If I had a time machine...

[westphalia]

Re: If I had a time machine...

If theorists are correct, and one cannot actually change or influence past events, but only be an observer of them, imagine the fortune you could amass. You'd know precisely what companies in which to invest, what properties to buy, what inventions should be financed and supported, etc. You'd be a masterful gambler, if you lived long enough to bet on the World Series. You'd be the world's greatest psychic - a Criswell, if you will, only talented.

That said, are not investments and speculation "influences" on historical events? If so, then the only way you could go back would be as a ghost, really. It's interesting to ponder.

I voted to go back permanently, too, ghost or not. It stinks here.

[Micah Trent]

Re: If I had a time machine...

Awwww. :o

I'd pretty much agree with what Linda said, and of course would like to go back with her, too.


Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

Okay, so who is getting the brownie points here between the hubby and wifey???:wink_smil

LOL...couldn't resist!:D

[Spinster]

Re: If I had a time machine...

Yes sir.

Of course, I also labor under the illusion that I'd have Jane Seymour's hair. :p

[BillO'Dea]

Re: If I had a time machine...

Mrs. Lawson, I'm glad we have Time and Again in common.
Now, dont tell me ever since you saw the time travel movie, Somewhere in Time, with Chris Reeve and Jane Seymour you've had a strong desire to go to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island too? lol
best regards,

Bill O'Dea
Salt boilers mess / 122nd NY

[Hank Trent]

Re: If I had a time machine...

If I could control just one thing it would be that I'd want Hank to come along with me and be my husband in the 19th century. I couldn't imaging having such an adventure without taking my best friend. And I know he'd enjoy it along with me. :D

Awwww. :o

I'd pretty much agree with what Linda said, and of course would like to go back with her, too.

In addition to all the points that others have mentioned, I'd just like to add that I think it'd be interesting to watch time go by. Being focussed on the Civil War era, we tend to forget how quickly those four years would pass. If I'd gone back in time the year I started reenacting, by now I'd have talked on a telephone and seen electric lights. Movies and recorded music would be just around the corner, and within a normal lifespan, I'd see cars and airplanes and wireless telegraphs. I might just live long enough to die on the Titanic.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[LindaTrent]

Re: If I had a time machine...

I did choose option 1.

If I were able to go back in time, I wouldn't want to be able to remember the 20th and 21st century. It would bother me too much knowing what's about to happen and having no ability to stop it. Image being dropped into the Gettysburg area with enough time to save the lives of all those men, but yet not be able to affect the coming events. That would be more than I could bear.

However, I would like to be able to remember enough of the pre-war knowledge that I have so that I'm not a total goof. I'd at least know what kind of fruits, vegetables, livestock, etc. would be typical, especially if a veil just rose and I found myself in my township, county and state sometime between 1857 and 1865, or something like that. Just my luck, I'd fall back in time to 19th century Russia, or some such. :cry_smile

I also would want to experience it in both the best of times (peacetime) and the worst of times (wartime), not knowing the outcome of the war, not knowing about modern medicines and such... To me, 3/4ths of going back in time would be to experience the feelings and emotions of the people, which I couldn't do if I maintained my modern knowledge. If someday I managed to fall back into a time machine and return to the modern world -- I'd want to retain the knowledge from the past so that I could use it to educate people on what it was like to live in that time and place, and bringing back the clothes on my back would be cool too. But if I never found my way back to the 20th or 21st century that would be okay.

If I could control just one thing it would be that I'd want Hank to come along with me and be my husband in the 19th century. I couldn't imaging having such an adventure without taking my best friend. And I know he'd enjoy it along with me. :D

My mother, siblings and all might miss me, but they'd know I'm okay, just in another dimension. I guess my dog would have to stay here since he's not a period breed, can't contaminate the past.

Linda.

[Spinster]

Re: If I had a time machine...

All-

I must admit, I'm somewhat suprised about most people taking Choice 2 over Choice 1. I'd figured if one could go back in time, knowing what you do now in the modern world today, one would like to live there permanently.

I'd go for choice 1, except for one small point---I'd have been dead as a rock before I ever got to see a thing, assuming the same body and life circumstance I have now.

Lets see, I would have:
(1) Died at birth in the course of a breech delivery
(2) Died at age 18 months of the fever that went though town (and in modern life, folks in our town did loose 75% of children between the ages of 6 months and 3 years. A number of the remaining children were rendered profoundly deaf.)
(3) Died at 8 in a carriage wreck. (okay, it was a car wreck)
(4) Died by 18 of consumption
(5) Died in childbirth after 3 days of fruitless labor.

All this, and not one of the many vaccinations I've had would have prevented it.

Still and all, like Bill O'Dea, I hold "Time and Again" as one of my all-time favorite books. Not many years after it came out, I spent several hours just looking at the facade of the Dakota.........and wishing.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: If I had a time machine...

It may sound silly, but I'd love to go back to this corner of Belmont County on the day the 15th OVI came home. Or, come to think of it, maybe a week or so earlier, when we got the word about when they'd get here. Can you imagine what it must have been like with the guys away so long?

It would have been interesting to be here the day the riders came from Moundsville to tell everyone about the call to arms. I wonder, though; looking around the crowd, would I be tempted to sidle up to some of them and say "You might want to think this over before you go"?

The "ghost" idea appeals to me. Since I can't be an actual participant in reenacting, and I'm on permanent kabuki status due to family complications anyhow, it would seem natural to go and look without interfering. Doubt I could handle being in a hospital area, even though at my age I'd be a likely candidate for a nurse.

[GrumpyDave]

Re: If I had a time machine...

I'd like to make two stops. Well maybe four. Richmond, Atlanta, New York and Philadelphia. To see how the contract/supply system worked.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: If I had a time machine...

All-

I must admit, I'm somewhat suprised about most people taking Choice 2 over Choice 1. I'd figured if one could go back in time, knowing what you do now in the modern world today, one would like to live there permanently.

I could do it, but I don't know if I'd like to actually see the horrible suffering that war brings again- especially if it is happening to fellow Americans of any era.

Good stuff -Johnny

[WoodenNutmeg]

Re: If I had a time machine...

[BobbyHughes]

Re: If I had a time machine...

I dont know about staying... but I wouldnt mind going back to get a really good education on man and material, and bring back a absolutey spot on impression.. can just see the conversation... "Where'd you get your stuff??" my reply... "Welllll, you wouldnt believe me if'n I told ya"

[boozie]

Re: If I had a time machine...

Johnny,

Would love to go back for a visit. As much family research that I have done I would like to go back and see not only parts of the war , but how my grandparents lived in the 19th century. I am very fond of my family from central and West Tennessee. I would love to see farm life along Bradley's Creek on the Nathaniel Greer farm in Rutherford County and how the same life was diffrent on the Joseph C. Lee farm in the wilds of Hardin County.

Events I would like to witness from the war is Grandad David Lee moving across Spain field at Shiloh, taking the first federal camps in Chalmers path on the 6th. Also would love to witness Donelson's brigade charging the Round Forest at Murfreesboro, the federal accounts of this brigade sound amazing. Although I don't know how I would handle seeing David wounded.

Most of all I would just like to sit down and talk with family members from that time, just to hear them speak and to see their personality would be like gold to me. But, I sure don't want to stay.

[Dale Beasley]

Re: If I had a time machine...

I answered the last one, just would not be for me. Maybe for a day, just to checkout the uniforms, but would not even want to be around the wounded.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: If I had a time machine...

Hallo!

Ah... the intellectual fantasy of the Time Traveller.

Speaking of which, that story was made into a mild movie a few years ago- I think a made-for-TV one.

Having watched the BBC series "Dr. Who" since the 1970's, and living in the Future as I do...

Yes, the future change themes are intriguing, and have also been dealt with on screen reflecting both theories that it is possilbe to alter our Present by affecting the Past, as well as the alternative view that Time is fixed.
Which then goes on to the Einsteinian type "relativities" that, time and space are realtive..and on to Alternative Time Lines where there are multiple possible Futures based upon different actions taken in the Present.

IMHO, the fantasy works best, when the Time Machine is not a one-way deal. ;)

My favourite is that if the Curt of Now, goes back to say 4:05 P.M. on July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg, and the Curt of Next Week goes back to 4:00 P.M., I can see myself. :)

I like to say "intellectual fantasy" not so much because we lack the technology to warp or fold Time whether it is really possible or not- or move through the 4th Dimension that we exist at the very razor liner edge of and cannot move in, around, or through- but rather because we are creatures of the Present and the Future only.
Meaning, we romanticize the Past as a Golden Age of Somethings, when all too often the Past is NOT a very nice place- filled with physically hard and harsh daily life; short life expectancies; untreated and unoperable illnesses, diseases, and injuries; high infant and child mortality rates, an dmuch more of the lesser, baser side of human dignity, compassion, respect, and treatment of fellow man.

So, while I would jump on the prospect and possibility of the Time Machine to visit "the Past" (if for nothing else than to see how far off the mark our theories, assumptions, and beliefs about the "Way It Actually Was"), I am not so sure that I would REALLY want to live there as a full-time resident. The Past is not a Friday to Sunday reenactment. ;) :)
But since I now live in the Future, and not the Present, there are some daze I am not sure I would stay here and not "go back" anyways in spite or despite the Past's actual and real "shortcomings" and challenges.

Curt
Please Mr. Spaceman... take me along, I won't do anything wrong Mess