[ Time Travel ] You have been out of town for a few days and returning back to your home in the town which you were born and grew up in ...

It was a huge relieve to almost be home after seven hours in the car and I must add because I'm proud of this, only one stop for a food and bathroom break. I've needed to pee for the past half hour, but it feels like losing a game to stop more than once on a seven hour trip. 
 
 I pulled up to the stoplight at the north edge of town and stared straight ahead at the Dairy Queen on the corner where I had my first job running the drive-through window at the young and illegal age of 13. While reveling in the memories of my brilliance in pulling off slightly illegal maneuvers, it hit me suddenly. That building burned down four years ago. The newspaper said'electrical problems' but that sounded fishy to me at the time. Dairy Queens in small southern towns were losing their appeal as frozen yogurt bars hit the scene and the owner was kindof a desperate person, but my mind is rambling. Why is it here now? And with a line for the drive-through? 
 
 The light turned green and I turned up on Main Street toward the courthouse. Stores I have only heard about were on both sides of the road -- Filene's Department Store, Minkowitz General Store, Rosenberg Sewing Machine Repair. But where was the Asylum Tattoo Parlor and the CVS? 
 
 Then I saw the people along the road looking like extras for a History Channel special on the Dust Bowl -- women in heavy skirts and dresses and men in uncomfortable looking businesswear. I made a'C' in high school history and I WISH I had paid more attention, but I would swear that I'm looking at a scene from the early 1900s. 
 
 And then it hit me again -- the more I drive, the farther back in time I seem to go. In answer to my thoughts, the road ended or at least what I would call a road ceased to exist. I stopped the car. I do n't want to go any further. A dusty path laid in front of me and a horse drawn carriage driven by a hard bitten man of undetermined race pulled up alongside my car. For some reason, he and the horse did n't seem to see me and that seemed to be the only good thing that was happening at the moment. 
 
 I glanced around at the inside of my car. My laptop is on the passenger seat, cell phone in its charger, life as it ought to be trapped inside the oasis of my Acura. What to do. What to do. Escape. I started the car back up and headed back toward the Dairy Queen. If I retrace my steps, maybe I'll move forward in time -- reverse everything! 
 
 There was no Dairy Queen -- only a horse trough with people and horses milling about. Thankfully no one seemed to see my car, but now what. 
 
 I had a thought. I took a deep breath and picked up my cell phone. I held my breath and hit the power button. Yes! I do n't know how, but I have 4G. At this point I have a long list of needs ranging from needing someone to help me make sense of what's happening to me to needing a place to go to the bathroom. I was born and raised in this town. I need to talk to somebody, but who? 
 
 Then I had another thought. 
 
 Ancestry.com 
 
 I entered my great grandmother's name into my phone- Josephine Deal- and started writing down everything I could find out about her. I do n't know what will happen when I open the door of my car and the dusty air of the early 1900s pushes out my modern freshly air conditioned air of 2014, but I have to be ready to lose my lifelines to 2014 and to seek help from the people who made me who I am. 
 
 
 
 
 

