A Final Thought: Traveling Back In Time
By Mitch Allen
Last week a friend asked me what I would do if I could travel back in time—one time and one time only. Where would I go? What would I choose to see?
I know enough about “the Butterfly Effect” to understand that I would not dare change a thing. With my luck, I’d inadvertently interrupt my parents’ on the night of my conception and vanish into oblivion along with every trace of my existence.
No, I would be merely an observer.
My inner child would want to witness a live, fearsome battle between a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Stegosaurus (without the pay-per-view hype). However, I recently learned that by the time T-Rex came along, Steggie was not only extinct, she was already a fossil, having died out some 70 million years earlier.
I could be present at Kitty Hawk for the Wright Brothers’ first flight, or be there to hear Alexander Graham Bell utter, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
I could stand over the shoulder of a 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson as he drafts the Declaration of Independence with a quill pen. While I don’t care for violent movies, I might arrive on the Ides of March in 44 BCE to see the Roman senators stab Julius Caesar 23 times, or witness in 1919 my own great-great grandfather murdered in Troup County, Georgia, over a moonshine deal gone bad.
Then again, maybe not.
I could ride the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and turn around to see Rosa Parks shaking her head, defiantly stating, “No.”
I could discover whether King Arthur, Robin Hood, or the Pied Piper of Hamelin were real or fictional or something in between, or what happened to Amelia Earhart’s plane. I could glimpse Lady Godiva atop her horse—and go blind.
Wait! I could go to Woodstock.
Maybe I would observe the Egyptian pyramids being constructed before my eyes or behold the beauty of Cleopatra, reaching out to caress her shoulder. From a safe distance, I could witness the pyroclastic flows of Mt. Vesuvius turn to ash the people of Pompeii.
Then again, maybe not.
I could visit the vast wetlands that sprawled across southern Africa and spy on my ancestors, the earliest humans, though my better nature would have me sit at the feet of ancient prophets and listen firsthand to their parables. I could ride in the ferry boat with Siddhartha Gautama.
Maybe I will travel with Moses Cleaveland as he worked his way across the Connecticut Western Reserve to found the city of Cleveland, Ohio, marching among purple crocus rising out of ancient snow.
I could explore expansive Native American cities before the arrival of Europeans, including the Inca, the Aztec, and the Muskogee, who lived in Georgia and Alabama—my home states before I discovered the beauty and hospitality of Ohio.
But far more likely, I would be drawn to the southern shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland on a dark and stormy night in June of 1816, when five of the most famous people in the world gathered in a summerhouse in Villa Diodati. The 18-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was vacationing there during the “year without a summer.” The previous year, a massive volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia had filled the earth’s atmosphere with dust and ash. Switzerland—like the rest of the world—was dark and cold. Mary found comfort inside the summerhouse along with her four guests: Lord Byron, Dr. John Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary’s step-sister Claire Clairmont, 18 years old and pregnant with Byron’s child.
On the evening of June 16—as lightning flashed through the windows and candles flickered in the room—Lord Byron read from Fantasmagoriana, an anthology of German ghost stories translated into French. When he finished reading, Byron challenged everyone in the room to write their own ghost story.
Mary Godwin—who had studied the works of Goethe, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare—spent the next seven days contemplating the assignment until she finally revealed to her friends her story of “The Modern Prometheus” or Frankenstein. (She later married Percy Shelly, which is why we know the author as Mary Shelley.)
As much as I dislike grey skies and the cold, I could see myself there, eavesdropping in the candlelight on this famous literary gathering.
But we all know that won’t happen.
If I could truly travel back in time, I’d go back only a couple of hours—long enough to purchase the winning Mega Millions lottery ticket, which as of this writing is worth $850 million.
Then again, if I already had $850 million, would I not gladly trade it away for a mere glimpse of Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden under the shade of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
Probably not.
They’d think I was a snake.