if you could turn back time

Today we turn back time, or turn forward, you get my point. Daylight Savings Time, a wonderful notion given us by Benjamin Franklin to make life and winter a bit more burdensome and confusing twice a year. You can quote me if you want to on Turn Back Time, even Cher it if you want. Sorry, that was bad. But so is she. Ah, I ramble.

Time travel has always fascinated me. If I owned a DeLorean I would use it from Time to Time (Bazinga). As I changed the clocks this morning, the notion again bounced around my tiny cerebellum. I was reminded of a very serious line from one of my favorite movies, Stephen King’s The Dead Zone. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it.

In the movie, a man, played by a young Christopher Walken, suffers a terrible car accident. Confined to a coma for years, when he comes out he finds that he has the ability to predict the future by merely holding the hand of a person. In particular, he could predict terrible events and ultimately alter the course of history through his gift.

His Doctor, a Holocaust survivor, recognizes the awesome power of his gift and asks him the pivotal question, one that has intrigued me since the day I saw the movie.
“Knowing what you know, do you think that if you could go back in time and alter history, would you?”

On September 28, 1919, Private Henry Tandey, a British soldier serving near the French Village of Marcoing encounters a wounded German Lance Corporal. His rifle aimed at the wounded soldier, Tandey chose to spare the young man’s life. He could not bring himself to shoot a wounded man. That German Soldier was named Adolf Hitler and he went on to become the third most murderous tyrant in recorded history. Had that soldier fired, Nazi Germany would have never existed. Do you think that Henry Tandey would want a re-do after that?

Hitler is but one example. There are so many.

So I ask you, on this lazy Sunday morning, if you could turn back time and reverse a major Historical event that forever impacted World History, or even a small one in your personal life, would you?

Keep in mind the Butterfly Effect as you ponder this. And that, in order to truly alter our/your world as we know it you may be required to murder someone. Could you do it?

Food for thought. I’m curious about your answers.

42 thoughts on “if you could turn back time”

      1. The reason I asked is because it’s a story about going back in time to prevent the JFK assassination and the unintended consequences that resulted from it. Having said that, there are a host of things in my personal life that U would

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      2. Do differently if U had a do-over. From a world and national perspective, I would go back and prevent the RFK assassination. I think he would have won the 1968 presidential election, and if he had, I believe things would be much different and better than they are now. Politically and socially

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  3. Really, no, simply because of the butterfly effect. But I’d like to mess with a few things… like showing up for historical events that no one knew at the time would make history just so I can say, “I was there!” Being nicer to a group of guys I met who sang in an unknown band at the time called, “Warrant.” (Free tickets!) I’d change the USA to the metric system. I’d make the language Spanish because I like how it sounds. Bueno! Oh!!! Yes, one thing I would change if I could go back in time. I would stop school shootings, for sure, the butterfly effect be damned! Great question Billy.

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      1. I met them in a truck stop cafe. Wasn’t impressed or unimpressed. Loved their music they became famous for… ah the 80’s, hair bands and excess… Yes, you gave people something to think about, for sure. This one was fun to answer too. You’ve had quite a run with these type of posts, keep it up Billy!

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  8. Great post. I love time travel movies. They always deal with the paradoxes in slightly different ways. My favourite is 12 monkeys.
    If I could go back I would blow Hitler away, of course. But closer to home, I’d try to stop the cancellation of the Avro Arrow program in Canada. Canada had developed the most advanced fighter jet ever and scrapped the whole program for seemingly political reasons. The program would have made us a leader in aerospace and provided a huge industry.
    Also, I’d like to go see how they actually built the pyramids.

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      2. The big thing, and I hope someone expounds on it because I threw it out there, is the possible consequences of altering history. For every action there is a reaction

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  9. I would like to go back to May 1996 to hug my Dad and tell him how much I loved him. I visited him in hospital that Wednesday, and didn’t do it. He had a massive heart attack the following day and never regained consciousness. He died the day after my 40th birthday.

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