Someone asked me today, 'If you could go back in time for a day, where or/and when would you go?' which got me thinking for the whole day! (Quite an impressive feat there).
I'm curious about most things, so any time to see what there was to see. Amongst many others (straight off the top of my head), to see the world taking form, to see the evolution of man, to witness the classical civilisations - Atlantis if it ever existed, to hunt down the Holy Grail with the Crusaders, to witness the messenger galloping across a continent to deliver a letter to the Pope saying "Pope? Who is this 'Pope'? You are a subject of Mongolia!", to 19th Century Italy and fight alongside Garibaldi, to witness the meeting of Kublai Khan & Marco Polo and see the centre of the Mongol empire at its height, to see Camille Claudel and reach out to her before her descent into madness, to thank General Choi Hong Hi for all his work and the legacy he left behind, to see who shot JFK (!)
On a more personal note, to see how different things were just one generation back (when my parents grew up). There are also a couple of people in my life who died very prematurely and I miss them dearly. I'd like to go back and hug them and thank them for all that they gave me.
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what other peoples' first reactions are.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I would spend a day with my mother, and bring my husband and my kids along so she could meet them.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I would go back to about 8th grade and give myself some good advice about getting through grade school.
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
I was actually thinking about this while I was coming in to work today.
I'd probably go to October 1979 and warn myself away from some bad choices.
Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
Mine's purely selfish. I'd go back to when my parents split up. My mother is a very unreliable narrator, and my dad (who I've met once) didn't seem much better. Their version of events are completely different - she says he ran off, he says she told him to and had him threatened when he tried to come back and see me. It's just a mystery in my own life I wouldn't mind having solved.
space opera
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I would go back and install a Halon system at the library in Alexandria.
Or steal all the scrolls a week earlier...
Posted by Uhleeuh (Member # 6803) on :
Sorry to de-rail, but I have to ask. Are you a Daria fan, J_L?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I'd go back to pre-9/11 and try to stop the attacks somehow. Maybe go back to pre-tsunami Indonesia and try to get people to start evacuating.
[\romantic notions]
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Go to 1978 and invest a ton of dough in Microsoft.
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
I'd selfishly spend a day with my deceased father.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
I'll amend Dan's recommendation by stating that I'd invest a ton of dough into Microsoft and have the dividends reinvested into Apple- just to give the universe something to amuse itself with.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Invest in Microsoft and get my family to take care of the money and give it to me a day from now. Prevent the assasination of JFK, get Admiral Yammoto to land an amthibious assualt on Hawaii, see if Christ is who everyone say he is and go back WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY back in time to disprove the 5000 year thing once and for all. (damn entropy of the speed of light thing, better never be proven). Meet Isaac Asimov, etc etc.
Posted by Jane_Lane (Member # 7665) on :
Yeah Daria rocks! I used to watch it all the time but then they replaced it with some bizarre Australian show.
There's a good one I missed out - I'd like to go back to the about 5BC and see what was happening for about a decade after.
It's nice that some people would rather spend the time with those closest to them. I'm too curious and excitable to not pick out some huge dates in history, but if I only had one choice, mine would be along the lines of 'calaban's' - I'd spend the day with my twin brother who died when we were 14.