What time in history would you want to live?

As many of you know, I spend a lot of time thinking about the good old days, but would I choose to live back then? Think of any time in history that would you go back to, and live there, if you were stuck there and could never return. This is a difficult question for me, because without modern medicine I probably would have been dead about three times now. Once when I was eight years old I was hospitalized with pneumonia, modern medicine saved my life. Actually I might have lived, but it was a lot more fun to just get well. I had pneumonia another time about 15 years ago. When I get sick, I'm too stupid to slow down and take care of myself, so I end up turning a simple cold into something much more serious like pneumonia. Chances are real good that I might have lived both times.

Eight years ago, I had prostate Cancer. The Big "C". I had brachytherapy, that's where they fill your prostate with radioactive "seeds". I have about 120 of them. It felt like I was shot in the rear end with a shotgun. Which, I guess that, literally.. I was. I didn't miss a days work. Something is just wrong about having the big "C" one day, and be cured the next. I spend a lot of time feeling guilty that it was such a small thing for me. I spend a lot of time thinking about what the Indian people would have done with prostate cancer. A lot of their "cures" was done with tobacco smoke.

I have heard stories that the American Indian had a cure for all of the diseases that they got, up until the white man showed up. The diseases that the white man had killed them readily, with no defense.

The Indians had a dance called "The Ghost Dance" which was really a prayer dance for the white man to go away, and they could return to better times. I've often wondered, how many Indians would return to the times before white man today? My good friend, relative, and Humboldt county supervisor, Harry Pritchard said that when the Indians were given hunting and fishing rights, they were standing naked in the riffles netting and stabbing fish with pointy sticks. A far cry from today, where that they have every technology known to man. But, I read in The Two River tribune that they Indian People on the Klameth have a better chance of saving the salmon than the rest of America, and they have a few good ideas as to how to achieve that goal. I would like to see a few of their pratices brought to the South Fork Of the Eel. Like the deep water holes that they are digging in the river gravel to provide real fish habitat.

But, I digress, but you knew that. I was talking to a fellow today about what time in history that he would chose to live, or would he stay right here, today, with all of our problems. He said that he wanted a big-screen TV the size of his whole living room wall, A leather Lazy-Boy and a remote control that would take him to look at anytime in history, any place in the world. He could go view the Han Dynasty in China and watch Gengus Khan awhile, then he could watch Atilla The Hun, on to Julius Ceasar. Then maybe watch King Henry the Eighth, maybe skip back to watch the Crusades. Or, the "taming" of Amerca. All from his overstuffed Lazy-Boy recliner. He could even go to Disneyland.

Sadly, I think that I would chose "here and now". One, it's better than dead, which I would be by now any other time in history. If I could visit anywhere or time, then come back. I would probably choose The British Isles. Go to a real Elizibetian theater. Go to Ireland and have an original Guiness beer. Or follow my great grandfather Cull on his trip across the great plains, to find out what really happened to him. Was he killed by Indians as we have all been told, or was he bushwacked by white scoundrels?

Where would you go, and would you chose to stay if you could never come home again?