My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 4, #38, April 26, 1999

TIME MACHINE

The New York Times Magazine posed an interesting question recently: if you could go back in time, what place and era would you like to live in?

As the people on the panel who discussed this question pointed out, the answer is a rousing "That depends," because you need to be clear about your ground rules before you could answer. For instance, are you going there to visit, or to live an entire lifetime?

On the basis of plumbing and corsets alone, not to mention hot summer days in heavy floor-length dresses with multiple petticoats, I would only go back in time if I could then return to the present. The past is a nice place to visit, I'm sure, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Another question: do we get to choose whose body and circumstances we're going to be in? I'd be interested in the time of the abolitionist movement and the beginning of the women's movement in the 1840's. But it would be one thing to do that as Susan B. Anthony, and quite another to find myself an impoverished widow struggling to support half a dozen children--or worse, find that I'm a man who thinks the whole women's rights business is hysterical nonsense.

For that matter, if we went back in time, would we get to keep our own personalities, our own knowledge and experiences? Or would we be born anew with the assumptions and prejudices of that time and class? If so, when we visited Regency England, we would automatically accept that a lady depended on her family or on her husband for support, so it wouldn't bother us that there were hardly any socially acceptable forms of employment for ladies. We would, in fact, stare blankly at anyone who talked about independence for women.

Since I don't want to give up my personality and the things I know, and at the same time don't really want to be burned as a witch, either, I wouldn't go very far back in time. I think what I'd want to do, ever so briefly, is trade places with specific people who were themselves a little outside the mainstream.

It would be interesting to be, for a while, Sarah or Angelina Grimke, sisters who rejected the beliefs of the plantation owning class they were born into, and went north to preach against slavery on the abolitionist lecture circuit. Fully appreciating the irony of the fact that they had helped to secure the vote for black men, but could not vote themselves, they went on to crusade for the rights of women. I'd like to be one of them on that day in 1870 when they led a band of Massachusetts women to a ballot box, to cast votes that of course would not count--but my, did they stir things up.

As one who has always been a teacher at heart, I would be interested in going back to the early days of the century, to be one of the organizers of the traveling Chautauqua. The program that began in the 1860's as lectures and classes offered during the summer in New York State, had become a touring tent show as well, visiting small towns across the heartland, where thousands of people would bring their families, and camp in tents to listen to the week-long succession of orators, lecturers, actors, and musicians. Chautauqua brought music, culture, ideas and vigorous debate to people isolated by geography, who thirsted for them.

Then there's Victoria Woodhull. Now that would be fun. Picture a poor girl on the make, aided by quick wits, good luck, besotted men, and not enough scruples to get in the way. She (and her equally outrageous sister Tennessee Claflin) flirted her way up through society, consorted with the fabulously rich and famous, and thumbed her nose at horrified society matrons. Was running for president in the 1870's anything more than an elaborate joke for her, a way of sticking it to a society that wouldn't even let her vote? If so, it's a prank I would have enjoyed playing (though I'd try to arrange it so I didn't have to sleep with disgusting rich old men while I was taking her place).

It would be fun to switch places with Dorothy Parker, at least for a while, so I could trade quips with Robert Benchley at the Algonquin Club, write witty, devastating reviews and verses, and make a career of being a funny, snide bitch. Her pain was the working material for her wit, and I wouldn't want to live too long with her suicidal dark moments and the ruins of her love life. But I would love to have been there penning some of her great lines, including the ones I found so liberating years ago:

In youth it was a way I had
To do my best to please,
And change with every passing lad
To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do.
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.

While I'm busy inhabiting their lives, though, what do you suppose they would gain from visiting mine?

The Grimke sisters would be startled, but gratified, to know how many people, white and black alike, want Colin Powell to run for president. They'd be pleased that women had the vote, but would surely wonder why the equal rights amendment couldn't get ratified. In fact, I bet they'd be out on the lecture circuit and talk shows demanding it.

The women of Chautauqua would get a gleam in their eyes when they saw all our means of communication. First they'd start a program on national public radio. Then they'd raise money to start their own cable channel, or maybe just join forces with the History Channel and C-SPAN to offer cultural programming. And you can bet they'd have their own web site.

Victoria Woodhull? I could see her enjoying herself enormously, especially if she had traded with me during the sixties, when I am confident she would have made a lot more out of the opportunities for free love and dope than I ever did. Here and now though, I think she'd relish going out on the internet, where she'd meet riot grrls and feminists and activists, and find out her ideas aren't even remotely outrageous anymore. Would she be pleased to know that now a woman running for president has a chance to win the nomination of a major party? Or appalled by who that woman is and what she stands for?

And Dorothy Parker? She would find Maureen Dowd filling her role these days. Though she would undoubtedly be amused to see her story "Big Blonde" being taught as "literature," she would nonetheless be glad that people like me still hone their own wit on her verses, and find in her words permission to become themselves.

And these women would ALL love jeans and sneakers (and the freedom to wear them), as well as zippers, pizza, and air conditioning. There are, after all, some very good things about our era. In fact, you know, it already feels good to be back.

NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

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