Time Travel? Quick, Book Me a Ticket!

I watched a program last night, (yes I admit I watch a great deal more television now and my IQ is lower I’m sure) on the making of the movie Back to the Future. My family has always been huge Steven Spielberg fans and attended the opening day of every movie. Aside from the good memories, the program prompted the realization no one has been able to conquer time travel and that made me quite sad.

I’ve always believed that Napoleon Hill’s quote, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve,” is valid. Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Da Vinci, Tesla all dreamed dreams far ahead of their time and ultimately time caught up with and surpassed their visions.

Throughout time someone, somewhere sees the future and acts on its creation. Every new invention that ever arrived on the scene seemed to have the ability to be used for good or evil. Case in point Einstein splitting the atom or the Internet.

I guess I’m wondering if and when man ever masters time travel whether it will be too dangerous a genie to let out of the bottle.

At this moment in Bern, Switzerland the Hadron Collider, a humongous machine designed to smash particles and could conceivably create time travel is operating non-stop. Some critics have suggested it’s so powerful it could even destroy earth, (get in line).

What would happen if we could travel backward in time? Who would have the ability and what would it be used for?

Therein lies the conundrum.

If I could change time what would I do and where would I go?

Could I as one person truly affect history and prevent evil events like World War II from happening? When Hitler arose there were many powerful people who saw through him and his agenda. These were leaders with loud significant voices and yet did the world listen to the warnings? I think we all know the answer to that question.

If I personally through some crazy fluke woke up one morning and found a time travel machine in my living room, could I truly be the catalyst to prevent a world-shattering event?

So I’d put on my seat belt and check out the gears on the dashboard then realize I don’t have a clue how to work the damn thing and not even Alexa can talk to it. So I just start pushing buttons until something moves or starts to whir. If I get it started where would I go? I immediately decide to start with 1929 before the stock market crashes thinking that’s a no brainer. Off I go whirring through space and time and wondering if there was something a little sketchy in my last blood pressure prescription as the years fly by.

I land on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in Manhattan outside the New York Stock Exchange.

So there I am standing on the street as the sea of people pass me and I take a beat and

walk into the exchange. I’m greeted by a receptionist who asks me the usual questions and I answer I want to see the guy in charge. She is now eyeing my sweats with enormous suspicion, but directs me to the sixteenth floor.

I’m wondering what I’ll say to someone that doesn’t even have computers yet, who I’m about to tell I’m from the future. Good luck to me.

When I arrive at the president’s office, Edward Simmons, his receptionist does the grilling and I’m desperately trying to avoid stating my real cause for being there.

She picks up the phone to call security and I rush through the door of Simmons’ office where he sits behind a desk reading. He removes his glasses and looks me up and down skeptically.

The secretary rushes in and tells him security is on the way and I know I’m running out of time.

“I’m here from the future and I want to warn you that the stock market is about to crash and everyone will run on the banks and it’ will be chaos and there will be people jumping out of windows and the country will go into a terrible depression for years until World War II and…”

He is standing and looking at me with fear and pity in his eyes. Convinced I’m a nut and certain he needs to get me out quickly.

“You’ll have to leave…”

I’m pleading now. “You have to believe me, I’ve come from the future and I know what’s going to happen. It’s terrible and you can stop it if you just suspend reality and hear me. There weren’t airplanes once but now there are and soon we’ll be on the moon.”

Two guards are dragging me out as he smiles and thinks, Boy, wait till the guys at lunch hear this one. I’ll call her the crazy Moon Lady, yeah they’ll love it.

I head back to my time machine parked in the alley and find two policemen watching the guy load it on a truck. I run to it and they grab me, and now I’m stuck in New York City just before the stock market crash, on my own and possessing only a story that ensures I’ll wind up in Bellevue Psychiatric Ward.

I’d have been better off traveling back to the day Jeff Bezos took Amazon public then borrowed and used every nickel I could get my hands on to buy the stock.

Do we all wish we could go back and change time? Sure. I’d have gone back to before World War II to save my grandmother and aunt from the concentration camps. Pearl Harbor or to prevent Kennedy from driving down that street in Dallas, and all the bad stuff I could think of personal or public. Would anyone pay attention to or believe my rantings?

Of course not.

So what’s the point of time travel?

I imagine on an individual level it might be great; or would it?

I myself would want to go back to growing up in my old neighborhood and revisit the things I’m nostalgic for today. I guess changing anything is off the table because of the butterfly effect, where if you alter one little thing it can cause unforeseen consequences.

Still, I’d love to spend time in the corner drug store at the comic book rack that turned filled with Superman and Archie comics. The soda fountain where the cutest guy in school and the neighborhood heartthrob turned out the best cherry cokes.

The smell of leaves burning at the curb in Autumn or Friday night dances at school then pizza afterward.

Going to Northland Mall on Saturdays and eating a Maurice Salad at Hudson’s, or buying my first lipstick at Kresge’s. Fishing in the everglades with my grandfather, walking on the porch of the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island, or spending summers at camp in Northern Michigan.

Especially, I’d want to celebrate one more holiday with my parents and grandparents.

Yet, although I feel pulled by my heartstrings to go there, if I could how often would I?

And therein lies the rub because ultimately I may be spending more time in the past than in the present.

In today’s world the scary, sad events we witness make us want to escape into safer, easier times.

Think how much we’d use that time travel machine to transport back to those simpler days filled with innocence and hope for the future.

So I guess it’s a good thing no one has cracked that code in Switzerland or I’d sign up immediately. Bet I’d be meeting a whole lot of my friends on that highway heading backwards.

So for now I’ll have to be content to just share my thoughts on my blog and create all new happy memories I can hopefully look back on and want to return to in the future.

Marcy F’s Magic Quiche

1 egg

¾ cup flour

1 cup milk

1 cup grated cheese (muenster or jack)

¼ cup finely chopped onion

½ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine all ingredients except ½ c milk and one cup of cheese. Beat until smooth and then blend in remaining ingredients.

Pour into well-greased muffin tins.

Bake in a 425-degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes until set.

My friend Marcy made these all the time and everyone just gobbled them up. You can also add some broccoli, mushrooms or bacon to these to make these even more special and varied for a party.