Time Capsule: The Silver Chain – Trailer

In the early 1990s, a cache of abandoned newsletters found its way from a safety deposit box in Minneapolis, Minnesota to the state’s historical society, where they were left to gather dust. The newsletters detailed the inner workings of a secret 1970s swingers society: The Silver Chain Social Club.

Fifty years later, TV writer and host Paul Ditty tracks down the club’s surviving members to uncover the group’s mysterious history and the ties that connected its members long after the swingers club closed its doors for good.

For a deeper look inside Time Capsule, read Paul’s newsletter.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Paul Ditty 00:03
When someone says they’re a swinger, we all pretty much know what that entails.

Speaker 2 00:08
very important in a party house, two bathrooms. And then in this side, it’s kind of a television room, but it’s also, well.

Speaker 3 00:15
feel part of the expression kind of a make -out room. As a younger kid I didn’t know what my grandfather did. I knew he had a big house and there was this giant room with all these beds at different levels and they were fun to go in there and jump around you know.

Speaker 4 00:33
You know, I found them to be probably more accepting than any people I’d ever known before.

Paul Ditty 00:43
Was it overwhelming to be a unicorn?

Speaker 5 00:47
Very much so. I mean, truthfully, the options were endless. I could just open my inbox of any random type and just scroll down and pick one. You know, I mean, if you’re a single female in the lifestyle, people just flock to you.

Paul Ditty 01:02
But for a group of Minnesota couples who experienced the 70s as a time of free love, they believed they would take this story to their grave.

Speaker 2 01:11
And I go down there and there’s all these chairs in a circle. And everybody’s got a towel on their chair. And I’m like, that’s when I put it together. Like.

Speaker 6 01:20
Oh, that’s what a swinger is.

Paul Ditty 01:28
I’m Paul Diddy, and this is Time Council Season 1, The Silver Chain. In the early 1990s, an envelope arrived at the Minnesota Historical Society. Inside that envelope were the contents of an abandoned safe deposit box from First Bloomington Lake National Bank.

Paul Ditty 01:54
And with the arrival of that one envelope, their collection now included newsletters from the 1970s. Mimeographed and folded like church bulletins, and credited to an organization based in Bloomington, Minnesota, an organization called The Silver Chain Social Club.

Paul Ditty 02:16
Month by month, these newsletters chronicle family camping trips.

Speaker 5 02:21
bing, get on the fap.

Paul Ditty 02:22
River, and yeah, that was a lot of fun. Monthly Dances

Speaker 5 02:27
We always just referred to it as a dance club.

Paul Ditty 02:30
and discussion panels like Women’s Changing Role in Society and Don’t Fuck Like a Truck. Because behind closed doors, the silver chain was a well -organized swingers group comprising over 100 couples.

Paul Ditty 02:51
For over a year, I’ve been scouring these old newsletters, these relics of 1970s Minnesota, and like any time capsule, the objects are the first thing that caught my interest. But it’s the people behind the objects that became my obsession.

Speaker 6 03:10
Okay, I have a picture of me in this beautiful red dress. Pretty sexy.

Paul Ditty 03:18
Yeah, I mean, I read in the news there are multiple times where they’re describing your outfit really in detail.

Speaker 6 03:30
My goodness.

Paul Ditty 03:33
The further I delved into these newsletters, the more questions I had. But 50 years later, many of the Silver Chain’s members are no longer alive. And for those who are living, well, they’re not exactly excited to hear from a stranger who discovered a secret society that they thought was long gone.

Speaker 2 03:58
please delete me from your list and whoever else might be on your list that you haven’t already contacted. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Paul Ditty 04:08
But for every person who does not want to discuss the silver chain, there are plenty of others who do.

Speaker 4 04:16
So many people that you just flutter around and talk to everybody and yeah, it’s just fun. I was kind of a social butterfly.

Paul Ditty 04:30
And the more I dug, the more questions I had.

Speaker 5 04:35
Somebody’s daughter joined.

Speaker 4 04:36
I’m almost certain that it was Judy.

Paul Ditty 04:41
Because the silver chain, it’s a different type of who done it. When you would have the parties at your penthouse, how many couples would you invite?

Speaker 4 04:54
12, 20, 30. 30 couples?

Paul Ditty 05:00
In a group based on secrecy, where members knew each other only by first name, what possessed someone to store these newsletters away? And how did a club like this function in a conservative Minnesota suburb?

Speaker 4 05:14
Well Hal and Terry decided they were going to make a lot of money and they were going to manufacture ecstasy. Hal had the money, Terry had the brains.

Paul Ditty 05:28
what happened to the club? And what can we learn about ourselves and our own relationships from the experiences of our grandparents’ generation?

Speaker 6 05:37
I didn’t expect to tell my whole life story about my ex and my husband and all the sort of dads. Well, you know, that’s probably something that I wouldn’t mind having your kids know about. Our mom went from dependent to…

Paul Ditty 05:53
I strongly agree. It’s a big deal. In Time Capsule Season 1, we’re time -traveling back to the 1970s, exploring the long -term effects of a suburban subculture and discovering how these couples found a way to both connect and reinvent themselves.

Paul Ditty 06:11
We’ll find out the truth about the silver chain and what was left behind. Because in the case of the silver chain, some time capsules are never meant to be discovered at all.

Speaker 2 06:25
Hello!

Paul Ditty 06:26
call is being recorded.

Speaker 6 06:32
You guys do not realize you’re playing with fire.