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How Far Back Can I Throw You?
Time Tunnel was a cheesy Irwin Allen science fiction show about a government project to facilitate time travel that ran for one season on ABC in the late 1960’s,* starring James Darren, Robert Colbert, and former Miss America Lee Meriwether. There was a lot of historical inaccuracies in episodes set in the past and a lot of people wrapped up in aluminum foil for shows set in the future. Of course, our protagonists seemed to be able to function highly anywhere and in any time.
If, by mechanical means or the power of angels, how far back into the past do you think you could be thrown back and still survive? Could you hunt for food and build shelter in the 1850’s? Would your children even know how to operate a phone in the 1940’s? Could you find work or would you create it? Good Lord, what would you do without the Internet!?
Send me back far enough and I could pass as a doctor, my 21st Century layman’s knowledge would surpass that of many professionals in the 19th. Put me at the dawn of network radio and I could become the stuff legends are made of.
*Many things ran for only one season on ABC in those days. The standard joke was that the best way to end the war in Vietnam was to put it on ABC – it would get cancelled in 13 weeks.
Published in Entertainment
How about Sterling Hayden’s Voyage of 1896?
I take the question as stated, that it’s not my choice. Well, from a survival standpoint, it doesn’t matter when I end up, because I had a real father who taught me how to fix and build anything using whatever is at hand. I tell people all the time that if it’s not breathing, I can fix it. So of course I greatly admire MD’s.
As for what I’d miss? If I went back too far, books would be entirely too precious, and Bill Watterson may not have been born yet.
Are we talking about Voyage: A Novel of 1896? As I remember that was a straight historical novel.
Seawriter
Before I answer: Do I get to choose how long I have to stay?
Yes, that’s it. I sure got the title goofed up! I read up a bit on 1632 and it sounds interesting with its historical basis and the whole fish out of water meme. Thanks for the tip.
Watch out. They offer the first book free because the series is seriously addictive. There are at least twenty books published and a whole lot more available electronically at the Grantville website.
Seawriter
It was O’Rourke. I stole that line from him earlier.
Our family went “back in time” one year, when our water pipeline from the spring froze, and broke, in the middle of the winter. Until the weather warmed up, and my dad could fix the pipes, we had to haul water from town to use in our house, and for our farm animals. I was 9 or 10 years old, #3 in a family with eight children, and there was no laundromat anywhere, either. My mom used an old wringer washer, and we carried a bucket to the toilet (at least we could still flush!!) No thanks! That was enough of the past for me.
I spent one vacation with some friends in a place with an old hand-pump well for all the water. We had some old five-gallon dairy cans for bringing water in for the toilets, bathing, and such. And, yes, that water was cold! It was even colder than Lake Michigan that early in the spring, but we went swimming anyway. Didn’t mind it a bit.
I’ve already spent some time in the past. I didn’t like it.
Luckily, time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.
Easy with the hippie stuff-
Do I get to choose my age when I go into the past? If not, then I don’t want/need to go.
If I could go back as a 21 year old…Woo Hoo!
I’d be willing to back as far as the year I got my first big flat-screen TV.
Finally, a bit of fire! So what’s the story? Where’d you go? What’d you do with the oft misspent powers of youth?
This is what I envisioned too – and no thanks. But there are plenty of times, events, and historical figures I wouldn’t mind dropping in on for a bit and observing.
If I could be guaranteed that I would be able to advert WWI, I might be willing to consider it – or maybe some other major negative event along those lines. But WWI is what comes to mind at the moment.
Very good example, but I really don’t know how that could be done! Ideas?
One would probably have to go back significantly further in order to stop WWI. The assassinations were a spark, but they were not the only possible spark. For instance, disrupting the consolidation of the German Empire might have helped. Of course, next you’ll ask, how would you have done that?
Obviously, by assassinating either Bismarck or Wilhelm II. Next question please!
Candy.
Well then, it doesn’t seem so hard to stop WWI, then, does it? (And do you mean Wilhelm I?)
No, the 2.0 or what do you futuristic Americans call’em?
Right, but that would not disrupt the formation of the German Empire under the Hohenzollerns. Bismarck or Wilhelm I might. Would that have stopped WWI, if you killed off Short-arm Willy before it started? Perhaps, but again, the powder keg is still sitting there awaiting any fool with a match.
I don’t think it’s quite that way. The war was hardly inevitable. Undermining German power & militarism would suffice, I believe.
Like the general in the tutu having a heart attack wasn’t enough?
I see it’s already been discussed, but I was thinking of keeping Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria from being assassinated when I said that. Don’t know if doing that would actually work, but I’ve always heard that that was the trigger that set everything in motion so I was thinking if you could eliminate the trigger, you might avoid the war.
It was a gun loaded with a thousand potential triggers. It’s just that that particular one was pulled.
One of the most interesting aspects was the plot failed. The group dispersed and one happened to stop for a sandwich. Coming out of the shop, he saw the Archduke and his wife in their carriage, still had his pistol, so he shot them. Luck like that is difficult to counter when meddling with time. You would have to start further back. Perhaps forty-five to 120 years further back.
And I might know a thing or two about changing history.
Except for the fact that you’re looking backward and (supposedly) know how events played out and where to look for those “lucky incidents”. Seems that would give you a bit of advantage.
However, you’re right about the number of potential triggers. Eliminate one, and another might very well wind up taking its place – human nature being human nature and all. If one doesn’t do it, someone else probably will.
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Hey, I have that first book sitting on my Kindle. I’m hoping to get around to reading it soon. It sounds interesting.