Time Frame, D G Harney [recommended ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Time Frame

A novel by D G Harney

Preface

The human mind is an awesome instrument of rare and sometimes mystical power. Einstein said that we only use a small percentage of our brain power which is quite obvious when we see what is happening today. We, the human race, have a vast library of knowledge acquired over hundreds if not thousands of years at our disposal and few of us are taking advantage of that knowledge. In this computer age that knowledge is available with the click of a mouse.

It is the simple things in life where we really fall short. Common sense is probably as important as education and knowledge and is seldom put to use by many of us. When you review the news of the day we see one example after another where common sense was absent and the results were nothing short of disastrous.

What follows is a tale of achievement in which common sense plays a vital role. How many times have we wished that we could foretell the future; the results of an election, the weather, the stock market or the results of athletic events. What would we do if we had the power to visualize results of any of those events? Obviously we could become wealthy!

This is one such revelation of one man’s experience with his future and how the unexpected can and often does change even the best devised plans. A corollary would be how a battle in a great war could result not in victory but in disaster often caused by a shortfall in the use of knowledge and common sense.

We all have wishes and desires. We may wish for good health, happiness and wealth. We all would like the Genie to jump out of his bottle and grant us our wishes. But we should be careful in what we wish for, we just may get it!!


Chapter 1

My name is Mathew Stewart. Most folks call me Matt. The tale that I am about to relate is unbelievable. In fact, I would expect that few, if any, who read this will be able to accept what follows as anything but the ravings of one who has lost his mind, a lunatic or at least, someone suffering from hallucinations But ..

I must begin at the beginning because my veracity, my possible insanity and even my honesty must be examined before you can believe that what I am relating could possibly be true. I assure you that I am, even now in my twilight years, of sound mind and body. My memories of these happenings are still bright and sharp in my mind. Even the intimate details remain lucid and very clear.

I was born and raised in a medium sized, Midwestern, town to middle class, but classy, parents. My father had dropped out of school after completing the eighth grade and had left home at age 15 when his family situation became untenable. I know little of his life prior to my birth probably because he was reluctant to talk about those first fifteen years.

My mother was an exceptional and unusually intelligent woman who was a high achiever throughout her life becoming a “self made” millionaire by age fifty at a time when women in business were a rarity. The recession of the early 19th century denied her the college education she wanted and never received. She believed that a good education was mandatory for everyone and especially for her children if they were to succeed in life’s challenges. She was adamant in her demand for educational achievement for all of her children. I am sure she vowed that her children would receive the education that events beyond her control denied her. She was a firm believer in the Almighty. She claimed throughout her life that Jesus was her best friend and counselor. I really believe he was!

She believed that all a person had that was completely and totally his own, to use or abuse, was his integrity. A hand shake was as good as a legal document for her and she passed this legacy on to all of her children. Both of my parents placed lying at the top of the list of things their children would not do. To this day even, so called “little white lies” leaving my lips gives me a deep feeling of guilt. I pass this thought on for your consideration as you read this. But we know that truth, as with many things in life such as beauty, is in the “eye of the beholder”.

My father was, also, an extremely bright and knowledgeable person despite his lack of formal education. He, along with several close friends, had joined the navy when the Great War began. He returned home, as most did after military service, a more informed and mature person. He was one of the smartest people I have ever known. He could do, and did, everything he tried to do with ease. He was a perfectionist. He told us that we could have whatever we wanted out of life if we wanted it badly enough and had the guts to pursue our desires. As I found out “the guts” was the key. We all have wants. We often fall short in guts!! I idolized my father. Seldom does a day pass when he is not remembered!!

As a student I was about average until the third grade. Looking over old report cards showed that I just did well enough to pass on to the next grade during these first three years. Then I somehow “found myself” or had possibly gained a little maturity in my third school year. I remember being disappointed and hurt when my best friend was moved across the classroom from the “dumb” spellers group to the good spellers group. I couldn’t accept that so in about two weeks I too was moved. Spelling turned out to be one of my better subjects according to the report cards that followed that move. That effort seemed to be the turning point for me in my education and my outlook on school life. I found the “book learning” process to be very easy, too easy actually. I don’t remember ever having to do homework and I only took text books home to show others that I was a “serious” student. I never learned to study and even today I have to work hard to study anything seriously.

I was a prolific reader. I spent whatever hours that I was not using for sports or required school work reading…anything and everything that was available in the school library. I had wide spread interests in several areas. I collected stamps and was interested in guns and airplanes and became knowledgeable in those subjects before I turned fifteen. I enjoyed photography and learned to process my own films. My biggest desire was to learn to fly airplanes. That would come to pass some years later. My first love then was in sports and staying healthy so that I could participate in football, basketball and track.

When I think of my pre college education I believe that school teaching levels are set for the slower learners and therefore leaves the better students on their own to achieve a higher academic level education. Since all the available schools, for me at least, were public schools I was relegated to an easy curriculum that required little, if any, effort on my part. I found the same to be true while attending university both before and after World War II. In fact, I got through my first two years of college on what I had learned in high school. Those two pre-war years were wasted by me. I skipped more classes that I attended. Why not? My future would soon be in the control of the US military!

All of the young people during that period knew early on that their destiny was preordained because of the situation in Hitler’s Europe and our problems with Japanese diplomacy. The draft was in full swing and each of us knew that we would be getting our “Greetings” letter from our Uncle at his whim. But, I digress.

My life during the first eighteen years was pleasurable and satisfying. We were living through trying times but as children were mostly unaware of how trying they were for our parents and most others. Summers were filled with a mixture of work and play. Vegetable gardens and lawn care require lots of work. Play in the summer consisted of hours in the city swimming pool and outdoor sports and skating, skiing and other winter sports in the winter.

Since my parents were without funds or high paying jobs we lived a fairly Spartan existence sustained in great part by our family garden. The family comprised my parents, two brothers, a sister and me. We had our assigned chores and when they were completed we received our ten cents a week allowance usually on Saturday morning. Then it was off to the five cent movie matinee and a choice of a goody for the other nickel. The great recession was in full swing through much of my youth and a challenge for all of America and probably the world. I believe that the depression added greatly to the character of many and created the sense that it was up to each of us, no one else, to fail or succeed.

Although they had little money to pursue anything but state supported education my parents encouraged us to study and learn even when some hard to find extra money was needed to accomplish this. They would give up some of their own wants so that their children could progress. I joined the Cub Scouts and when old enough the Boy Scouts. Much of what I learned there has helped me cope with life and living then and through all of my life…even now. We learned, among other things, how to survive in the wilderness. We learned how to set up camp using pup tents and to prepare food sufficient to survive for a day or two. This was something that paid dividends during my later days. I spent any free time I could find skiing and ice skating in the winter and climbing whatever hills, mountains or rocks I could find and afford during the rest of the year. Swimming was both a pastime and a way of staying cool during the hot summer months before air conditioning became available in both homes and cars some years later.

We camped out as often as we could when our ever expanding chores allowed us to. I remember going to the grocery store and buying two pounds of ground sirloin for one of our overnight campouts a mile or so down the local river. The cost of fifteen cents was a sizeable amount of money in those days. I haven’t bought ground sirloin for a lot of years but I wonder what the cost is today. The family vacations were often spent at local lakes using cabins that friends offered us free of charge. It was there that another of my father’s rules kicked in and has remained a part of me all my life. We always left