I'm glad I can't go back in time. Beside the whole "changing the course of history" dilemma that would be over my head like a guillotine, more important is the realization that I would be a real downer to my 70s self.
First off would be the lecture I would have to give about how I shouldn't sit on the handlebars of my brother's Schwinn, speeding down the steep slopes of our city. It wouldn't matter that my 9-year-old self would argue that there were no such things as helmets back then or that I was more of a menace at the helm of my own banana-seated bicycle.
The current me would be aghast at my outfits, slutty, puckered tube tops with barely-there, rainbow-banded, satin gym shorts in the summer and, even worse, jackets made from the fur of dead rabbits in the winter.
Of course there would be the reprimands about my sugar-filled food choices, from Tang ("but astronauts drink it") to anything Drakes Cakes to McDonald's lava-hot apple pies. Would I tell the 1970s me not to eat anything with wheat in it -- after explaining what Celiac and gluten is-- or would I let myself enjoy with abandon, especially my grandmother's Sunday spaghetti and meatballs?
After landing, if that's indeed what Time Machines do, I would definitely have to warn little me of a few things:
1. Though you will find out in due time, you may not want to talk to the old man across the street.
2. Don't agree to go on that middle-school trip with your history teacher. It's not your brains he's interested in.
3. When a stranger wants to show you and your friends a Polaroid of his dog, he's neither friendly nor an animal lover.
4. In spite of all the above, there are really nice guys out there, especially the kid you will sit next to in your algebra class.
I wonder after hearing this advice if 1970s Judy would be agreeable and reply "10-4, good buddy". Or, more likely would she flip her Farrah Fawcett hairdo back, pull out her lucky rabbit's foot bought at Woolworth's, and roller skate away?
First off would be the lecture I would have to give about how I shouldn't sit on the handlebars of my brother's Schwinn, speeding down the steep slopes of our city. It wouldn't matter that my 9-year-old self would argue that there were no such things as helmets back then or that I was more of a menace at the helm of my own banana-seated bicycle.
The current me would be aghast at my outfits, slutty, puckered tube tops with barely-there, rainbow-banded, satin gym shorts in the summer and, even worse, jackets made from the fur of dead rabbits in the winter.
Of course there would be the reprimands about my sugar-filled food choices, from Tang ("but astronauts drink it") to anything Drakes Cakes to McDonald's lava-hot apple pies. Would I tell the 1970s me not to eat anything with wheat in it -- after explaining what Celiac and gluten is-- or would I let myself enjoy with abandon, especially my grandmother's Sunday spaghetti and meatballs?
After landing, if that's indeed what Time Machines do, I would definitely have to warn little me of a few things:
1. Though you will find out in due time, you may not want to talk to the old man across the street.
2. Don't agree to go on that middle-school trip with your history teacher. It's not your brains he's interested in.
3. When a stranger wants to show you and your friends a Polaroid of his dog, he's neither friendly nor an animal lover.
4. In spite of all the above, there are really nice guys out there, especially the kid you will sit next to in your algebra class.
I wonder after hearing this advice if 1970s Judy would be agreeable and reply "10-4, good buddy". Or, more likely would she flip her Farrah Fawcett hairdo back, pull out her lucky rabbit's foot bought at Woolworth's, and roller skate away?
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