Time Passages

It was a windy rainy night. A stiff breeze that would have some sort of maritime nomenclature, were I to live closer to the sea, continues to blow. I am sure lots of whip-like willow branches are down in my backyard. I won’t notice since about thirty feet of willow tree is already filling that space. Some of the nearby neighborhoods are without power this morning. I’m fully electric at the moment. 

I have spent a good part of the evenings this week with my nose stuck in a book. I knocked off an old Robert Ludlum thriller I last read back in the 1980’s and then I read a Louis L’Amour western in the course of two evenings. I am now embarking upon Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower, a Pulitzer winning history that covers one of my favorite time periods, the Guilded Age and the years leading up to the Great War. While I say it is one of my favorite  periods, I will readily admit I have not studied those times as in-depth as some other epochs. 

I have often said that if I could go back in time it would be to the turn of the Twentieth Century. I wouldn’t choose the Civil War, what if I found myself with the Tenth Indiana at Chickamauga? Nor would I choose the Napoleonic period. Any earlier time period and I would face living standards and hardship I am unprepared to hazard. 

The period 100 to 125 years ago would be familiar enough I could perhaps navigate, provided I didn’t immediately catch diseases my body is unprepared for. Sanitation and health standards were a far cry from what we have become accustomed to. Just imagine the piles of horse crap, human waste, and garbage that littered the streets of even the most wealthy neighborhoods. Ponder the smog of thousands of cooking fires, the danger of gas lighting, and the outright body odor of the gen pop. 

It is better I go back in time through words and history. It’s a lot safer that way.