A message to the future

When we started taking down walls and ripping up floors we found all sorts of thing left behind (besides the dead rats and mice that is). An old razor blade, a live rifle shell, a tin key box, a test tube full of mercury, a metal playing card case, a postcard postmarked August 6, 1927 that read "Dear Gertie, Arrived at Seattle. Gosh it's a bum place. Why didn't you come down to the station to see me off? Fannie"

Gee, if Fannie had been a little nicer maybe Gertie would have made the effort!

We also found an old Roger's Golden Syrup tin full of brown paper wrapped prophylactics labeled descreetly "Durex - British throughout" as well as two pristine tins of wrapped Sphinx brand condoms from Toronto. We do wonder what was going on in our house in the late '20s and early '30s!

No doubt the best find was several hand painted theatre posters promoting plays produced by the team of actors who lived in our house from 1930-1938, 'The British Guild Players'. We've had the best of these framed, along with other found posters advertising sweets that presumably were displayed at Vancouver's Empress Theatre (demolished in 1940) for intermissions.

We have also sourced and framed photos of five of the actors we know lived or stayed in the house and have placed them in a Hollywood-themed bathroom, also being renovated as part of this project.

So when we knew the gyproc walls were going up in the basement we decided to add our own message to the future. We wrote a note and put it in an envelope along with a pin commemorating the upcoming 2010 winter Olympic Games and a modern condom (just to continue the karma). We also added our business cards in case we are still alive and using the same email address (!) when the next person decides to redo what we are doing.