Back in Time After Time

I hold a 305 year old book in my hands and feel its old leather binding flake and crumble. The front cover falls off, and I know the back cover eventually will also, as I gently press the book down on the glass and I try to get a good scan of all 650 pages. It kills me to know I am destroying the rare book while scanning it, in an effort to preserve and share its contents. Paper, ink and leather from 1710 England. I kind of worry about breathing in its dust. 

I wonder who else has held this treasure in their hands. Who were they? What was life like for them then? Could they even conceive that someone might hold this book in their hands more than 300 years later? Could they even dream of the technology that is allowing me to scan and share it today? What would they think about life here if they were suddenly transported here? What would they think that a library was going to throw their book away, but it was saved by an elderly Quaker man who recognized a treasure, then brought it to a professor at a Quaker seminary, who asked me to scan and preserve it?

I hope that a relic from the past will fall out of the pages, a hand written note or a piece of ribbon, or something else that served as a book mark. But I realize while turning from page to page that no one else has actually read this book, at least not the entire thing, because there are pages that have been cut improperly and never separated. I can't read it myself because it's in Spanish, but the writing is beautiful.  I know it's about religion, and I know a Quaker wrote the words in the late 1600's, then the words were translated to Spanish and printed 1000 times and shipped or hand delivered to Quakers, to help spread the message to other lands or to preserve the message.  Maybe I'll have to try to read the original English version someday. 

As I sit in a Quaker seminary in 2015, in a building built in the 1870s and later named for the author of the book, I want to randomly pick a page and read what it says, to see if the centuries old text speaks to me today.  Using my iPhone I try to translate some of it but the app translates "Tembladores" as "Shaker" instead of "Quaker", so I laugh and doubt the validity of the translation, but I search for more information about it. I look for it's value on eBay but can't find this original edition, just later printings. I'm interrupted when I get a text from my daughter at school, reminding me of her upcoming doctor appointment.  

I get on my work computer to Google a better translation but get distracted and see on Facebook that today is "Back to the Future Day", or the future date Marty McFly and Doc had programmed into their time machine in the movie "Back to the Future II".

I haven't watched the movie for a while so I don't remember the specifics of why they chose this date and what happened while they were "here", but I do recall there were many futuristic gadgets and clothing items. I think I'll have to watch the movie with my family this evening, if we have it on DVD. I'm sure it's on Netflix but our Internet is too slow on Dishman Hill for it to stream without constant buffering.

Now I'm trying to think back to October of 1985, when "Back to the Future II" takes place, and what I was doing, or what life was like for me then. Did I imagine what my life would be like in 2015?  I was 23, married less than a year, and we had just moved from our one-bedroom apartment to a 2 bedroom rental home in a small town in northern Indiana.  We were really curious about all the "primitive" Amish living near us because there were none like them in our hometown of Hagerstown. I was working part-time in retail and the clothes I wore to work had huge shoulder pads and I tried to make my hair big. My husband was an accountant for a telephone company. He wore a suit and tie to work every day. He shined his shoes once a week.


We drove used cars -- the Monte Carlo had an 8-track player, the gray Honda was basic but got good gas mileage and was practical. Our favorite TV show was the cutting edge Miami Vice and we made sure we were home when it came on, or we set the video player to tape it so we could watch it later, but we usually forgot and had to wait for reruns. We had a phone with a cord -- it hung on our wall -- and we paid for long distance calls, which meant we had to limit our contact with our parents and friends. We felt isolated 3 hours from home. I think we bought an answering machine so we could get important messages while we were out.


We didn't own a computer although my husband sometimes used one at work to print reports; he used an adding machine all the time. At home we had a calculator, a nice expensive one my husband bought in college. I had a Polaroid camera but was very careful about how many pictures I took because the film was pretty expensive. I bought a disc camera sometime around that time and loved taking the disc to the drug store to get developed, then going back a week later to see how my pictures turned out -- only a few of them were worth putting in a photo album, the rest were stuck back in the envelope and into a box somewhere. I was learning how to cook using my microwave and crock pot. We each had an alarm clock next to our sides of the bed.  I think mine was digital but my husband's was one of those flip radio alarm clocks that clicked every minute as the next number tumbled over. We had a small stereo and a boom box that played cassette tapes.

We looked forward to having 2 or 3 children sometime in the next 5 years, and assumed we would work our way up the ladder in our careers and own a nicer, larger home and nicer cars, and hopefully travel around the country someday. But other than that I don't think we thought too much about what life would look like 30 years into the future. We couldn't even imagine being that old!

I remember a book I borrowed from the library when I was living there in Goshen. It was written by a Quaker Oats heiress about her life of luxury and all her travels from 1906 until the 1950's. Even during the depression her family had plenty of money because Quaker Oats was inexpensive and "stuck to your ribs", which meant it was a staple in most households when times were tough. I marveled at how much our world had changed since she was a small girl -- little things like deodorant and bigger things like having to crank a car to get it started, traveling across the country on steam trains, and across the ocean on steam ships.  Her life seemed so romantic back then.  I had never heard the term Quaker in any other context than Quaker Oats.

Thirty years later I laugh when I get calls that are meant for Quaker Oats. Even with today's technology people get wrong information -- and they can use it too easily, unfortunately.

Thirty years later I have a different husband, something I never imagined, and I live back in Hagerstown. Between the two of us we have 5 kids and we keep in contact with them and our parents and friends via cell phones and e-mail.  We even play games with them at a distance using our cell phones. My daughter texts me ultrasound pictures of the baby she is carrying. We don't use alarm clocks, we use our cell phones.  We don't have a camera because our cell phones take and share pictures so easily. I use my phone as a calculator too. We use our phones and tv to listen to all the music we used to listen to back in the 70's and 80's. We're going to a Peter Frampton concert this weekend; he was hot in the 70's but barely heard of in the 80's, so it's nice he's made a comeback. My husband's favorite old tv show is Miami Vice and he often watches it on DVD -- it makes him think of the good old days, I guess.

(http://itsmusicfashionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/vice.jpg)

I still live modestly and drive a used gray Honda. My career never flourished and I make just double what I made 30 years ago, which isn't much when you consider inflation, but I love my work and I've had wonderful experiences.  The none-stressful job leaves me time, space and energy to focus on my passion of iPhone photography -- I can take, edit and print beautiful photos from my phone.

I still have Amish neighbors because an Amish community moved to Hagerstown several years ago. When I see them with their plain clothes and horse and buggies, or working on their farms, I imagine their life is very much like the life of Quakers in the 1700's, although I often see their young people using cell phones and playing volleyball.

I still borrow books from the library, but I sometimes download them and read them on my "antiquated" Kindle.  I can't imagine life without real books. I'll always love old books especially -- their smell, the feel of the old paper.

This old book from 1710 makes me think and wonder. It's old and smelly, and it's falling apart, but it's full of intention, full of history, full of some kind of good energy intended for future generations, and I feel special to have held it in my hands before it's gone for good. When I'm done scanning the book, a professor will e-mail the pdf of the Spanish translation of Quaker theology to his friends in Cuba, a country that I imagine is purposely stuck in something like the "November 12, 1955" of "Back to the Future", with old cars, old styles, old thoughts.

I'm wondering how sharing ideas that are over 305 years old can make a difference for the professor's friends in Cuba, or how saving the text of the old book will impact others in the future. I also wonder how long it will take for the technology that allows us to scan and store this book to become obsolete and inaccessible, maybe gone forever.

I guess only time will tell.