LJ Archive - 01/22/06: How to Travel Through Time - No, Really

Made manifest by forced coercion into tangible devices, yet ever prevailing through its mastery of fleeting sands, Time remains a fickle thing. How strange that humanity chains its validity to a beast so intangible. Western civilization judges others by the meter and accuracy of their calendar as it continually botches its own. I wonder if the Aztecs held to the mantra of experiencing every possible wonder in every fleeting second; after all, we’ve been told that The Big Hook can yank you off the stage in an instant but you’re only worth the stories you amassed in your allotted slot.

I would surmise the Aztecs didn’t give a bushel of maize, as they weren’t continually refining a concept of leap seconds and leap years. But I digress.

Time taunts, fascinates and terrifies. We long for more that won’t come, cherish relics that prove what once was, and fear the inevitable expiration of the soul timer. If you’re like me, and perpetually find yourself teetering on the late side of punctual, this provides an endless source of morbid amusement – because fortunately for me, I’ve discovered that time machines are real. Oh but fear not, faithful reader! Let me explain:

My sister recently gave me a commemorative set of tokens created to mark the 20th Anniversary of the Chicago Bears’ only Super Bowl victory. While nothing special in their own right, they held a certain potential energy, and thus the placement of plastic coins into designated slots in a glossy cardboard folder unlocked a timeless passport.

Thus, I found myself as an eight-year-old, sitting on the couch with my father, watching the games as he explained what was going on, imparting their significance. His excitement and jubilation as the Bears advanced into the playoffs was something I could share in, until he said: “This is the fist time they’ve been champs since 1963!”

1963? I did the math… just over 20 years. So what, that’s ancient history, old man! And wasn't everything black and white then too? Who cares? Keep in mind I’d only been around for eight of those years myself, and couldn’t remember half of them. I had no idea what it meant; Twenty years may as well have been Twentigoobajillion Years!

But something odd happened that I couldn’t predict back then: twenty years passed since that moment on the couch and I managed to not kill myself in that time. Happily, I remember the majority of it too.

Now, suddenly, twenty years is tangible; I’ve an appreciation for change and progress, the essence of fleet and echo, the continual movement that ebbs and meanders across two decades. I could say the same essential thing to my daughter Bethany as my dad said to me: “They haven’t done it since 1985 (and counting)!”

Wow – 1985! I just did it. Those twenty years feel as real as the clothes on my back, as fleeting as the smell of yesterday’s dinner lingering in the kitchen. This isn’t so hard after all.

I jump from 1985 to 1963. Now I'm in my dad’s shoes – he’s eight years old. I can see what the prairies looked like as the suburban sprawl recedes. Turqouise is stylin', plate glass and aluminum is the wave of the future. Wow - the beat-up automotive relics of 1985 are showroom-new again! 1963’s beat-up clunkers belie an even earlier time, and so I wonder…

Another rough twenty-year leap: 1942. My grandpa in the war, proving a generation as yet unknown. Forget the history books and dusty photographs: what matters is Big Band is in! Swing, kids, and don’t hold back from tomorrow.

1921: High times of fashion and teetotalling, of long walks to the park and the outhouse. Gas lamps illuminate the way for my Great Grandma, or they will when she makes it to the city; neither in locale or passage of time are her homeland foothills of Colorado removed from the frontier spirit, yet.

Did I just leap back 85 years? Hmm… taken in baby steps, it’s not so unfathomable. I can do this all day: what’s another fifty then, to 1871 and the smoldering rubble of Chicago? I’ve seen furniture that survived it. Sixty more years to 1812 and the War of British Aggression gives the same poignancy to more antiques, and they take on new tangibility.

Eventually of course, the pull of responsibility calls me back to the now. Time travel is not for the faint of heart: it requires research and an observant mind. I blame part of this on the model railroad in my basement – it’s given me an appreciation for the mundane bits of past generations that bored me to tears in history class. With it I preserve memories of friends and family as much as any machinery that becomes obsolete.

I wonder what the hallmarks of my life will be, what keys Bethany will use to unlock the secrets of the past, to relive and rethink it all at will.

Of course there is the likely possibility she won’t be the spastic freak that I am, but for now, in this time, we don’t know, do we?