Would you, if you could?

[Ed Bass]

I'd go in a "Lipitor free" heartbeat.

Funny most responses here sound like the people you ask to go camping and rough it for a spell...."Not without my blowdryer and GPS!"

I suppose it depends somewhat on who you are today; minority race, homosexual or an emancipated female, the old days certainly would not seem too welcoming.

Average white American man?
The world was your oyster in the Golden Era.

 

[fortworthgal]

Here's another thought about going back to the past - if you were suddenly snatched from the present and dropped into the 1920s, would your current skills/knowledge enable you to find work and survive?

I'd rock the typing pool. lol I was a regional typing champ, and I learned to type on my grandmother's old Smith-Corona manual.

My regular daily job skills - no. I work on a computer all day long. I started off working at an "old school" newspaper (which had the first offset press in the state and was still using that original press when I was there) doing manual layout & paste-up, but even that wouldn't really do me a lot of good.

My husband is an engineer, but he is one of the few around nowadays who knows how to use a slide rule.

 

[Derek WC]

Most definitely yes.
In America as a teen about 1952.
I think we have had many of these threads on this topic. I want after polio vaccine and antibiotics. The closest year after whatever that was.

I personally would love to be about, say, 14 in 1951. I so long for the cool days of summer enjoyed with many hours at the local drug store/malt shop, the bowling lanes, the drive in theaters, the days when men were men and women were women.

Funny most responses here sound like the people you ask to go camping and rough it for a spell...."Not without my blowdryer and GPS!"

lol People, I have observed, get attached to their technology. Like LizzieMaine, the only piece of modern technology I use is a computer.

Here's another thought about going back to the past - if you were suddenly snatched from the present and dropped into the 1920s, would your current skills/knowledge enable you to find work and survive?

I know a lot of carpentry, I am a good shot for hunting, I know how to use a SMAW welder, which was invented in 1890, I can go for a long time without feeling the effects of starvation.

 

[Undertow]

...I can go for a long time without feeling the effects of starvation.

[evil voice]
Ah yes, then we shall put you to the test, Mr. Bond! Perhaps you've heard of my Aluminum Box trap? Haha, good luck Mr. Bond - I'm off to the Virgin Islands to open a distastefully-themed martini bar...UNDER YOUR NAME! Muwahaha!"
[/evil voice]

 

[Mr Vim]

Would I live back in the golden era? You know, I don't think I would. I think that dressing in the bygone styles of those times makes the style that much greater, and it draws more people to it. I think that we are in a really great time where, in this society, you can dress however you want, and be whoever you want (with certain limitations of course.)

If I were back in the golden era, why, everyone would be dressing the same. The cars would be the same, it would be less special. Today, when you see a Buick Roadmaster, in all its glory, gliding like a galleon on the road past you, you tilt your hat back and give a whistle of admiration... shoot, people not centric to this lounge would do the same thing in most cases.

I feel this time with its ideas is fundamentally right, with prerequisite flaws and I'm glad to be living here and now.

 

[filfoster]

Time Travel

Only if I could take today's social values and medical care back with me. I much prefer the clothes, cars, diet, habits and general deportment of adults vis a vis each other and children then, than now. And I certainly would NOT take Ipods, email, cell phones and PC's back (what conflict, considering the medium I am posting in).

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Mr Vim: If I were back in the golden era, why, everyone would be dressing the same. The cars would be the same, it would be less special. Today, when you see a Buick Roadmaster, in all its glory, gliding like a galleon on the road past you, you tilt your hat back and give a whistle of admiration... shoot, people not centric to this lounge would do the same thing in most cases.

I feel the same way.

 

[Derek WC]

[evil voice]
Ah yes, then we shall put you to the test, Mr. Bond! Perhaps you've heard of my Aluminum Box trap? Haha, good luck Mr. Bond - I'm off to the Virgin Islands to open a distastefully-themed martini bar...UNDER YOUR NAME! Muwahaha!"
[/evil voice]

lol

 

[Berlin]

Difficult to say.
I think we -or let me speak for only myself in this- are used to internet, television etcetera. If I step into H.G Wells time machine back to the 40s; it might be fun for quite a while, but I bet I will miss internet like hell aswell my television and mobile phone. If you go back, not knowing what the modern times have to offer it will be alot easier.

I sure want to peek there now and then so bring on that time machine lol

 

[Diamondback]

Not just "No", but "OH HELL NO!"--do you have any idea what they did to people with my neuropathology back then? And that's not even putting the left-hander thing in play...

You offered me that option, I would haul my carcass the other direction as fast as possible. Now if we were talking like a week or two, preferably well-stocked with negotiable means of exchange, the answer might be different, but One Way would be a No Way for me.

 

[Helysoune]

NO WAY. If I could "vacation" in the past I would, but only to be able to come back and brings today's money with me.

I rather like tampons, birth control, my college education, my black friends, my iPod so i can listen to OTR anywhere, and I wouldn't want to toil in a factory my whole life (7 years was ENOUGH!)

I think I've already said this about 9 times before, though [huh]

You do realize, though, that internal menstrual protection has been around since ancient Egypt, the Tampax company was founded in the 30s and women have had access to college educations since the 19th century, right? I won't get started on iPods and their ilk...

Anyway, would I? Well, I know I'd definitely visit if that were possible. As far as living back then, I might actually take a crack at it. My grandfather actually lived through the Depression and fought in WWII and I remember him talking about what things were really like. My grandmother can remember her dad cutting shoe linings for her and her siblings from the cardboard in the shredded wheat boxes and my grandfather said sometimes they had lard or ketchup sandwiches for lunch simply because there was nothing else.

Even though times were really tough, I know I come from good stock and am plenty full of grit myself. I have a lot of essential skills like gardening, canning, true manual labor skills, etc. I think I'd be just fine.

Not to mention my mister, who hails from North Carolina, has often said he wishes he could have been a moonshine runner. I can actually picture him tearing up those back roads in a custom tuned Olds, outrunning the law. And can he ever fill out a suit...whoo boy! lol

 

[Packin' Heat]

birth control,

To be fair condoms aren't anything new. Trojans started being sold in 1927, and I'm sure there were plenty of other brands to pick from otherwise.

To those who whose particular point here is about the past having a backward morality, I'll point out there problems with our morality and equality today and I can still live without tolerating them. I've also noted that some of you seem to be basing your concept of "Golden Era" morality upon Hays Code regulated films, and you'll please excuse me if I say that's an extremely flawed picture.

Then there are those of you who talk about how much better the standard of living is today, and in response I'll state that while the pre-war U.S. was economically unpleasant, post-war U.S. had all around good times. A family could get by with just one worker who possessed no more than a high-school diploma.

 

[Berlin]

Birthcontrol was already used in the middle ages! They just used a stone.
Not that that did any good.

It's just that birthcontrol got reduced by religion.