying up to 11 PM which began when you were 2 years old.

At this point in time, your parents have been married 10 years and we have lived in our new house 1 1/2 years. The 3 floods which devastated me at our old house now seems like an expensive bad dream. In December, 1982, when you were 1 1/2 years old, walking on particle board floors without carpeting made me question my ability as a provider. Holly is now 1 1/2 and becoming less fussy. Between now and 2061, the New Madrid fault should have caused a major earthquake. I hope we all come through it all right. Also, the approach of the Third Millennium could be auspicious. Mankind has been predicting the end of this world since Christ had just left this earth. I am going to be optimistic and predict this old world will be here in 2061. If this is true, I think that you have a better than 50/50 odds of seeing Halley's just after you have turned 80 and Holly would be 76 (any other siblings would be under 75).

I hope you can remember some of the details of you and me seeing Halley in 1986. I will record my recollections here before my memory blurs. I had been waiting for Halley's ever since I was 9 years old, which meant a 23 year wait. But I did have the moon landing to root for in 1969 and the Bicentennial in 1976. In 1984, the astronomers began to break the news that the 1986 return would be the worst view in 2,000 years. This was a big disappointment to me especially after reading accounts of the earth passing through Halley's tail in 1910. I did get several pictures of Halley's, braving the cold at 4 AM in March, 1986. I even had one of them making the local Doniphan newspaper which made up for the poor display. In April, I thought the comet was just about gone but on May 1, in the evening sky, I checked and discovered the tail to have brightened. Your cousin, Shawn, found my long lost 2 1/2" telescope in my folks' attic. I wanted so bad for you to see it because I knew you had a very good chance of being a Halley two-timer. The telescopic image was not very sharp (we described it as a fuzzball about 1/2 the diameter of the field of view). When you put your eye up to the scope, you had trouble hitting your eye with the eyepiece and squinted. I was getting very apprehensive. You said you saw it and I wondered. I was resigned to the fact that I would never be sure you had seen it until I heard you say, "Yeah, I see it. It's at the bottom." And it was! I moved it up, left, right, middle and you correctly called out its location each time. I was so overcome by joy that I grabbed you up and hugged you so hard. At first you were surprised but I think you understood.

We saw Halley's about 4 or 5 other nights in May, 1986.

When you see Halley in 2061, you will be in a very small and select minority because hardly ANYONE saw the 1986 apparition which makes it all the more special to me. So in August, 2061, when Halley is supposed to be 9 times brighter than it was in 1986 and high in the northern sky, be sure to get together with Holly and your other siblings (for which this is also intended) and share with them your memories of when you were one month shy of 5 years old and WE watched Halley together. (It is speculated that Holly was named after the comet.)

I should stop here and make some profound statement. It is said that for thousands of years man has asked himself the same questions of why things happen the way they do concerning life and death, happiness and tragedy and he is no closer to the answer now than when he first started asking.

There is much of life ahead for both of us. I will probably give this to you upon your High School graduation. I want you to know that your mother and I will always love you, although sometimes it is harder to say that to a 20 year old son than it is to a 5 year old son. There is no fitting way to make a grandiose ending to this time capsule message. I hope our family's life in the future is as warm and close as it is now. Whenever I cannot be with you, remember this message and read it if you need help. Some of the things I've learned in life are:

1) In any endeavor that you undertake, give it your best sustained shot. Succeed or Fail, you will have no regrets.

2) Be kind and humble to those you live and work with. They will be supportive of you when you need them.

3) Be yourself. That way you only have to learn one role.

4) Be honest. You'll find that it is just plain nerve-racking and scary when you try to maintain a deception that is usually uncovered anyway.

5) Laugh at Yourself and worry not of what other people are thinking about you. That's my secret for good mental health.

6) Savor life's good things when they happen. I am doing so with you.

I hope that you inherit my love for observing and pondering the wonders and beauty of God's universe. When One is knowledgeable of the vast emptiness of the universe, he approaches the correct perspective of the extreme rarity of human life and the very dearness of human love. Colliding galaxies pale in comparison to the aura of these unique qualities of home planet earth.

I hope you read this more often than the two occasions I specified at the beginning. I suppose everyone wants to leave something tangible to pass along into the future. This message is not Shakespeare, but it is from the heart.

Your Dad











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