Our journey into 1953 was uneventful. We walked out of the wall of a warehouse on Highway 2, Angeles Crest Highway, or so it would someday be called. Didn’t know what the name of it was back then. The street was lined with these concrete streetlights, resembling the old time gaslights, but using incandescent bulbs. They gave a nice touch to the town.
The highway was a bucolic two lane road, not often maintained, especially with seasonal snow. Not a lot of traffic. Cars were just beginning to sport fins – small ones. There was none of the swoopy designs of the later 50s and 60s yet. No seat belts. No headrests. No airbags. No forgiving, collapsing steering column either. They did have safety-glass windshields though, I think.
We stayed with Maude, in her rent-a-room home. Wrightwood had not yet gotten motels. The term probably hadn’t been invented yet. Her place would one day become the Rhinestone Rose B&B, run by her daughter Loretta. But it still had the a-frame cabin in the back. We rented it for five days, for $8 a night, room and board.
Yeah, I took cash with me from that time period. Had to. Funny money meant a permanent stay in the pen, any time in earlier America. But I had nearly a hundred on me, and we spent less than half of that while there (and no, don’t ask me where I got it, or when).
1953 was a sweet year. The Korean war had ended, and there was temporary peace. This was a place where there were no credit cards, no ATMs, no cell phones, and no full-body searches by police or homeland security. If you happened to be arrested, they would have you empty your pockets, but that’s about all. The word ‘terrorist’ had not been coined yet. How innocent it all seemed.
My wife wore whatever it is that women wear. She always looked good. She loves to shop thrift stores and Goodwill. I’m glad. She could prefer Neiman Markus. But the sorry thrift store in that age had only rags and worse. She was disappointed. Guess people back then did not need to shop thrift stores.
Me? I wore nondescript black slacks and white long-sleeved cotton shirts. Time travelers never wear jeans and tee shirts. That’s a dead-giveaway. Yeah, it took me a while to figure that one out (look at my profile photo). Nor do time travelers wear sunglasses. In 1953, only pilots wore those. And bikers. And perhaps Beatniks, if they really exist.
America back then was segregated, even in California. There were no mixed marriages, and no one was gay, except on Christmas, when they all sang that song. If there were anyone like that around, they stayed in the closet. Oh, there was crime, for sure, but most people concentrated on getting on with the American way – getting rich, owning a home, having a newer car. The place was down-right prosperous, and the cost-of-living was ridiculously low.
Television was black-and-white, with three channels, all of which signed-off at midnight. Entertainment was the radio or the record player. The silicon transistor was a year away from commercial invention by Texas Instruments, and another six years before Japan started selling their tiny radios. There were also no lasers, LEDs, halogen lights, synchronized beams, or x-ray body scanning booths.
The phone was black rotary bakelite little affair, with a cloth covered cord. Phone numbers began with a two-letter prefix and three to five digits. If you didn’t know the number, you dialed zero to get the local switchboard operator, and she could connect you anywhere. Phone service probably cost a few dollars a month for these people in this time.
In our cabin, we used nothing but the radio, an old RCA console floor model, probably from the 40s. Benny Goodman played on the radio. There was a tiny bookshelf in the cabin too, with some nice old hardbacks, any of which would probably bring a fortune in our time. It was comics I missed. I had such a collection that year, but my mom threw them all out when we moved, wrongly thinking they were worthless trash.
Maude fed us well. Scrambled eggs and ham, with biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and ham salad sandwiches with fruit for lunch. We were on our own for dinner, but the diner was up the road, and the weather was clear, if a bit cold. There were no drive-throughs nor fast food places. They hadn’t been invented yet. When we didn’t dine out, we shared a can of Campbell’s franks and beans cooked in a tin pot on a tiny stove in the cabin,with left-over biscuits from breakfast (ambrosia). That, and nickle Coca-Colas, in tiny glass bottles from the vending machine.
We ate well, slept in, played, loved, explored, and she being the good English teacher, brought homeword to grade (she’s always behind, but was happily caught up those five extra days). We hated to see our time there end, but I promised my dear wife we would be home on time, in our time, and we were.
Now THAT was how time travel was supposed to happen. Why didn’t it work that way for me when I went on my own? No searching for objects, relics, or treasure. No angst. No chases. No loud noises, crashes, or screaming. No getting out by the skin-of-your-teeth. It was a great time for me to give her that.
We came home through the same portal by which we left, on our bedroom wall, just a few minutes after we left. With a wink, and a short promise to see her again soon, I kissed her good-bye and quickly left out the side door to the garage, in case Fermin had Roger home early. He’s a good church friend with a large family, of Mexican descent, but he drives like a maniac.
I wasn’t completely honest with my wife about my cancer either. I was getting that old familiar cancer pain again. I had already dipped into Roger’s morphine sulfate bottle. He never uses it when he’s on chemo, because there is no cancer pain when you’re on chemo. But I needed it.
I made another portal, up the street, on the side of an empty house, around the back. In Silver Lakes, a quarter of the homes are empty. Retirees die off, and their kids can’t sell their homes on today’s upside down market. Besides, no one wants to rent in such a remote area, regardless of lakes and golf courses. People like to live near where they work. And people who don’t work anymore can’t afford to live here now.
So I went through the portal. The future this time. I hate going there.
Most of the time, there is nothing but a burned-out continent. Ashes down to 300 feet below ground. No buildings. No life. Nothing. Courtesy of the GRB330423.
But, sometimes I get lucky in the future. When there is life there, it is usually a socialist nightmare, with poverty and a blackmarket economy, where you have to show your digital national ID to live (and where I don’t stay long). Yet I am hopeful. Going through the portal to the future may land me in a place where my kind of cancer has a cure. Or at least a better means of treatment than the barbaric, poisonous alkaloids and heavy Platinum salts Roger is on. The future might even be bright, if I go there enough. Who knows?
I’ll write more, later. Perhaps of my former travels. Or of something new. Who cares, when you’re always pressed for time? And believe me, time travelers are always pressed for time.
Regards, Roger1
.
email – MyMac Magazine – Twitter – Advertise – Reviews Archive – Podcast
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.