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    Chapter 8 update

    March 14, 2009
    By Dan in Posts

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    Hi, Dan here.

    We decided to put some more of Chapter 8 up, and Molly asked me to shed some light on what’s going on and why we’re slowly publishing the story.

    First of all, we’ve had no word from Rich at all. I’m going to Belton in early April for a research trip and to see if I can find any evidence that Rich spent time in that area in the 1930s. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but have a few ideas. Rich left me a note with some instructions that after my trip, I may or may not reveal on the blog.

    Secondly, Molly wanted to keep the pace of updates intact when we took over, so we decided not to just dump the whole story online at once. Rich would write, then edit and post. Most of what he wrote past Chapter 7 hadn’t been heavily edited and cleaned up, so Molly (who happens to be an online news editor herself) is doing that work. She then sends me what she wants to publish.

    Working helps Molly a lot, but we’re both a little unsure about whether we want to keep updating the site, not knowing where or when Rich is. We see the web numbers, and know the site gets read a lot, but we’re not sure just how many people are really that interested in the story.

    Feel free to email me at dan.garmen@gmail.com if you’d like us to keep updating the site. Your feedback and input helps.

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    2. Chapter 7 – Acceleration

    November 16, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

    3 Comments

    Chapter 7 is in progress. I know there’s been a pretty long gap in posting. Life is so busy these days, and I can feel that something is very, very close to happening. I leave the house every day, knowing there’s a really good chance I’ll end my day in 1933.

    I’m getting lots of emails from readers asking if I’ve jumped to my Grandfather’s time. Well, not yet, but I’ve left instructions about what to do with this site in the event I don’t make it back. Whether she will want to if that happens, I don’t know.

    Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 7 – Acceleration. The in-progress chapter is here.

    Sadly, I wasn’t able to do anything to change Coach MacLaren’s life, or more accurately, his death. I had a number of talks with him during my senior year, and in the three years that followed, but since Coach had never had a single symptom or sign that anything was wrong with his heart, he shrugged off my nagging. We had a lot to learn about nutrition in the 70s, about cholesterol, fat, smoking and everything else. I even got excused from practice to be at the game the night I knew Coach MacLaren was going to have his massive heart attack in the locker room. There was usually an ambulance and EMT stationed at most games, but to be sure, I had ordered up and paid for a private ambulance service to be there as well, parked right outside the doors by the home locker room.

    It didn’t matter, though. It was Coach’s time. The heart attack was massive, and right on schedule. I was with him after he sent the team out on the court to warm up. I’d come to watch the guys play, I had told him, and would love to show my support in the locker room before the game. He bought it, and never asked why I wasn’t at school at practice. Coach MacLaren had asked me to go to his office to get him another play-plan clipboard, and must have collapsed right after I left the room. I picked up the board off his desk, and glancing through the window that looked into the locker room, saw him lying on his side on the floor. I didn’t even bother going to him, but instead, flew out the door to the outside and shouted for the paramedics in the amblance I’d hired. By the time they got to him though, barely a minute after I saw him on the floor, he was gone. They later told me that he was probably dead when he hit the floor.

    I’ll have this chapter finished in the next week, I think. Unless, of course…

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    3. A (short) addition to Chapter 6 – Time Passages

    August 23, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

    3 Comments

    As much as it seems that time is infinite, especially when you’re able (or forced) to jump around in it, forward and backward, it’s not infinite. There’s only so much time we’re allotted. And when you look at the trip you’re taking, from that rare vantage point outside the “venue,” it looks pretty small.

    Life in 2008 has it’s demands, right now. Work, family, all of it coming before telling the story, and as you can imagine, keeping notes, reading notes and sorting the whole thing out is getting harder and harder. But enough about my problems.

    I’ve gotten enough emails asking if I’m here, or in 1933, that I wanted to post and say STILL HERE and NOW! :-) People at work aren’t even asking about my “go-bag” anymore.

    I had started Chapter 7 a few weeks ago, but looking at it today, when I sat down to write, I realized it’s really the end of Chapter 6, so it’s now tacked on there.

    Without spoiling, I have to warn you, that things may be taking a turn you’re probably not expecting. I have no idea if it will make the story more or less interesting for you, but it’s the story. I hope it accomplishes the former, and not the latter.

    As always, thanks for reading.

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    4. Retracing Steps Through Time Travel

    July 27, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

    2 Comments

    From notes I made last month…

    I wake up, another nice sunny day in Southern California and has become my habit, roll out of bed, toss on a t-shirt and go to my home office, hitting the shift key to wake my Mac up. The first thing I do is lookin the upper right hand corner of the screen and check the date.

    May 14.

    Oh, right. Today’s the day. I briefly consider leaving a note, but realize when I came here from almost two weeks ago, there was no note. So, my inner weenie again coming out, I elect not to tempt fate and the universe by doing something that might well result in paradox. Maybe someday, but not today.

    I reflect on how interesting it is, that when I was in 1976 (and 1977, ’78…well, that story’s not finished yet, so I won’t spoil it) I had no sense of not wanting to mess with the past. It’s entirely possible that my time back there, and the resulting timeline created by my actions that were far different than my first time through the period, instilled in me enough caution that I didn’t want to ever go messing with branching timelines again. Whatever the case, at this stage in my jouney through life, I’m not interested in screwing around with things. So no note.

    I do catch up on some email, make some notes for the day, get dressed, kiss my family goodbye (which, knowing I could sparkle out to 1933 at any moment, I take very seriously these days), grab my work bag and vintage “go-bag” and head out the door, knowing the me that I was 12 days ago would be popping back in a couple hours from now.

    Little did I know that I wouldn’t be making it to work that day, or for the next couple days. Because of what happened halfway down the front walk to my car, I’d never get the chance to see the breakfast I would put in the microwave that morning. It would be long gone, in the garbage, by the time I returned home.

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    5. No spoiler this time

    July 1, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

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    As I wrote recently, I’ve traveled to the future on two occasions recently. They weren’t particularly enjoyable trips, in no way similar to the warm “been-here-before” feeling journeys that trips to the recent past can be. I have to admit, for a long time, the feelings those trips to the past engendered were a reason I thought this whole thing could well be purely psychological, simple (if that’s possible) hallucinations. Let’s face it, for most of us, the past creates feelings of nostalgia. We remember the good things that happened, and forget the bad. There was a time when I thought my “trips” there were just fantasy.

    Those theories ended when I started bringing things back from the past, and in one case, the future. Simple things, nothing that would be at all incriminating if my house were searched. Just things from sometime else. I’ll follow up on my future souvenir at another time, but will say that it was a strange event in its complete normality. Truly fascinating, but again, another time.

    I think the good feelings a trip to the past creates are good because my past, for the most part, WAS very good. I’ve lived a fortunate and pretty happy life. I won’t say it’s been a life without challenges, but it’s been a happy one. I think if my life had been filled with tragedy and trauma, my trips to the past might be much darker than they are. In this, I believe I’m blessed.

    But, I will say that a startling thing about time traveling to the past is how vivid it is. Even a creative right-brainer like myself apparently tends to dull the colors out when memories are stored in our brains. Everytime I’ve traveled more than a few months past-ward, I’m struck by just how vivid and colorful it all is. We tend to think of the past like photographs before digital cameras, and anything before the 50s we’ve almost entirely experienced as black and white. I think seeing 1933 Indiana in the flesh will be shocking, since I’ve seen so many pictures of that time, and of Belton specifically, rendered in the black and white photography available then.

    Though it’s a very, very bad idea, I’m seriously considering adding a small digital camera to my TT go-bag.

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    6. Preparation – Gear for the Past

    May 11, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

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    As the frequency of my bodily traveling increases, it’s becoming clear that something is building. Something that, according to the letter from my Grandfather, will send me back to 1933. As many questions as the readers of this blog may have, believe me, I have more.

    I’m not sure at all what the details of this trip will be. Will I travel back to the exact date the letter from my Grandfather was written? If so, obviously my “landing” will take place pretty close to, if not in, Belton, Indiana. Or, will I travel back to 1933 San Diego, Indianapolis, or somewhere else? I haven’t a clue.

    As much as I’d like to believe it will be a quick trip there and back, I have the feeling it won’t be that simple. Deep in my gut, I believe I’m going to be there awhile. I don’t know why it feels that way, it just does.

    So, in preparation, I’m trying to put together some things that will make the trip more comfortable. I won’t lie to you, the thought of appearing in a cornfield in 1930s Indiana wearing a pair of sweatpants and a Ralph Lauren t-shirt is a big fear. That’s why I’m trying to make sure of two things:

    Continued…

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    7. Travel – 2 Weeks Into the Future

    May 2, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

    2 Comments

    More than anything, we are creatures of habit. Most of us tend to do the same thing day in, day out, usually at roughly the same time every day. It’s why we, time travelers all (one-way, at least), look back on our lives and think “where the hell did the time go?”

    Time, for the most part, gets invested in habit and routine. I believe that if you spend a great portion of your days doing the same things over and over again without much variation, when you stand at the end of a year, a decade or a lifetime, all of those routine days flatten out and seem to be few in number. When you find yourself asking “where did the time go?” look for an overabundance of routine. It’s a huge time sink. This thought came to me earlier today when I made a quick trip to the future.

    Continued…

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    8. Home

    April 4, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

    1 Comment

    I knew it had to happen sooner or later, and that it was sooner was no surprise to me at all.

    Middle of the night two nights ago. I woke suddenly, a strange feeling of vertigo washing over me as I snapped out of sleep. It was dark, and my wife was sleeping beside me. Taking a deep breath, I willed the vertigo away and stood, holding my arms out to steady my balance, which wasn’t all there. Suddenly I was glad I’d worn a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt to be last night, because what I was afraid was coming…was here.

    Continued…

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    9. Pondering the future

    March 4, 2008
    By Rich in Posts

    2 Comments

    When I started this whole thing, in the summer of 2005, I had no idea where it was going. From the moment that I stepped out of my ill-fated Chrysler Pacifica (may she rest in peace :-/ ) in Belton, Indiana on that beautiful, perfect day, everything’s been different. Not bad, mind you…Just different.

    As I’ve hinted at in a couple posts, I seem to be traveling in two distinct ways. My trips back to my own past and body have had subtle, but significant effect on my life today. If my traveling were limited to that, I think I’d be much more comfortable with it all. But it’s not limited to that kind of travel, and I know from the events of that day in 2005 that sometime in this year I’ll be taking the longest leap so far, all the way back to 1933.

    To be honest, that scares the you-know-what out of me.

    Though I haven’t covered it in the telling of the whole story yet, I’ve done a great amount of research trying to find out everything I can about my trip back there. I know exactly when I’ll show up in 1933, I just don’t know from when I’ll depart from 2008. I just know from my Grandfather’s letter that I’m “anchored” in 2008.

    The use of the word “anchored” is interesting, and suggests to me that my trip back there isn’t an isolated one, despite my concern that I wouldn’t be able to get back to 2008. But then again, I realize that language changes subtly over time (and the 75 years between 1933 and 2008 could change linguistics a lot) so that particular word may not mean anything at all.

    So I wait. And I prepare to suddenly find myself in 1933.

    I’ll try harder to update this blog as frequently as I can, so any long gap (or cessation of new content) would be meaningful to my wonderful and supportive readers. I don’t want to leave you hanging, and I certainly want to give you (and me) a satisfying end to this story.

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The Time Traveler's Blog is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.