NORTHAMPTON — In 2003, members of Donald Palmisano’s high school psychology class buried a time capsule to be opened by their future selves. Twenty years later, nine of those students returned on Monday to dig it back up.

The project had been done sort of as a tribute to Palmisano, who was in his final year of teaching. His former students described him as something of an eccentric, discussing topics like opera and personal relationships in class.

“It was kind of like ‘The Breakfast Club,’” said Emily Levine (Class of 2005), recalling the class. “It was a lot of folks who didn’t inherently know each other, it was a hodgepodge of kids, and he just kind of leaned into that in a big way.”

It wasn’t a coincidence that the day the former students returned to dig up the capsule coincided two days after the birthday of Sigmund Freud. Freud’s birthday is May 6, but the original plan called for them to return on the following Monday, so that they could get a glimpse of the students currently enrolled (some of which are their own children).

In an article in the Gazette published 20 years ago, Palmisano, who died in 2014, said the class was “the best any teacher could ever have.”

“This class has been the joy of my entire 36 years,” he told the Gazette at the time. “This is the way to end a career.”

Objects in the time capsule included figurines of Freud and Donald Duck, decorative pens, and letters the students wrote to their future selves. Other objects however suffered from being buried 20 years underground — the psychology textbook the students used that was included had mostly rotted away.

Tom Messinger (Class of 2006), the youngest student in that final class, included a deck of cards and some candy as part of the capsule, both of which had been adequately preserved.

“I definitely showed my age,” he said.

Many of the students had written letters to their future selves, most reading them with varying degrees of embarrassment. Jen Neilsen (Class of 2005) revealed part of the letter she had written, back when she was 16 and went under her maiden name, Martinez.

“I hope you’ve had a good life up to this point and continue to have a great life,” it said. “As times change, so do people, and all you’re really holding onto are the memories.”

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