By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
“There was a big hole so we just threw it in there,” laughed Janelle Young.
What they threw in was a homemade “time capsule” which was uncovered during the recent excavation of underground gasoline tanks at the site of the former station at Five Points.
The “time capsule” was a Clark Oil cup with a couple of small pieces of paper in it. The cup, although cracked, had survived 27 years!
Young was the manager of the Clark Oil gas station in 1998 when, she said, “one of the tanks had a leak in it. So they had to pull it out. Then there was this big hole; so we (station employees) decided to put this cup in there with some stuff in it.
“We just threw it in the hole.”
Now, it’s 27 years later and as the tanks are coming out. Janelle happened to remember the cup.
As the recent excavation was continuing to remove the station to make way for a roundabout, she was not sure where the cup had been thrown into the hole.
“But I told Daniel (her son, Mayor Dan Rickord) about it and he told the guys (doing the work) about it.”
Nothing was heard for a while, then one day Dan got a phone call – the cup had been found!
“The cup had cracked and got some water in it,” Janelle said. But the Clark Oil piece of paper with the names of the employees on it and the Decatur Chamber of Commerce pamphlet were crinkled but legible.
“The guys (doing the work) said they had never seen anything quite like that,” Janelle – now a dispatcher for the Adams County Transit system – chuckled.
Janelle’s name is on the paper, along with that of Taya Brown, assistant station manager at the time, Karlene Johnson, Betty Hawkins and Lydia Krueckeberg.
“It makes me smile that they did find it,” said Janelle, who now has possession of the “time capsule.”
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