# If You Could Pick An Era to Live In **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 1, 2000, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243 "2000-03-01T21:09:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ultress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7c8e57/32.png) [@ultress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultress)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/1 "2000-03-01T21:09:00Z")
Being from the South, I would have loved to live in the era before the Civil War (without the slavery, of course). In the days when men were gentlemen and ladies were ladies. If you could chose? * * * _I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it._ ---
**Author:** ![Sylence](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@Sylence](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylence)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/2 "2000-03-01T21:16:00Z")
This one. Why? Well, first off, I’m much less likely to die from cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, measles, smallpox, stray bullets, etc. . . – Sylence * * * If a bird doesn’t sing, I’ll wait until it sings. - Tokugawa Ieyasu ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/3 "2000-03-01T21:18:00Z")
These are the good old days. **Tris** * * * Imagine my signature begins five spaces to the right of center. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/4 "2000-03-01T21:22:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by ultress: > **BIn the days when men were gentlemen and ladies were ladies.** Well, yeah, you could spend the day writing poetry in Latin and practising the harpsichord and keeping your pink hands nice and soft because you didn’t have to go outside and pick your own damn cotton. The slaves were doing it for you. Sorry, if you want to live the elegance and graciousness of the Antebellum South, you have to wallow in the moral bog of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Globe-trotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cab0a1/32.png) [@Globe-trotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Globe-trotter)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/5 "2000-03-01T21:25:00Z")
I like this era just fine. At least I can do as I bloody well please. * * * “I thought: opera, how hard can it be? Songs. Pretty girls dancing. Nice scenery. Lots of people handing over cash. Got to be better than the cut-throat world of yoghurt, I thought.” - Seldom Bucket ---
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/6 "2000-03-01T21:26:00Z")
Hijack! We had a similar thread long ago. Not that it isn’t worth doing again – it was a lot of fun and surprisingly diverse. I remember it particularly well because it was the first to tempt me into MPSIMS. (I’d always been a GQ man previously.) And it was started by Eve in her former persona as Flora McFlimsey. Now for the hijack – I haven’t seen/heard from **Eve** lately. Is she around and I just haven’t noticed? Too busy right now? Taking a breather? Mad at us? Dead? Dying? Eve? * * * he sleeps on that pile/of newspapers/in the corner/and when he takes off his/shoes you cannot/smell his breath “king nicky”, _archyology_ Don Marquis ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/7 "2000-03-01T21:34:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by pluto: > \*\*Is she around and I just haven’t noticed? > \*\* Just got an e-mail from **Eve** …she’s very busy at work, plus dealing with her publisher over the launch of her new book. She was as cranky as the rest of us when the boards were down last week, but I was surprised to not see her leap back in when they came back up. She asked that I pass on best regards to all, and says that she’ll be back as soon as the cat dies down. Oh, and Bruce Wayne says “Hi,” too. – Batman ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/8 "2000-03-01T21:49:00Z")
I personally would choose to live in the Precambrian, and brag about my vertebrae to all the jellyfish and flagellates. “Take that, you limp piece of protoplasm! Show some backbone, you worthless amoeba!” I would set myself up as a god and engrave commandments on Golden Tablets for humanity to discover after my death. When I got old, I would go lie down in a shallow bed of silt and cover myself with mud, so that my bones were preserved for posterity to make future archaeologists have hissy fits. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/9 "2000-03-01T21:53:00Z")
Gee, everyone took this question so much more seriously when we did it before… “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” ---
**Author:** ![MrKnowItAll](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrknowitall/32/87_2.png) [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/10 "2000-03-01T22:17:00Z")
I’d like to go back to last Thursday night so I could pay my phone bill on time. (Joke swiped almost verbatim from Weird Al. Thank you so much.) * * * _When someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles to frown. But it takes only 4 muscles to extend your arm and whack them in the head._ ---
**Author:** ![WallyM7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5e925/32.png) [@WallyM7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WallyM7)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/11 "2000-03-01T22:24:00Z")
The 18th century. In Europe. Transylvannia. The rosy-cheeked milk maids. The castle on the hilltop. The angry villagers bearing torches. Sigh… I miss those days. * * * ---
**Author:** ![MadPoet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@MadPoet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPoet)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/12 "2000-03-01T22:35:00Z")
This is entirely up to whther I can take supplies with me to prevent disease, etc. If I had to be transported naked, I’d choose not to go. If I was ensured just as good of quality and quantity of life as I have now, I would go back to Europe of 1550-1650. Just before gunpowder became a big hit and made warfare nowhere near as fun. Also tempting would be 1200-1400, either in Europe to give my poetry a better chance of becoming classic, or in the Americas to help train the natives and prepare them for whitey. * * * [http://www.madpoet.com](http://www.madpoet.com) Clerks - Just because they serve you doesn’t mean they like you. ---
**Author:** ![Vestal\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5e9695/32.png) [@Vestal\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vestal_Blue)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/13 "2000-03-01T22:35:00Z")
I’d go back to a certain night, mid-December 1978…Mmmmmmmmmmmm 😉 Actually, I’d love to have been in England, mid-Summer 1940… Despite the ongoing atrocities, death and destruction going on, I’m sure there would have been a Hurricane or Spitfire with my name on it… * * * VB “Rudyard Kipling?” “Don’t know; I’ve never Kippled!” ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/14 "2000-03-01T22:36:00Z")
Ok, no one is taking this question seriously, so I shall. I’ve always wanted to go back to the gold rush time period and take a conestoga wagon. Either that, or Regency England. Only if I were a wealthy female or better yet, a very wealthy and titled male. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/15 "2000-03-01T22:44:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Shirley Ujest: > Ok, no one is taking this question seriously, so I shall. And why, pray tell, is my fantasy any less valid than yours? Do I detect prejudice vs. pre-vertebrate time periods? ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/16 "2000-03-01T22:49:00Z")
So many interesting eras… 1. Rome during the Renaissance; 2. Early 19th century London; 3. Paris, 1789; 4. I would like to be Marco Polo… well, if his travels actually happened, that is; 5. And I would love to be in Amsterdam on May 5, 1945… the day The Netherlands were liberated (and a lot of Dutch girls got aquainted with American and Canadian soldiers 😃 ); 6. Jerusalem, ca. 0. Just to see what the fuss is all about… * * * **Coldfire** _Voted **Poster Most Likely To Post Drunk** _ * * * _ **"You know how complex women are"** _ - Neil Peart, **Rush** (1993) ---
**Author:** ![OldBroad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@OldBroad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldBroad)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/17 "2000-03-01T23:14:00Z")
Don’t want to go back to live in a different era but I’d like to be able to observe one without having to deal with the inconveniences. (I’m particularly fond of running hot and cold water and indoor plumbing in the winter.) Pre-revolutionary Russia. ---
**Author:** ![jayburner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/fbc32d/32.png) [@jayburner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayburner)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/18 "2000-03-01T23:20:00Z")
I would like to go back into the time when Conan the Barbarian kicked butt…we would of been great pals…I know I could of got one of the wenches he didn’t want * * * _I’m as confused as a baby in a topless bar_ ---
**Author:** ![chief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@chief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chief)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/19 "2000-03-01T23:24:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Ukulele Ike: > \*\*Gee, everyone took this question so much more seriously when we did it before… > > “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”\*\* great song !! i love “My Back Pages”! * * * Check out my site: [Chief’s Domain](http://www.seas.ucla.edu/~ravi) ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243/20 "2000-03-01T23:27:00Z")
I’d like to live about 100 years in the future, myself. I reeeally want to see what computers are like then, and see how many posts the rest of you managed to rack up before you croaked off! * * * – “it’s all real” “I KNEW IT!!!” O p a l C a t [www.opalcat.com](http://www.opalcat.com) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-pick-an-era-to-live-in/14243.md?page=2)