By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2664711
Equipment operator Chad Stevens of Eisen Hydroexcavation unearthed a rare find last week.
Stevens was exposing buried utilities at the site of the former Valley Fair Mall in Appleton, Wisconsin, where work is beginning on a new Walmart Super Center. He was trying to locate a Tee in a gas service line when something else caught his eye just a couple feet below the surface.
“It’s usually just mud and rocks,” Stevens says. “This was different though. I could see the edges of a small rectangular box. It looked plastic — not of this earth. It almost had a sort of aura around it.”
Stevens immediately shifted from hydroexcavator to archeologist and retrieved a set of small hand tools from his truck.
“I was so excited to get to that box but I knew I had to take my time and do things right, so I got some marking stakes and a spool of twine out of the truck and set up a proper grid around the site.”
He lettered one side of the grid and numbered the other, and then slowly started sifting and brushing his way through each 1-square-foot box. When he finally worked his way to E5 he was beside himself with excitement.
“My heart was pounding. I was breathing so hard. I knew this was big.”
He pulled out his finest-whiskered brush and began dusting off the corner of the object. And that’s when it started to hit him.
“The first thing I saw was the tongue,” he says. “It was huge. And then I saw the cat face.”
Music began playing in his head. A few more brushstrokes and he knew exactly what he was looking at.
“I almost couldn't believe it,” he says. “I mean, it was right there in front of me so I knew it had to be real, but still, I couldn’t believe it — a Betamax copy of Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, still in the plastic wrapper. It was like I dug a portal to 1978.”
After bagging the tape and recording the date, time and GPS coordinates, Stevens made an excited call to his boss. Company President Paul Eisen, himself a huge fan of the iconic band’s original lineup, was equally as thrilled.
“I’ve watched that film a hundred times,” Eisen says. “I have all the albums, some special picture discs, the ’76 Halloween Special, even a VHS copy the band’s seminal performance on Dick Clark’s In Concert I taped off a rerun. But finding an original Betamax copy of Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park — it’s just incredible. I shouldn’t be surprised though. Chad’s a hell of an operator.”
Unfortunately, as is so often the case in the world of amateur archeology, Stevens still had another hoop to jump through.
“Mr. Eisen said I had to talk to Jim Humphries, the job site supervisor for Arnold Construction. I went over to their job trailer immediately. No way I was waiting until the end of the day.”
Humphries says he was always more of an Alice Cooper guy, and had no problem letting Stevens keep his prized find.
“Kiss was like a cartoon band for kids, and that movie was awful,” he says. “And most of it was shot with a stand-in for Ace. The overdubbed dialogue is atrocious. It’s unwatchable. Of course I let him keep it.”
It’s not the first major discovery of Stevens’ hydroexcavation career. In 2009 he dug up an unopened six-pack of New Coke in the backyard of a home once owned by former Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta.
“It tasted just as good as it did back in 1985,” Stevens says. “I know there was a lot of backlash over that new formula, but I was a huge fan.”
At press time, Stevens was awaiting delivery of a fully refurbished Betamax machine he found on eBay and had already scheduled a viewing party with both of his friends.
“Seeing this film in its original format is going to be incredible,” he says. “I’m ready to rock.”
