Gone but Not Forgotten
My passion in life is and always was… things that are gone but not forgotten.
In other words, I love things from the past. This is why I write time travel stories.
It helps me become one with the past that I would
otherwise never experience, things like the American Civil War, the great San
Francisco earthquake of 1906 or the Woodstock Music Festival. I was also fascinated with the great ocean liner called RMS Titanic years before the Cameron movie made it popular. I also like great unsolved mysteries from the past such as the Lindbergh baby, the Kennedy
assassination and to discover what happened to Amelia Earhart. But
for me, the ultimate, especially for a Chicago born and bred guy was the great
Chicago Fire of 1871. It is hard to fathom an entire city going up in flames for
miles upon miles. I once talked to a very aged neighbor of mine who told me
about his grandparents sitting on their porch (of the very house he still owned)
and watching the glow from that fire. I realize that the fire devastated and
even killed many people but aside from the tragedy, I would have loved to
witness it. This is why I wrote Katya and Cyrus Time Pilgrims. Through their
eyes, I was able to be in the fire and experience it firsthand.
However, not all of my gone but not forgotten passions are
tragedies or disasters. I also would have loved to experience the old world’s
fairs where people witnessed things like electricity and television for the
first time. The Ferris wheel on my blog page is the very first one and came from
the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Each car held up to sixty three people. I also
love and miss musicians from the past such as the Beatles and Buddy Holly (oops,
I’m back to disasters again). Sometimes it’s a way of life that I wish I could
have lived. I read about people who lived in earlier times, such as the great
depression or the war days of the 1940s and how they loved the simpler and more
ethical ways of living, simpler time they call it. One of those simpler ways is
how people would travel the roads of America back then. We didn’t have super
highways with extravagant tolls; we had roads that went through all the small
towns...slowly. That way people could really experience life in other places,
even if it was just neighboring states. These were roads like the Lincoln
Highway, Highway 41 and the most famous road in the world, Route 66. I was
probably on this road as a kid since it wasn’t fully decommissioned until the
mid-eighties, but I had been on the old road since, which is now posted as Historic Route 66. I always wondered what it would have been like to travel the road back then, perhaps riding in
another disaster, a Ford Edsel. That is how my first novel, Parallel Roads (Lost
on Route 66) was born (minus the Edsel). In it, I am able to travel the road,
again through the eyes of my characters in modern times and in the past.
Perhaps you are younger and have your own gone but not forgotten passions. Perhaps you miss TV shows such as Blossom or the original 90210 or Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Maybe it’s a favorite band or type of music. What is your gone but not forgotten?
In other words, I love things from the past. This is why I write time travel stories.
It helps me become one with the past that I would
otherwise never experience, things like the American Civil War, the great San
Francisco earthquake of 1906 or the Woodstock Music Festival. I was also fascinated with the great ocean liner called RMS Titanic years before the Cameron movie made it popular. I also like great unsolved mysteries from the past such as the Lindbergh baby, the Kennedy
assassination and to discover what happened to Amelia Earhart. But
for me, the ultimate, especially for a Chicago born and bred guy was the great
Chicago Fire of 1871. It is hard to fathom an entire city going up in flames for
miles upon miles. I once talked to a very aged neighbor of mine who told me
about his grandparents sitting on their porch (of the very house he still owned)
and watching the glow from that fire. I realize that the fire devastated and
even killed many people but aside from the tragedy, I would have loved to
witness it. This is why I wrote Katya and Cyrus Time Pilgrims. Through their
eyes, I was able to be in the fire and experience it firsthand.
However, not all of my gone but not forgotten passions are
tragedies or disasters. I also would have loved to experience the old world’s
fairs where people witnessed things like electricity and television for the
first time. The Ferris wheel on my blog page is the very first one and came from
the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Each car held up to sixty three people. I also
love and miss musicians from the past such as the Beatles and Buddy Holly (oops,
I’m back to disasters again). Sometimes it’s a way of life that I wish I could
have lived. I read about people who lived in earlier times, such as the great
depression or the war days of the 1940s and how they loved the simpler and more
ethical ways of living, simpler time they call it. One of those simpler ways is
how people would travel the roads of America back then. We didn’t have super
highways with extravagant tolls; we had roads that went through all the small
towns...slowly. That way people could really experience life in other places,
even if it was just neighboring states. These were roads like the Lincoln
Highway, Highway 41 and the most famous road in the world, Route 66. I was
probably on this road as a kid since it wasn’t fully decommissioned until the
mid-eighties, but I had been on the old road since, which is now posted as Historic Route 66. I always wondered what it would have been like to travel the road back then, perhaps riding in
another disaster, a Ford Edsel. That is how my first novel, Parallel Roads (Lost
on Route 66) was born (minus the Edsel). In it, I am able to travel the road,
again through the eyes of my characters in modern times and in the past.
Perhaps you are younger and have your own gone but not forgotten passions. Perhaps you miss TV shows such as Blossom or the original 90210 or Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Maybe it’s a favorite band or type of music. What is your gone but not forgotten?
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