Time Capsules
When we asked REMODELING readers and visitors to
REMODELING Online to tell us about the unusual things they've found in old buildings, we
expected to hear some dillies. We were not disappointed. The finds ranged from the
historical (an 1806 Springfield musket, a 1910 bordello token) to the personal (the 1940s
diary of a young girl); from things you would love to find -- like seven mint-condition
1920s silver dollars -- to things you might wish you hadn't -- like the mummified possum
or the live racoon. From this motley collection two themes emerged: long-lost objects
that, against all odds, refused to stay
lost, and beer bottles. Lots of beer bottles. Dennis Gehman, Dennis Gehman Custom Builder,
Inc.,
Telford, Pa., once worked on a remodel with a foreman named Henry, who had helped to build
the original house.
Henry remembered losing a floor chisel on that job, and sure enough, behind the apron trim
of a window, there it was. He had left it on the rough sill almost 30 years earlier.
Gehman didn't say whether he and Henry found any beer bottles in that house, but we
wouldn't be surprised. To judge by all the empties stashed in America's housing
stock, it's a miracle anything was built plumb and level. Barry Long of Cleveland opened a
wall to find this touching scene: five beer bottles, a half pack of Lucky Strikes, and a
small feather pillow. As Long notes, Hey, after five beers, I need a nap too!
Article from Remodelers Magazine
