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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.
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The battles that Henry won compared to those his elder brother won, perhaps?
& that you can separate from circumstances, or luck, or chance? This is pretty amazing!
Fine, Titus. It’s all luck then. Good day.
I’d go back to Wisconsin in 2005 to see first hand who killed Teresa Halbach.
As interesting as changing history may sound, you get no say as to the where. All of you who wish to stop wars and reverse historical injustices, that might be hard to do if you’re randomly plopped down in Wahoo, Nebraska in 1875. The question is whether or not you would have the skills to survive.
Oh, I’d invest in so-and-so, or place a bet on the Dodgers in 1920… All irrelevant if you can’t make a living and raise the capital in the first place.
I’m telling you, that’s why the Egg McBiscuit is a genius idea. Any of you who get thrown back into time, feel free to use it. What, I’m going to stop you? If that has been taken by the time I get there, I’ll invent something else… like the taco!
So, what you’re really telling me is that you would have no trouble securing enough land to bring in the wheat to produce your biscuit flour and raising the chickens for all those eggs? You’re totally secure in your knowledge of hooking up that plow to that team of Belgian horses? Do tell.
I believe the 1800’s were mentioned. They already have biscuit technology. Assuming I can reach a city before starvation (and speak the language), I find a small restaurant that does breakfast, and isn’t doing much business. I convince the owner to feed me for long enough to find out if they will sell, and if so give me a cut of the increased profits.
If I’m tossed farther back, say into Medieval times, I might try to sell myself as a Magus from a distant land, since I will know things and might be able to pull off a ‘miracle’ or two. That also assumes some level of communication. If I can’t speak at all, then…
“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
I don’t have the skills to survive now!
How do you get this damn safety seal off?
Good point. I was thinking of going back to the same age I was back then (the old “If I knew then what I know now” argument).
OTOH, if you had seen this girl, risking arrest might have been worth it . . .