Let’s have some fun. In today's scenario, you have access to a time machine where you can travel to one place anywhere in the past. Let’s pretend that this is like Back to the Future where Marty McFly goes to the past for a short period of time, but you’re unable to impact the future. Therefore, you can’t prevent 9-11 or the Kennedy assassination, although if can somehow find a future Sports Almanac, use it wisely. For this example, let's say that you go back in time at your current age. You can't go back to high school and all of a sudden you're 17 again. If you go back to the time of your high school years, you are still 35 (assuming that you are 35 today). So where and when would you go?
Without putting as much thought into this as I would have liked, I would pick either Pittsburgh during the 1960 World Series or Berlin when the Wall came down in 1989. Both joyous events that took place in the not too distant past. I probably wouldn't do very well going back too far like during the end of the Revolutionary War since there was no television, air conditioning or fast food restaurants. It would be tough enough traveling back to 1960 and 1989 without the internet!
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4 comments:
I love the idea of going back to 1960 for the World Series.
Being a history guy, I would want to head back to ancient times to see certain things: construction of the pyramids, the battle of kadesh, the Assyrians sacking of lachish, and a whole bunch of other stuff...
and of course, i want to go check out some dinosaurs. that wouldn't end badly.
I would love to live during post-WWII America. The housing boom, the growth of higher ed, and just that whole era of the 1950s.
I spent a (disturbingly?) long time pondering this question at work on Friday - such is the life of contract attorneys that they have plenty of spare brain cycles to use throughout the workday - and my ultimate answer depends on several details of this time travel and the vehicle for such...
The 1960 World Series was the first thought here as well, but a few alternate choices might be superior, depending on technicalities...
If I'm in a more TARDIS-like device that might offer some degree of safety, I think the answer would be the Chicxulub impact event...
The very nature of time travel suggests you can't do anything in the past that doesn't impact future events (well, save perhaps my above suggestion), but can I go back to January, kidnap myself and sit in on the Trivia Kings city championships so my team doesn't mess up the last question so we finish third instead of 24th?
Also, if we travel sufficiently far into the past, the lack of language skills would be problematic, but if there's accompanying babel fish technology (again where a TARDIS comes in handy), seeing Jesus in action would be interesting...
so yeah... Pirates, personal trivia glory, dinosaur extinction or Jesus... they're all kind of on the same plane... that said, given the option I'd rather travel forward in time than backward to any event...
Thanks for participating, Josh, Nichole & Captain! I didn't want to go back too far in time because of the language issue (as Captain pointed out) and I don't think I would survive very well in ancient times. I get all of my food at a supermarket and generally use a microwave when I cook. That would be a little difficult during the time of Jesus or the pyramids!
Even though I wouldn't be able to stop the Kennedy assassination, it would be interesting to be there to see if there truly was a second shooter.
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