I was there..

[Foofoogal]

It happens to me all the time. I have a whole different take on this though. I find it fascinating and too coincidental at this time to chalk it up to chance.
Hang on to your hats. lol
I personally (note me personally) believe the Lord makes things right even if it takes 10, 100 or 1000 years. He is the Lord of Justice.
A few years back I got into Genealogy pretty good. I knew very little about my dads family. I think it was all ordained to do this at a certain time.
Part of it was I thought my dads family was ended when he died. I was very sad about it and prayed for strength and about it.
Within a short time my brother just happened to be online and find a long lost cousin, they invited us to the 50th. reunion of the clan.
Thru this I have discovered at least 4 people in my circle of friends are kin to me and it seems they keep coming out.
I had gone to the local library and found a photo of my greatgrandparents in a book with a write up about them. It told of how one of the sons rode his horse to school in the 1880s. It also told about how he tied his horse to so and so's tree.
The other day I was sitting in church and found out a lady I had known quite a bit was originally from the same town. Her last name was the same as the person who had the tree so I asked. It was or course her kin.
It brings me much peace and delight to believe someone is the great conductor in the scheme of things.
I find it fascinating at this point. When I went to Scotland it was brought home to me even greater. I just felt like I had come home in some ways. After doing some research I discovered I was not 4 or 5 miles from where I believe my ancestors were originally eons ago. They must of walked the same dirt in fact.
This has all happened to me and more to the point that I now expect it and look for it with delight and glee.

 

[Foofoogal]

Who knows. Maybe it is why I found the FL.
It does make you dream about the past and feel more comfortable with it.
Any kin here? lol

 

[zaika]

O, I'll drag the question back and be more specific.. The "I was there moment"...did you actualy feel that you were back in time, or felt you'd visited a past place or moment? or both?

oh...i see what you mean.

all the time!!!

too many times to recall. this might sound silly...but at civil war battelfields, i often feel a sense of familiarity or belonging. not all of them...but the ones in northern georgia and southern tennesee. i don't recall which ones specifically...but i can "see" and "smell" the battles and i really do feel this overwhelming sense of loss and fear. and i was at this one site in georgia that had been a civil war prison/hospital. the buildlings were gone, but looking out over the space i felt like i had "been there." it was extremely sad.

i do have a very active imagination, though.

I've been to Vladimir. I had the dullest time ever. But then again, Zhirinovsky didn't wave to me.

sorry you had a dull time. did you drink enough? lol if you're into history, it's rather a fascinating place. lots and lots of history there if you know where to go. i didn't really have much time to be bored...too much study.

 

[Mr. Rover]

I always have dreams of people that I've never met, and then meet them and remember that I dreamed about them 6 months ago.

 

[dhermann1]

Many years ago, just a couple of years before her death, the great Helen O'Connell sang with a big band at Roseland, in Manhattan. I was there that evening, and when the hundreds of people there in the crowd almost all stopped dancing and crowdwd up to the front of the stage, and she just stood there singing her heart out, and sounding just great, I felt as if I had been transported back to the same spot in 1940. It was almost spooky, but such a thrill.

 

[Miss 1929]

It was distracting...

Many years ago, I had the extreme privilege of singing a number ("Only When You're In My Arms" from the Story of Vernon and Irene Castle) with the Peter Mintun Orchestra, at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, at the Paramount Ball for it's anniversary.
The incredibly deco lobby had been transformed into a ballroom, full of ladies and gentlemen in full 1930s evening attire...
As I opened my mouth and started singing, suddenly (and very distractingly) my vision went from color to black and white! It was AMAZING! I mean, we all say "It was like being in an old movie" about vintage events, but this was REALLY like being in a movie.
I looked in the crowd for one person to focus on so I wouldn't lose it, and locked eyes with a friend I had only known a few months...
What I did not know was that that friend was in love with me, and that in two more months, I would fall in love back ,and now we have been married for 16 years.
Easily one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

 

[Jack Scorpion]

sorry you had a dull time. did you drink enough? lol if you're into history, it's rather a fascinating place. lots and lots of history there if you know where to go. i didn't really have much time to be bored...too much study.

I don't think I was versed enough at the time. Although, somehow, I enjoyed Suz'dal. Oh yah... we passed by Vlad and then I started drinking in Suz'dal... History in Russia for me was visiting Dostoevsky's apartments.

-I was there in Murmansk on its 89th anniversary.
-I was there in Kazan' on its thousandth.

 

[MPicciotto]

Who knows. Maybe it is why I found the FL.
It does make you dream about the past and feel more comfortable with it.
Any kin here? lol

fftopic:
Well I'm kin if you count our Father with a capital "F". In fact that was why I was in the Dominican Republic playing pool against a Swede in a timeless smoky pool hall that could have been from any era. In fact it was with an organization based in Texas. PM me if you want to chat more about the spiritual. I don't want to hijack this thread.

Matt

 

[retrogirl1941]

I was at an air show and one of the planes engines shot me back to the blitz in WWII. All of a sudden I had this "I am going to die feeling" and then I came out of it. It was very scary b/c I could see the bombs falling and I felt myself running. Besides that; I have done past life regressions and have had numurous past lives. Sometimes they come to me in dreams but those are scary b/c I can't control them.

Samantha

 

[LuketheLurker]

this might sound silly...but at civil war battelfields, i often feel a sense of familiarity or belonging. not all of them...but the ones in northern georgia and southern tennesee.

Stones River ( TN.) and Chickamauga (TN./GA.) always raise the hairs on my neck. Particularly Chickamauga. If you go off the beaten path into the woods away from all the monuments and tourist, you can almost feel the ferocity and agony of the fight. It is quite easy to get lost in the emotion and the thicket, like many of the soldiers did, which only intensifies the fear and the feeling of the place. Every time I am in that area, I make it a point to spend time at these fields. I also find the Andersonville Prison site ( Ga.) to be similarly haunting and emotionally charged as well…

Oh and while not necessarily , a “I have been there” moment but similar. Every time I am in Atlanta visiting an old high school friend, I always make it a point to only use stick matches. My friend’s wife is from Georgia and is very very Southern ( My friend and I are both from Indiana) and it raises her ire every time I light a cigarette, it is great!. I can only imagine her response when she sees my newest Tattoo (pics posted elsewhere on the lounge). It is the badge of one of the corps that was in Sherman’s Army . I will be barred from the house for sure!

 

[zaika]

Chickamauga (TN./GA.) always raise the hairs on my neck. Particularly Chickamauga.

that is EXACTLY one of the battlefields i most vividly recall having that feeling at.

strange.

History in Russia for me was visiting Dostoevsky's apartments.

That's pretty darn awesome, too.

 

[Hondo]

Remember the film "Patton" General Patton over looking a battle field (Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Caesar) saying "I was here!"
Sometimes get that feeling, being somewhere for the first time yet it seems familiar like when I was younger able to run bare foot, sense of direction maybe an indian, then again maybe just a goofy kid

 

[LuketheLurker]

that is EXACTLY one of the battlefields i most vividly recall having that feeling at.

strange.

You just stole my Heart! I can draw you maps from memory if you want. it is strange

 

[zaika]

You just stole my Heart! I can draw you maps from memory if you want. it is strange

aw! i was only there once...so i don't remember details. if you draw maps, they'll look right to me. lol

there were other sites, but it's been so long since i've been south and actually visited battlefields...i can't really remember. i'm sure my google-fu will help.

but is chickamauga the place with the field of lost shoes? where is that?

 

[MPicciotto]

Geneseo Airshow 2008. We are portraying the 490th Bomb Squadron "Burma Bridge Busters" It's Friday and right in the middle of our own personal monsoon that came through that afternoon my friend decides he needs to use the latrine. So he hops on a vintage British bike I had brought and rode off in the blinding rainstorm with his British Tropical shorts, AAF t-shirt and pith helmet. I watch this from under a GP Small tent between the canvas flaps hanging partway down and the bamboo we had just put up. For a moment, albeit a short one. I wasn't in Geneseo NY in 2008. I was in Kampala, India in 1944. The combination of all our gear and uniforms for the impression, the weather and Mike's go-lucky attitude that so many of the men who were there had combined in just the right way. A great moment.

Matt

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Geneseo Airshow 2008. We are portraying the 490th Bomb Squadron "Burma Bridge Busters"

Matt

Just a couple of years ago I did nose art on a jacket for a guy who's uncle was in that very unit. A B-24 and the winged skull on the front. I wonder if he was there that day also??

 

[MPicciotto]

Major Danger,

Two years ago we met a lady who's father was in that unit while at the show in NY. We talked to her and the following year (last year) she was going to bring her father out. He passed away in the intervening year but she came out anyways with some of his pictures and his original A-2!!

Go to www.burmabridgebusters.com to see some pics of the unit and get information on their reunions etc. I think this years reunion is in Missouri.

Matt

 

[LuketheLurker]

chickamauga the place with the field of lost shoes? where is that?

I am sure that the Feild of Lost Shoes is not At Chickamagua.
If I am not mistaken, I think that is at The Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. I am not 100% sure thought, my main focus of study is on the battelfields in the west. I would have to brush up a little bit to give you a definate answer though, its been a while sinced I have cracked open a good Civil War Book...

 

[Eyemo]

I’ve had three “I was there moments”.. The first two lasted seconds the third a few hours.

About 15 years ago at an event, walking around Dover Castle at night in the pouring rain in full GI uniform. Cold water dripping down the back of my neck and catching glimpses of other allied reenactors silhouetted against searchlight.
We helped organise the 1940s Dance scene for the “1940s House”. The family, who’d been living the part for weeks were told that they would be allowed to attend, but at the last moment they were subjected to an Air raid. They did eventually arrive, the looked, smelt at acted the part because they’d grown into the rolls perfectly. They turned the dance into a very special moment for us.
Whilst working on “Band of Brothers”, I’d finished the scene I was involved in and had a few hours of free time. I stayed in costume and drove my mates WW2 jeep around the village of Bastogne (well in fact it was Hatfield).. It was like I was the first combat cameraman arriving at a deserted town…Amazing feeling!!... I have a picture somewhere I’ll post when I’ve dug it out.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

There have had many deja vu moments in my life, but none so strong as the feeling I had at a Native American ruin in the Southwest.

I was at Walnut Creek Canyon ruins in Arizona, walking along the path past the cliff ruins. I walked into one of the dwellings where Anasazi had lived well before the time of Columbus and I noticed hand prints all over the walls of the cave, put there by people who had built the enclosure.

No tourists were around at that moment, just me, the cliffs, the trees and rocks and those handprints on the wall. I delicately slipped my hand inside one print, just for a split second -- and suddenly I could see and hear the people who lived there, hear their voices and laughter, watch them walking along the paths with their families and children. I was surprised, I recall, at how small they all were.

I won't ever do that again, as I know you are not supposed to touch anything at those sacred sites.

But, it was quite a moment.

karol