Laverna
Saunders
with a
newspaper
from the
time capsule.
Snapshot of a Millennium
A Moon Township Y2K time capsule is unearthed 34 years premature,
but still yields some surprises.
By Paul Glasser
S
ixteen years ago, a Moon Township family
buried a time capsule in the backyard of
their home on Wynview Drive. Although they
hoped it would remain hidden for at least 50
years, they are glad someone found it.
“I buried it as a reminder of what the turn
of the century was all about and also to pass
along a little slice in time of Moon Township,”
says Tony Bruno, who buried the capsule. “I
had really hoped it would be found 50 years
later, but I knew there was [also] a good
chance it would never be found.”
Bruno and his wife, Sheri, bought the house
at 107 Wynview in 1984, and when they
planned to move to Spring City in 2000, they
buried a large plastic box that contained a
short message from each of the couple’s three
young sons. The current homeowner,
a retired librarian from Duquesne University,
discovered the time capsule last year. Bruno
says he has always had an interest in history
and time capsules.
“I was quite intrigued by the lead-up to the
turn of the century,” he says. “I have thought
about the time capsule occasionally over the
years, wondering if it would ever be dug up.
I am a little disappointed that it was found
so soon, but certainly glad that it was found
at all.”
At the time of the move, A.J. Bruno was
10 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE | Moon Township
Tony and Sheri Bruno
14 years old and a freshman at Moon High
School. He enjoyed acting and had recently
played Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream.” He left a note in the time capsule that
said he wanted to study drama at Carnegie
Mellon University and become an actor on
Broadway. He predicted that by the year 2025
computers would be fully interactive and that
there would be a cure for AIDS and cancer.
A.J. also predicted that the country would
have elected a woman as president by then.
Instead of becoming an actor, A.J. studied
finance, economics and Italian at Penn
State University. Today, he is working at a
technology startup in Austin, Texas, that
he helped create. He says that although he
doesn’t perform any more, his acting skills
have helped him succeed as a salesman. A.J.
has also become a pilot, like his father. He
doesn’t remember making a prediction about
the first woman president.
When the time capsule was buried, Eric
Bruno was in eighth grade and listed “Harry
Potter” as his favorite book and Limp
Bizkit as his favorite band. He predicted he
would become a sailor by the year 2025 and
believed poverty and crime would have been
eradicated, and there would be colonies on
the moon and on Mars.
Today, Eric works in the mortgage
industry and enjoys kayaking. He is engaged
to be married and just bought a house in
Philadelphia.
Mark Bruno was nine years old in the year
2000 and wrote that “Pokémon” was his
favorite television show. He believed that by
the year 2025 he would have graduated from
Villanova University and would be playing for
the Riverhounds soccer team.
Like his brothers, reality caught up with
Mark, who works at a health care startup. He
is also engaged and lives in Brooklyn.
The time capsule includes several
newspapers and magazines from the turn of
the millennium. One copy of Entertainment
Weekly declares that 1999 was the “Year That
Changed Movies” and praises films such as