If you could go back in time........

[shereads]

I've lived this fantasy a hundred times since last September.

I'd be on the balcony with my friend's brilliant, beautiful daughter in the moments before she took her life.

I wouldn't bother telling her how her choice tore the souls from the people who loved her most. Their grief is too big to comprehend, and she must have known it would be. I'd just tell her that her Abuelita and Abuelo don't dance anymore at the cousins' birthday parties. She was the one who always pulled them onto the dance floor, and without her they've forgotten why they danced.

I'd try to make her understand what she couldn't at 18: that everything changes. Even hopelessness. And I'd beg her to give the world another chance. Just tell us what's wrong, and stop pretending to be happy. You're such a loved girl, so blessed, we'll make the sun rise in the west if you'll give us one more chance.

 

[minsue]

 

[shereads]

And one for you, min.


And later, maybe a banana.

 

[Remec]

If you could go back in time, to one event, one time zone, or to meet one person, where, when, who would you choose and why?

Hmmm....these sort of questions always make me wonder too much.

Do I do something historical...educational...from out of my personal history...? Do I just want to see, hear, meet an individual, or live an event? Do I want to shape or change history in some manner?

The mind boggles.

<g>
Let's start with something I would've liked to have been to, I think. I've always been a little leery of anything that smacked of being dirty or outdoorsy...just not really the camping type (the occasional long nature hike, sure...but staying out? Hmmm...mostly pass)....I would've liked to have been a part of Woodstock. To have seen up close what it was all about...heard the bands...shared in the feeling of community and all that stuff that I've become too cynical and jaded about...

 

[BlackShanglan]

Three deathbeds:

Swift. Go find the good dean, pierce the veil of madness for a moment, and show him what an incandescent genius all rational people will acknowledge him forever.

Wilde. Just comfort the poor broken butterfly, and make him smile with the thought that his wild, quirky wit will outlast the feeble handfuls of gravel thrown at it.

Connolly. For sheer humanity, give the poor bastard some morphine, and tell him that some hope would yet come of it.

Shanglan

 

[bloodsimple]

Honey 123 - take it from me, college is hugely overrated. Anyone who underrates you (on whatever level) for NOT going to college makes a serious mistake. It sounds like you did a great and noble thing, worth more than a piece of paper and a gown. Not going to college didn't prevent you showing some class when some was required, clearly.

I forgot a few things -

Yeah, definitely stop Stevie Ray Vaughan getting on the helicopter.
Stop the Olsen twins' parents meeting AT ANY COST
Cut off whoever told Tom Hanks he could have an acting career
Maim whoever told Robin Williams he was ever funny
Persuade David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser not to quit when the show still had legs
Go back and not listen to people who told me to stop writing stories and start studying "something useful"
Replay the last twenty years and tell all those people I admired and loved that I did so, instead of just assuming they'd somehow know

 

[Colleen Thomas]

As a history buff, you would think the sheer volume would be overwhelming. Strangely, it isn't. I would pick a quiet day, an average day, a day when nothing happened. Back before Cars, before air planes, before industirailization. Just an ordinary day, somewhere on the banks of the Mississippi River. A sunny day hopefully, where I could watch the river roll, breathe fresh air and for once, just once, not be troubled by what the future holds, as I would already know.

-Colly

 

[oggbashan]

ann bolyn(sp) what a tart!. ... i want to know what drove her to desire power so much that she would sleep with a puss riddled fat mysogenistic dickwad. plus.. i think seeing her extra finger would be kinda cool..

As Henry VIII I resent that - only joking. Anne held out for marriage unlike her elder sister, Mary. Even so, she didn't get it until she was four months pregnant. The Annes of his world still exist but she was also manipulated by others who wanted to influence the king. Having sex with powerful men is still an aphrodisiac from some and Henry was far more powerful than any individual is today.

As for Anne's extra finger and nipple - I've seen people with both. I didn't think there was anything special about them. One man - a cooper (maker of barrels) had two thumbs on his left hand. The second thumb was more of a nuisance than a help since it didn't bend like his main thumb.

I'd like to go back in time to Hitler's 'invasion' of the Rhineland and order the French troops to fire on his soldiers. If he had been stopped at that point, when it was easy, his backers would have wrested power from him and there would have been no WWII. Germany would have remained a democracy.

I'd like to meet Samuel Pepys - that man knew how to live in difficult times.

Whenever I went back to, I'd like to take modern dentistry with me. I remember treadle driven dentist drills. Anything before that would be horrendous!

Og

 

[SensualCealy]

If I were to go back I think Id make little tweeks to things Ive done or havent done, study harder, or at all for that matter. Go to college just so I dont here my kids say- You didnt go to college.
I did go but after I was married, which sucked since I didnt experience it as other teens did.

I would also love to go back and meet Elizabeth I. This woman had balls! I think Id likely want to be a very close friend of hers, no telling what she would do if she was pissed off.

I would love to have studied under Monet, I love to paint and would love to have learned from one of the best.

Cealy

ps Id have told off my mother and father in law alot sooner, they are much nicer to me now! lol

 

[doormouse]

One of the most remarkable people to have ever influenced my life was my piano teacher.

For me, it would be to go back and learn more about her. She is an amazing woman. She'd be in her 70's now and from last I heard, still as astounding as she was way back then.

That's mine.

 

[Honey123]

Honey 123 - take it from me, college is hugely overrated. Anyone who underrates you (on whatever level) for NOT going to college makes a serious mistake. It sounds like you did a great and noble thing, worth more than a piece of paper and a gown. Not going to college didn't prevent you showing some class when some was required, clearly.

Thank you...

 

[Honey123]

I've lived this fantasy a hundred times since last September.

I'd be on the balcony with my friend's brilliant, beautiful daughter in the moments before she took her life.

I wouldn't bother telling her how her choice tore the souls from the people who loved her most. Their grief is too big to comprehend, and she must have known it would be. I'd just tell her that her Abuelita and Abuelo don't dance anymore at the cousins' birthday parties. She was the one who always pulled them onto the dance floor, and without her they've forgotten why they danced.

I'd try to make her understand what she couldn't at 18: that everything changes. Even hopelessness. And I'd beg her to give the world another chance. Just tell us what's wrong, and stop pretending to be happy. You're such a loved girl, so blessed, we'll make the sun rise in the west if you'll give us one more chance.

 

[Guest]

May 12th, 1992. I'd meet a Susan Blankensip at her office. I'd take her to lunch at a resteraunt on the other side of town and keep her from crossing the street.

 

[doormouse]

I've lived this fantasy a hundred times since last September.

I'd be on the balcony with my friend's brilliant, beautiful daughter in the moments before she took her life.

I wouldn't bother telling her how her choice tore the souls from the people who loved her most. Their grief is too big to comprehend, and she must have known it would be. I'd just tell her that her Abuelita and Abuelo don't dance anymore at the cousins' birthday parties. She was the one who always pulled them onto the dance floor, and without her they've forgotten why they danced.

I'd try to make her understand what she couldn't at 18: that everything changes. Even hopelessness. And I'd beg her to give the world another chance. Just tell us what's wrong, and stop pretending to be happy. You're such a loved girl, so blessed, we'll make the sun rise in the west if you'll give us one more chance.

 

[CrazyyAngel]

Re: Just for you Mat...cause I love ya!

Actually, I'd like to have been able to meet myself when I was a teenager (well, maybe not exactly meet myself) but to have been able to whisper in my ear and to have said, "Hey, remember that day when you decided NOT to do ......, well, do it, because you'll regret it for the rest of your days!"

Exactly what I'd do ...

I wouldnt go back in history to change anything, cause we really dont know what would happen. Maybe if we shot Hitler, Josef Stalin would have tried to rule the world or someone unknown to us would have done things even more crueling than Hitler. I'd just observe some events (too much to name them all) or times ... and than go write about it maybe. One which comes to mind is going back to the time the big statures on the Easter Island were built and find out who really built them.

Other than that I'd only go back into my own life and like Honey tell me a few times to do things rather than hold back. Most certainly I'd be somewhere and someone else by now ... but that wouldn't be necessarily a bad thing.

CA

 

[Honey123]

Re: Re: Just for you Mat...cause I love ya!

Exactly what I'd do ...

I wouldnt go back in history to change anything, cause we really dont know what would happen. Maybe if we shot Hitler, Josef Stalin would have tried to rule the world or someone unknown to us would have done things even more crueling than Hitler. I'd just observe some events (too much to name them all) or times ... and than go write about it maybe. One which comes to mind is going back to the time the big statures on the Easter Island were built and find out who really built them.

Other than that I'd only go back into my own life and like Honey tell me a few times to do things rather than hold back. Most certainly I'd be somewhere and someone else by now ... but that wouldn't be necessarily a bad thing.

CA

Exactly what I was thinking...I mean, how do you know you wouldnt be killed back in those days or changed the world so drastically that it wouldn't be so great anyway.

I didn't do anything horrible in my past, just things I never got to do, or regreted....

 

[McKenna]

I'd like to go back in time for a medieval romp with Og. I think the hat is sexy, what can I say.

(AND the beard, and the size 14 feet, and.... etc.) Maybe we could do something really lascivious, like hold hands while walking through a pack of juvenile hoodlums in the town square.


for Og

 

[Guest]

Three deathbeds: Swift. Wilde. Connolly.

Shanglan, I don't know you at all but I want to say I love and appreciate your choices. I would love to have heard Wilde speak.

Perdita

 

[CrazyyAngel]

Swift.Wilde. Connolly.

For someone not that skilled in english or american literature ... who exactly do you mean?

Jonathan Swift? Oscar Wilde? ... for the third name only Jennifer Connolly comes to mind actually.

CA

 

[gothgodess]

This topic started off as a 'Theme for the Day' in ABSTRUSIONS, and the answers posted already are so interesting, I thought it might make a good discussion topic for everyone.

So here it is:

If you could go back in time, to one event, one time zone, or to meet one person, where, when, who would you choose and why?

Mat

King Arther no hesitations.
I want to find out once and for all who he was and what he did. then we can finnally have one true account. (and I'd like to see what Guenevere saw in Lancalot)

 

[Guest]

CA: Given the other names and the poster's own, I believe he means James Connolly, one of seven who signed the 1916 Proclamation for a free Ireland. He was severely wounded during "the Easter Rising" and soon after executed by a British firing squad. You might want to read Yeats' poem Easter 1916.

Perdita

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Mists of Avalon... *shudder*

 

[mtnman2003]

I'll hold my breath.......

Goodness, if I could go back in time.

Sandy Neilson. Have to be back to high school. I always wanted her, but was too shy to ask. And being the quarterback on the high school football team, seems a contradiction. Me shy…….. But she still is a fantasy. And now I am over 50…… sheesh!!

Or Karen, one of the cheerleaders. Stopped at 2nd base. Duh!! I would try that over again!

You do know, we can’t go back again.

So, now I live in the present!

Honey123……. I’m yours!!!

Mtn

 

[BlackShanglan]

CA: Given the other names and the poster's own, I believe he means James Connolly, one of seven who signed the 1916 Proclamation for a free Ireland. He was severely wounded during "the Easter Rising" and soon after executed by a British firing squad. You might want to read Yeats' poem Easter 1916.

Perdita

Many thanks for your timely and accurate aid, Perdita - and for your appreciation of my choices.

Connolly died in terrible pain. I've read accounts that said you could hear the screaming from outside the jail. He always struck me as the best of the lot, too; nothing high flown, just wanted people to have jobs, and food, and blankets, and some shred of human dignity. He told his own wife, "We're not going out to fight. We're going out to get slaughtered." But he went.

(Right, too, of course, that I'm thinking Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde. Sometimes I forget there are any others.)

Shanglan

 

[Guest]

Shanglan, I took to Irish literature a long time ago when I had a university course titled 'Modern British Writers'. Turns out the best were all Irish: Joyce, Yeats, Synge, Wilde. Reading their works and about them I could not help but learn Irish history.

As I recall from one book Connolly was taken from his prison hospital bed to his execution and had to be tied to a chair so that he could be shot upright. His pain always seemed a tragic metaphor to me.

best, Perdita