Where and When? J Vincent

On March 6, 2010 I wrote a blog titled A Magic Carpet of Books about my favorite books as a child—this month’s subject. You can find a link to it under the label Childhood Reading on the right side of the blog. Since I’ve covered that I’ve decided to go somewhere else but it took awhile for me to find “where.” After browsing I decided to go with a topic from Joan Stewart’s The Publicity Hound site from a blog she did on blog topics. This is the one I decided on with a twist of my own.

“If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, in any time period, where and when would it be? Would you write or read there, or do something else?”

I find this a tantalizing question. First I have to decide do I visit as an author or as myself. That I think of this is worrisome, sort of, but I have a very different view as an author than I do as a non-writer.

Where would Joan Vincent go and when? 1745 Scotland comes to mind. What was Bonnie Prince Charlie really like? What were the men thinking who swore fealty to him and condemned themselves as well as their men to such horrendous consequences?
I wouldn’t read or write but listen and observe—the same for all that follow. On second thought I’d probably write and read also.

But then there are the mid 1780’s Versailles. Did Louis and Marie Antoinette really eat cake while France disintegrated around them. I’ d love to be able to read the journals of the day and attend Madame de Stael’s salons (Gatherings of intellectuals to discuss anything from literature to politics.)

I droll at the thought of being among the Aide de Camps in Wellington’s headquarters in the peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. Or salivate at the idea of being in a townhouse or country estate during the regency.

Oh, oh, to be present at a session of the British Parliament—in both houses. Perhaps during the slavery debates in the early 1800’s. Then there the Parliament trial of Mary Anne Clark, the Duke of York’s mistress. She testified that she sold army commissions while he was Commander-in-Chief of the Army with his knowledge when he did not support their lavish lifestyle.

As “myself” (for want of a better term) I would love to visit the Lincoln Whitehouse. Or listen in on the Declaration of Independence arguments. I’d like to ride with the Pony Express, participate in a barn raising in Kansas in the 1870’s, join a gaggle of quilters in 1920 as they quilted, see the first flight of the Kitty Hawk, be with Jonas Salk when he realized he had a polio vaccine.

Now that I’ve burbled on forever tell me, where and when would you like to be?