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Jenna Goldstein, a former seventh grade Dolan Middle School student in 1997, reads a letter she wrote 25 years ago to a hypothetical future student, while standing next to Michael Rinaldi, her former teacher at Dolan and the current principal at Westhill High School. Goldstein read the letter during the opening of a 25-year-old time capsule on Saturday, Sept. 17 at Dolan.
Michael Rinaldi (center) stands next to former seventh grade students he taught at Dolan Middle School in 1997. That year, the students put together a time capsule, a red cooler full of mementos from the late 1990s, which Rinaldi buried at the school. On Saturday, Sept. 17, the students got together to look at the items inside.
Items found inside a 25-year-old time capsule were displayed on a table at Dolan Middle School on Saturday, Sept. 17. Seventh grade students at Dolan in 1997 put the capsule together, with items from the day.
Items found inside a 25-year-old time capsule were displayed on a table at Dolan Middle School on Saturday, Sept. 17. Seventh grade students at Dolan in 1997 put the capsule together, with items from the day.
STAMFORD — When she was a seventh grade student at Dolan Middle School 25 years ago, Jenna Goldstein wrote a letter to a future student at the school and thoughtfully added a glossary of slang words from back in the day at the end.
Among the entries were a collection of words meant to signify different levels of "cool."
"Phat" was defined simply as "cool," while "da bomb" was listed as "really cool," and "da bomb diggitty" was "really, really cool."
The letter was one of many inside a time capsule — in reality, a large red cooler — buried at Dolan 25 years ago by former teacher Michael Rinaldi, now the principal at Westhill High School. On Saturday, the items inside the capsule were revealed in front of about 30 former students who came back to see what was inside and reconnect with old friends and acquaintances.
The big reveal was the second time the alumni had tried to connect with 1997. After an unsuccessful attempt to find the capsule in early June, Rinaldi went back to the site a few days later.
About two and a half hours of digging, his shovel hit the corner of the capsule, but by then, many of those who had assembled for the grand opening had returned to their adult lives. Once he removed the cooler from the ground, Rinaldi was reminded of one detail he had forgotten: All of the students in his class had signed the outside of it in black marker.
On Saturday, the cooler was finally opened with the former seventh graders in attendance. Beside the letters, students put items from the era in the capsule as well: a Beanie Baby, different magazines and a copy of The Stamford Advocate.
Rinaldi was a social studies teacher at Dolan in 1997, and at the time, he was preparing for a move to an administrative role the following year. Realizing it would be his final class as a teacher, Rinaldi decided to do something to commemorate it, and settled on creating a time capsule with his students.
He had every student write a letter to a future student in 2022, describing what their lives were like and what they hoped for the future. Rinaldi also used a camcorder to film interviews with the students which were captured on a VHS tape also inside the capsule.
That tape did not survive, however, as water got into the cooler over the years and cause too much damage to salvage it, the spectators found.
Goldstein, now a deputy legal counsel to Colorado Governor Jared Polis, read a portion of her letter out loud on Saturday just as the other former students did.
"I wrote about my friends, I wrote about what we did," she said, adding that the letter was about seven to eight pages long. "There's a lot of stuff in this letter."
The glossary, however, was the highlight. Students laughed at each selection and tried to guess some of the words, such as the 1997 slang word for "a pretty or cute boy or girl." The answer was "blazin.'"
Like many of the former students, Goldstein expressed her appreciation for Rinaldi, who she wrote was "pretty cool" in her letter.
"I think I felt a lot of gratitude for having such an amazing middle school teacher" at the time, she said, describing the capsule reveal on Saturday. "Even aside from the time capsule, he was just a teacher that stood out to me."
Goldstein also contributed a mixtape to the capsule with songs such as "Fu-Gee-La" by Fugees, "Don't Speak" by No Doubt, "You Were Meant for Me" by Jewel and "Tonight, Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins.
"It really was very special," Rinaldi said of Saturday's capsule reveal.
Not all of the former students could attend, so Rinaldi said he was in the process of sending some of the letters to ones who couldn't make it.
Saturday was also the 20 year reunion for the Stamford High School class of 2002, which included the '97 seventh graders from Dolan, one of the reasons Rinaldi scheduled it on that day since many ex-students would be in town.
Karesia Batan, who attended both the time capsule event and the reunion, called Saturday a "day of nostalgia."
She contributed a pair of pink Weepuls — a small spherical fluffy toy with googly eyes — to the capsule.
In her letter, Batan wrote about her friends.
"The advice I had to the future student was to just understand that friendships are really important," she said. "The friends that I was mentioning in my letter were the friends who I am still friends with now."
Ignacio Laguarda is a reporter who covers education and more for the Stamford Advocate.