Magic Carpet Riding

I recommend time travel to relieve stress.

I have done it. It is easy, it takes your mind off the moment and it feels good, usually. Potential time travelers should carefully plan their voyages so as to avoid unforeseen, uncomfortable and potentially dangerous issues.

How to do it? Simply close your eyes and concentrate on a time and place to visit. That’s all there is to it. And you’re on the road to catharsis.

My first trip was a no brainer to see Jesus. I arrived at his home and he and his disciples were sitting around chatting. It was early afternoon, obviously before the crucifixion. The group took one look at what I was wearing and cracked up, Jesus included.

Everyone was in robes, the style of the day. Not me. I had forgotten to change out of my jeans, motorcycle boots and flannel shirt. Not only was I terribly gauche but I was also hot. Don’t wear a flannel shirt to Bethlehem. Wear open toed sandals if possible.

I wanted to tell Jesus of the big problems he would soon face. I mentioned Judas and he said he knew all about the future, from on high. It was not easy communicating in Aramaic. I was prepared. I turned my iPhone on and went to my translation app. There was no cell service.

I hung out for a while. Though I couldn’t communicate well I was able to show Jesus how much I admired him. And he was quite impressive. Seemed very honest and had an easy smile and was obviously quite bright. A very nice fellow, indeed, but a bit overly serious about everything.

But Jesus and the disciples had work to do spreading the word and I had overstayed my welcome.

My next expedition was to Stratford on Avon, England, to visit the greatest writer in the history of the English language, the bard himself, William Shakespeare. I arrived in the mid-1590s, around the time that Shakespeare had penned my two favorite plays, “Midsummer’s Night Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet.”

He was a quiet man, well-spoken though his old English was a bit thick to understand. Quiet is not what I would expect from the greatest playwright ever. He seemed preoccupied perhaps with the stars. I told him that his career was just taking off and that in a few years he will write four plays that will go down as the finest in the English language, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.

He just looked at me and smiled.

I went to the third game of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field in Chicago where Babe Ruth pointed to the bleachers and promptly hit a homer. I met the Bambino after the game and we downed a few.

I sat next to Hitler at the 1936 Olympics and watched the great dictator boil when Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal of the games. I met with Owens after the games and he was nothing short of ebullient.

I sat with Rosa Parks on Dec. 1, 1955, when she refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. It sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and was pivotal in the civil rights movement. She told me she wasn’t too tired to move to the back but was just sick and tired of being treated like a second class citizen.

I was in the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd St. in New York City in 1964 when Bob Dylan wrote “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” his paean to his new wife, Sarah. Dylan was no fun. Getting him to talk was like pulling teeth. He seemed so dour and self-absorbed.

Things didn’t always work out well.

I love opera and for my next adventure I planned to travel on Feb. 11, 1843, for the premier of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “I Lombardi alla prima crociata” at La Scala in Milan.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Opening my eyes, I quickly realized I had screwed up. I saw the flags lining the streets, emblazoned with swastikas and I knew where I was: Nazi Germany, Feb. 11, 1943. Off by 100 years. Not a good place for a Jew. I didn’t dawdle and concentrated myself away.

I set my sights for March 6, 1475, Caprese Michelangelo, Italy. It was the day that Michelanglo was born. I really wanted to meet the artist’s father, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni. Again, my math was slightly off, 128 years to be exact. I arrived not to find the father of the great painter. I was in Italy but the date was March 6, 1347, and the black plague was kicking into high gear.

I don’t just visit historical places. I went to my parents’ wedding in West New York in 1940. Jerome, decked out in a tux, had a smile broader than anything I’d ever see again on him. And his new wife, Sylvia, was just beaming in her white gown and long trail. I approached my future father and mother after the ceremony and wished them well.

I re-visited my father’s funeral on Aug. 30, 1960. When I was 10, I couldn’t bear to look into the coffin and felt guilty ever since. Returning, I told him goodbye and that I would see him again one day, if only in my time traveling.