Temporal Mystery Tour

Photo by John Blocher, February 2004.

AOL journals guru John M Scalzi has posted a challenge for journalers to write vacation recommendations for places they've never been. Well, sure, there are lots of places I want to see in my lifetime and haven't: the Pacific Northwest, the Dakotas, Alaska, Greece, Israel, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga - well, all of them, really. Everywhere I haven't been is where I'd like to go, as long as people there aren't shooting at each other or dying of diseases and malnutrition while I watch helplessly. But my real dream vacation isn't to any of those places. I want to travel in four dimensions, at least, not just three.

Even before I ever heard of the TARDIS, I wanted to travel in time. Over the years I've picked out several destinations:

* New York City, circa 1960. Peggy Cass and James Thurber himself appeared in A Thurber Carnival, a revue later directed by my mom in Syracuse. I’d like to have seen Thurber play himself in “File and Forget,” but the man died when I was four years old. While I was in town, I’d pop forward a year or two and chat up Stan Lee before buying a dozen copies of Amazing Fantasy #15.

* Liverpool and Hamburg, 1955-62. My husband tells me that audio tape does exist of the Quarry Men performance at the Wooton Parish Garden Fete, after which John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the first time. That’s pretty miraculous, but it’s not good enough for me. I want to take 21st century recording equipment down there, and tape Paul as he plays 20 Flight Rock for John. I want to record Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, the Silver Beatles, and the Nurk Twins. I want to hang out at a Cavern Club lunchtime session, and shop at NEMS. Then I’ll come home and turn all those recordings over to Apple—but keep a copy for myself, of course! Maybe I can get a research grant from some Time Travel Institute’s musicology department.

* Jerusalem, circa 28 AD. Can I have a Universal Translator for this one? I’m not big on Aramaic, and I don’t want to push for any miracles for my personal convenience.

* Anywhere, 23rd century. I’d like to see who came closest to getting it right: Roddenberry, JMS, or the BBC.

Maybe after that, I can upgrade my TARDIS or other time travel device to go sideways in time, from one reality to another. Then I can visit the real Enterprise (NCC-1701), Sam Beckett, Mary Poppins, the Wart, Eeyore, Bilbo Baggins and Meg Murry. I’d finish off that trip with two weeks in Mâvarin, looking around in the world of my creation, talking to people I know well but have never met.

Karen