Volume 45 - No. 50
December 10, 2015
By Frederick Gomez
Wow! Just think. You step into your very own time machine, set the controls to any time period in history and, voila, you’re there, conversing with Julius Caesar! Or maybe, confronting Shakespeare, himself! Or what about that Jewel of the Nile, the intoxicatingly beautiful and powerful, Cleopatra?! Exotic Cleopatra, a pivotal figure in world history books, who commits suicide from the fatal bite of an asp (a species of Egyptian cobra).
As a very young boy in 6th grade, I remember writing a school paper on Cleopatra. It’s amazing but, to this day, she still enchants me from the distant past! In my Cleopatra book report I even included a cute Cleopatra joke: Cleopatra asked her attendant to prepare a milk bath for her. Her attendant asked her: “Pasteurized?” And Cleopatra replied: “No, just up to my neck.”
At age 11, I remember having to explain the punch line to my schoolmates. Then we’d all laugh out loud and do a ‘high-five.’
I’ve often dreamed of possessing my very own personal time machine! But, where would I go, and with whom shall I visit from the distant past? My young 11year-old imagination was unbridled, and most eager to dream of the infinite possibilities open to me!
Boarding our time machine, perhaps we could set our time machine dials so that we could meet, reputedly, the most beautiful woman of the ancient world, Helen of Troy! Her beauty is immortalized in verse by Christopher Marlowe: “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.” Wow, a kiss from Helen of Troy! That would set my toes tapping! I remember, at the tender age of 12, a beautiful red-headed temptress, the same age as myself, who took a shine to me! She walked with me hand-in-hand around her parent’s old, but charming, farm house. Her name was also Helen, and as we made our approach to her front porch she asked me to kiss her on the veranda. Innocently, and naively, I replied: “What about just on the lips?”
But, back to our time machine! Wow, I could journey into the past to any time my heart desires. I would be tempted to journey way, way back to meet and converse with the greatest and wisest secular philosopher who ever lived --
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Socrates, of ancient Greece! Yup, who was sentenced to death by being ordered to drink the dreaded poison, hemlock! I could learn much from Socrates, no doubt. And perhaps learn from his final words before dying: “I drank what?!”
Or, what about asking Pontius Pilate what went through his mind when condemning the historical Jesus of Nazareth to the cross? Legendary vaudeville and television comedian, Red Buttons, once quipped that Pontius Pilate might have said in the aftermath of his historic decision: “Well, I guess that blows my Christmas bonus!”
Having access to a time machine and time travel requires a lot of responsibility. Proper behavior would be a requirement lest you be separated from your head, via the grisly guillotine, the executioner’s method of choice during
the French Revolution!
On second thought, no thanks, I think I would relinquish journeying back to the French Revolution, after all!
If not France, what about England? It might be interesting to converse with England’s very first Queen Elizabeth! But then again, Queen Elizabeth might get angry with our unannounced visit with her. She might well reply to our time travel intrusion as such: “Not now, I’m on the throne!” I wouldn’t blame Queen Elizabeth for becoming upset at our sudden arrival in our time machine without making an appointment in advance! As previously stated, possessing a time machine certainly requires having responsibility, which includes protocol, and courtesy! All of which means being respectful in the presence of historical figures! For example, it
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would be considered disrespectful to arrive in our time machine shortly (after) the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln! Ordinarily, we would be considered “fashionably late” in contemporary times.
Well, I think you understand the parameters which we need to be aware of.
Trying to decide where to go in our time machine would be a daunting task! As a sports fan I would think of visiting that immortal ball player, Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat! Or watching history’s greatest thoroughbred, the mighty Man o’ War, race around the oval in 1920, demolishing world records while still in a canter! Then again, if the romantic streak stirs within me, I may wish to see that vagabond, Robin Hood, a champion of the downtrodden who