You have, by pure happenstance, managed to perform a tremendous favor for Skald the Rhymer by which he is Greatly Pleased. As a reward, he arranges with one of his gifted friends to bestow upon you a present. You have the ability to take a one time trip into the past where you, invisible to anyone, get to witness an event in the life of someone you know – something you were not privvy to in reality. For the purposes of this thread, we’ll assume it’s someone you know reasonably well, and not someone you happened to meet once in passing.
It can be a happy occasion or a somber moment. Your trip can be a few seconds long, or as long as a day. Maybe you want to watch your mom’s wedding, or witness the last day of your grandfather’s life, or perhaps you want to see what really happened related to that tall tale your best friend loves to tell over and over again. It’s up to you. Again, though, you may NOT choose an event that you actually were involved in – it must be something where you had not previously been present.
No one involved will be aware of your presence, and you’ll be completely unable to interact with anyone. You can observe the event(s) from any angle you wish (even from above), so long as you are within eyesight (defined by your current eyesight, with corrective lenses, if you use them now) of the individual you’re following.
My father, aged about 7 or 8, went hunting for lion cubs, which he wanted to steal for a pet, in a reserve in Kenya after discovering tracks in his back garden. He and his friends tracked them all day, until they finally spotted the pride.
It was then that a park ranger broke up the fun and took them all home, informing them that they were, themselves, being stalked by the lions.
He told me that story when I was about five, and I have had it confirmed by relatives and his friends that I’ve met, and it has fascinated me ever since, and I get him to resell it whenever possible.
So I would like to go and shadow his little hunting party on that day and see how close he came to being tea for a lion.
I’d love to go back and see my folks when they were happy. They were together for 20 years solely because of having 4 kids together, and there really did seem to be a decent spark at some time. But I’d love to back to Vermont in the early 60s and see it for myself. It would make me smile; does anyway, imagining it.
I think I’d like to go back and see where exactly my father had run off to while my mother was giving birth to me. The story I have heard is fuzzy and not particularly complimentary. I’m curious to see what he was really up to at the time.
Urgh… mine sounds kind of ooky compared to the previous ones, but… I’d want to witness my husband’s first wedding day. To his first wife. It happened fifteen years before I met him, so I’d like to be able to see him at that age. I’d like to see how he felt, and I’d like to gauge how SHE felt, for various reasons. I’ve never met her, by the way.
The last day of my grandmothers life. Apparently it was unseasonably sunny and she gardened, talked to her neighbour, went inside, knocked a varicose leg ulcer, and bled to death. She was compos mentis eough when it was happening to phone her local GP, but obviously didn’t make a fuss, because by the time they arrived an hour later, she’d lain down and died.
I’d like to witness that she didn’t panic, and just went to sleep.
Ooh, another one, and don’t tell me ‘only one!’ Pfft.
I recently discovered that my great-grandmother, who I never knew that well because she barely spoke english and we only saw her and our greatgrandpa maybe once a month…
Anyway, our great-grandpa was actually her second husband, and so not blood related.
But apparantly they met because, as a widow, she was renting out part of her home to workers, and he was one of them.
As she took care of her own mother as well, apparantly she and great grandpa made a very proprietary show of very much NOT dating for 20-something years, everything under the table so to speak, until her mother passed on. THEN they got married I suspect Catholicism had a big part to play in it, and it may play a part of why my grandmother, her daughter, was never that religious.
I just would like to see a typical day of her sneaking around with the renter without getting caught, at 35 years of age
Seems like you’d run a high risk of seeing something you didn’t necessarily want to see.
Before I formulated this question for the Dope, it was just a conversation between my wife and me about each other’s lives, and I said the same thing that you did. I know it was a particularly happy time in her life, marrying her first husband, and I think it would have been neat to see. I’m not sure if that makes both of us normal, or both of us ooky, but you have company either way.
I’d like to ride along with my dad when he flew an F-86 about 10 feet over the river thru the Grand Canyon, back in the days when you could get away with shit like that.
Thats a hard story to believe, but he wasn’t one to make shit up.
The first thing that comes to mind is my niece’s wedding, this past weekend. I really regret not having gone, despite the fact that I’d be stranded in Tucson today.
If I could be there without all of the messy air travel and car travel and hotel rooms and stuff, that would be awesome.
I’d like to see a day in the time my mom was dating my bio dad. I’ve never met him and would really love to see that. Plus I might pick up some clues on how to find him now.
My mother told us this story about our dad defending her against a group of hoodlums. He rented a boarding house room when he got out of the army while he was looking for an apt. My mother was pregnant with my oldest brother at the time. One of the fellows made a comment to my mom and she slapped his face and ran back to her room. The hood was trying to knock the door down just as my dad came back home and she said he picked him up and through him over the railing on to a downstairs table then proceeeded to knock the shit out of his two buddies. My dad would never comment or discuss such things.
Well, any chance to see my father, who I never got to meet, I’m going to take. So I’ll say maybe the first night home after my older brother was born - the first night the 3 of them were a family in the house.
I was thinking something similar with regard to my biological grandfather, actually, but it didn’t quite fit the “people you know” part of the question, so I left it out. I’d be curious to see if you had a runner-up event choice.
One of my family members was raped years ago. I’d like to witness this to find out who it was so I could fuck with them today. (No, not physically harm them, just ruin their life in other, non-violent ways.)
I suspect Catholicism had a big part to play in it, and it may play a part of why my grandmother, her daughter, was never that religious.
