It might seem weak, but I’d go back to my hometown of Dunbar, WV and attempt to just blend in. I’m a big fan of time travel books, and sometimes movies, and have done an inordinate amount of daydreaming on the subject. And sure, there are other scenarios I’ve concocted. Like, for instance, going back and witnessing the Beatles (the Quarrymen, then) when they were 17 years old, or whatever. Or maybe the Beatles in Hamburg, Germany in 1962? You know, that kind of thing? Or there are many, many baseball-themed time travel fantasies. I’d love to see Babe Ruth play or Ty Cobb. Or maybe Johnny Bench when he was in high school?
And that night at Ford’s Theater would be interesting, don’t you think? Maybe chillin’ at the Gettysburg Address with the ol’ Railsplitter? The list would get long in a short amount of time.
But, if I had a once-only opportunity, I think I would almost certainly just go back to Dunbar in the late 1940s. After WWII, but not immediately after. Maybe 1947 or 1948. I’d have to get some clothes that would allow for the blending-in. I couldn’t go in my Magnolia Thunderpussy shirt or anything like that. Then I’d rent a room at a boarding house in town, and just walk around and soak it all in. I wouldn’t even want to sleep.
I’d probably be considered a real-life giant, and the whole town would be buzzing about the huge stranger suddenly in their midst. That would be unfortunate, and could possibly ruin the whole blending-in part of it. But I think people back then were a lot smaller. It’s amazing when I see uniforms at the Baseball Hall of Fame, from the 1930s and 1940s. They look like they’d fit modern-day middle schoolers. Same thing at the Civil War museum in Gettysburg. The clothes and uniforms are shockingly small. So, I have a feeling I’d tower over most people, and be much, much fatter. That could be a problem.
One of the things I remember most vividly about Stephen King’s great time travel novel, 11/22/63, is when the protagonist first travels to the 1950s and tastes root beer at a drug store lunch counter. He describes how great it tastes without all the additives, etc. Those are the small little moments that I’d get the biggest kick out of. I’d have to be careful not to start shouting in amazement at every tiny little thing.
Needless to say, I’d spend ample time in the local taverns. It would be weird, but I might run into my grandfather. Or grandfathers, even. I don’t know how I’d react to such a thing. But that wouldn’t be the main reason for going. I’d just like to taste the beer and talk to the people. And… again, just soak it all in. For some reason, the notion of meeting people from my family kinda scares me. I’m afraid I’d somehow fuck it all up. I don’t trust myself with such a responsibility. Ya know?
And I’d walk through every business in town, and up and down every street. It would probably be bizarre: the familiarity of it all, mixed with the big differences. But it would be amazing. I’d listen to baseball on the radio and all the programs of the day. Maybe take a day trip to Charleston, on the streetcar or whatever. It would be fantastic!
That might seem like an odd choice, but it’s the scenario I return to whenever I think about time travel. A psychiatrist might be able to get to the bottom of it… What about you? What would you do if you only had one opportunity: one week in another time. I suppose it could be in the future, although that doesn’t much appeal to me. I’m all about the past. In any case, tell us how you’d spend your week. Use the comments link.
And, by the way, one of my all-time favorite time travel books is Time and Again. It features an unfortunate sappy-ass love story, which I wish wasn’t there. But the author puts a lot of emphasis on the small little things I mentioned above, and how amazing that stuff is. The main character travels back to 1890s NYC. There was a sequel many years later, published when the writer was approximately 150 years old. I think he typed THE END, and dropped dead. It’s good too, but not as good as the original. If you have any suggestions for great time travel novels, I’d love to see those too!
And before I call it a day, here’s your Thursday podcast episode, hot off the presses. And here’s the summary:
In this loose and erratic episode I tell you about a surprising modern-day phenomenon I discovered at Target, the current seasonal mash-up we’re living through, an explanation of Bourbon Season, an attempt at some music talk without being all music nerd about it, and the time in Atlanta when a delicate Australian musician was nearly pulled off a stage for being pompous. All that, and the Whistle Dick of the Week! It’s a bit of a mess but somehow hangs together. Enjoy!
I hope you guys have a great weekend!
I’ll be back on Monday. You know, in the future? Wow… lame.
Now playing in the bunker
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I like that sort of think also. I have read those books many times.
As long as theres toilet paper, I’m game for about any time. To experience what our grand parents did first hand would be cool. But, toilet paper is a must.
I’d go to Haight-Ashbury in 1967. And I would also take a page from Back to The Future and get one of those sports books.
It’s funny, I have my own time travel fantasy that is pretty much the opposite of yours. It involves taking someone from the past that had a great amount of influence in a particular area, but at the precipice of when they “made it big” so to speak, and transporting them into our time and showing them the results of their work. Then gauging their reactions and comments.
For example, you take the Wright brothers just as they were getting ready to travel to Kitty Hawk for the first time. Before they knew their ideas would even work, but they had some inkling that it might. Then bringing them into now and taking them on a passenger flight (coach just to be real) from NY to LA. Let them experience the totality of air travel and all its nuances, wonders, frustrations and ennui. And then watch their reactions to every detail.
And this works in almost any realm. Say, take the first ever baseball team that formed a professional league back in the mid 1800s to a Yankees-Red Sox playoff game. Or bring Les Paul as he was developing the electric guitar to a rock concert. For some reason I find this fascinating.
If the Wright Brothers had to experience a modern TSA check-in, they might just say fukkit and move on to some other project. Like the Bundt pan, or something.
I forgot to mention that in my little thought experiment/fantasy they would carry no memory of their glimpse into the future when you put them back. You know, time-space continuum issues and all. But I agree, the TSA would fuck their world. And the snacks. They’d be like, “these peanuts must have some new wonder seasoning developed by the future agri-industrial complex. It’s called ‘chip-o-lotay’ and it must make your brain smarter or something.”
Orville actually lived long enough to witness cross-country flight. Pretty amazing.
Ha! I’ve similar thoughts, but mine, which I’ve thought would make a great* TV series, involves taking modern technology back in time. Take a helicopter back to Da Vinci etc
*obviously it wouldn’t, because it would be educational and interesting, and wouldn’t have screaming and crying and giving people roses and voting on karaoke and other inexplicably popular shit
1950s or 1960s Los Angeles and Las Vegas would be fun. Maybe road trip back east on the actual US Route 66. I would wish for a couple of weeks at least, perhaps a whole month. Taking this time-trip with ample notations of sporting event outcomes (football, baseball, horse racing, boxing match outcomes) collected in a handy little notepad would finance the whole shooting match quite nicely I would imagine.
I’m not as romantic in where and when I’d go as you Jeff. I’d get the list of Powerball winning numbers, go back a couple of months, and play the large jackpot. Bingo!
There was a great show on the last couple of years called Timeless that took three people back in time to prevent a sinister agency from screwing with history. It was fabulous but of course they NBC cancelled it because they just had to have more of the reality garbage I would love to be able to go back in time to some historical events when they were playing out. Provided the return trip was guaranteed.
I love “Timeless”. I think it got picked back up (hope so).
There was also Time After Time (an attempt to make the 79 movie into a series). I have noticed over the past several years these sorts of show don’t last long. I was into Revolution and probably several others I can’t think of. All gone.
See if you can find a British TV series from the 1990’s called Goodnight Sweetheart on netflix or whatever. It’s well written, poignant, and funny. The protagonist finds a time portal and travels back and forth between the 1990’s and early 1940’s London.
A week with dinosaurs? In Rome at the height of the Roman Empire? The 1938 Nuremberg Rally?
An anecdote about Stephen Hawking. He hosted a party in his office at Cambridge for time travelers, but didn’t announced he’d done so until after the party had ended. Nobody turned up, so I guess we never figure out how to go back in time, ‘cos you’d turn up at his party wouldn’t you?
A great time travel book series is Outlander. Yeah, it’s a love story but it’s not too sappy. Check it out. Starz made the book into a series for their channel. I wanted to like it but, I didn’t care for it too much.
I like Jeff’s idea about going back to your hometown in the late 40s. I think I would go back to Atlanta in the late 60s when it was still a great city. Now, I can hardly wait to retire in another year or so and get the hell outta here!
I got sucked into Outlander a few years back. By now it’s a series of (8 or so?) Big Fat Novels. I like that form, and it’s an exceptionally good read. About my only gripe is that the phrase “beat yourself up” was unknown in the 18 century. I’m pretty sure.
What I’m saying is that I highly recommend the series, if you like the Series Of Big Fat Novels format. Such as Foundation, or Baroque Cycle.
I love the books. I like the series, too, but the last season didn’t hold my interest as well as the first two. I loved the idea of trying to change a major world event.
There are so many things I’d want to jump around and see. I’d want to try some of that wine that had been water a minute ago, watch Alexander kick some Persian ass, meet Hippocrates, watch Cesar cross the rubicon and Hannibal cross the alps.
And what about the Trojan horse?
I want to ask the guys at Stonehenge “What’s with the rocks?” or see just how those stones got piled up into great pyramids.
Meet Arthur and Lancelot (or the people on whom they’re based).
Commission paintings from DaVinci and Michaelangelo. Find out if Robin Hood was real and if Marion was hot or not.
See America when it was covered with old growth forest from the Atlantic to the mississippi. Ask some questions when the constitution and bill of rights are written just to get some clarification. Meet Franklin and Adams and Jefferson. Listen to Washington’s farewell address. Watch Lincoln as a kid, a storekeeper, a country lawyer and a president. Give serious thought to stopping or killing Booth outside Fords Theater.
Sail as a guest on a Royal Navy frigate during the Napoleonic wars, maybe meet Lord Admiral Nelson and Lord Cochran.
And oh, so much more.
If I only had a week I’d have trouble choosing between seeing Detroit in 1928 (when it was bigger and more prosperous than Chicago) or going back to my Great-great grandfathers village to meet him and my grandparents. Family legends says he was a serious badass.
“Ask some questions when the constitution and bill of rights are written just to get some clarification.”
Yeah, lean over Madison’s shoulder as he pens the Second Amendment: “Say Jimmy, you sure you don’t want to put a coupla commas in there, or maybe a semicolon? You know, just so there are no misunderstandings …
Holy Jesus, a semicolon would have helped a lot; there’s an extra comma already, and it’s not very helpful. The same guys who came up with “We the people . . . wrote one of the most obscure sentences in the history of governance.
Also, not to criticize, but just as a point of historical clarification, “Washington’s Farewell Address” wasn’t a speech — it was a long letter from George to the citizens (read white males) of the United States. It was printed in a newspaper, then reprinted by many more. It was largely written by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, but George DID have final edit, and added his own thoughts.
OK, back to the impossible time travel stories. . .
jtb
Louis C.K. says that the only people who want to travel back in time are white men. For everyone else, it’s “no thanks”.
Only because he wants to jerk off in front of Cleopatra
That made me snort!
Haha!! Excellent!
Harry Turtledove wrote a book called “The Guns of the South” where time travelers from 2013 travel back and give Gen. Lee, and the Confederacy, AK-47’s in an attempt to sway the outcome of the Civil War for their own twisted purposes. Personally, I would travel back to the late ’40’s/early ’50’s just to meet my grandfathers (both died during my infancy). I’ve always heard such wonderful things about them. I would just like to know them, and the truth, myself.
Dean Koontz “Lightning”
Not time travel but his “Watchers” was a great read.
Dean Koontz “Lightning”
Another of his thats not time travel but a good read is “Watchers”
Ok, that was weird.
Replay by Ken Grimwood. Man dies and becomes conscious again at 18 years old with all his memories intact, and has a chance to live his life over, and over, and over.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/341735.Replay
Replay is excellent!
I’ve read it several times. Really.
If you’d like to support someone who also started out as a fellow self-publisher, check out Scott Meyer’s Magic 2.0 series. From Wikipedia:
The series so far consists of five novels, “Off to Be the Wizard”, “Spell or High Water”, “An Unwelcome Quest”, “Fight and Flight”, and “Out of Spite, Out of Mind” which were published by publisher 47North. The series follows Martin Banks, a programmer from 2012, who uses a computer file that allows him to alter reality to time travel to medieval England where he joins a community of other computer programmers posing as wizards.
Anytime anyone considers going back in time they should watch the movie The Butterfly Effect. Very sobering reminder of the consequences. Makes me content with my current lot in life.
Or read “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury.
…or watch “Heros”
Jeff, check out In Times Like These: A Time Travel Adventure by Nathan Van Coops. This is the first book. He’s made it a series now. I’ve really enjoyed them.
Time travel? Beatles in Germany for a week…..