STOP THE WORLD

" Apparently Trump tried suggesting vaccination in Alabama and got booed. Well, you create a mean dog and then YOU get bit. What's behind Trump's movement is a 'stop the world, I want to get off' moment among the people dissatisfied with the last two centuries, let alone this one---with, thanks to the virus, a real chance of getting their wish." From author CJ Cherrhy's FB page.

I suspect they don't really want to go back to the world of two centuries ago. And don't really want to face the social stratification of two centuries ago. Especially women. No vote, no property rights, I suspect not even the right to keep your wages if you worked out of the home. Forget divorce. Once upon a time not so long ago it was almost impossible to get a divorce no matter how far apart you've grown. And in some ways nothing has reAlly changed. Remember that infamous quote from our former president. 

As for the rest . My comment editerd.

Fine you can go back two hundred years. But you have to give up all the modern conveniences. Electricity, indoor plumbing in most areas. Heck my mom went to grade school in a one room school house in Pleasant Hill just south of Eugene. It had an outhouse and a pump in the yard. 

Forget bringing in fresh food from the other side of the country. Railroads were barely getting started. You pretty much grew and ate what came in locally except for bulk items like flour, sugar, coffee, tea. Items like that. Now New England or Mid Atlantic towns could be pretty close together. At least near the coast. You take a look at a road map of Oregon and follow Hwy 99. The town tend to be ten to fourteen miles apart. You could make the round trip in a day. With horses. 

Eugene, Oregon wasn't founded until 1846 and I have no idea what the "road" was like to what is now Portland. One hundred five miles away. A good team, dry weather, you might make the trip in four days. Pre about 1850 you'd better be prepared to camp under your wagon and bring your own provisions. Forget anything resembling a system of roads. The east coast might as well have been the other side of the world in the early eighteen hundreds. 

Corvallis, Albany, Salem, Oregon City and Portland didn't exist until the late 1840's, 1850'a. You were most likely to meet eithr the local Native Americans or fur trappers. The Hudson's Bay company had Fort Vancouver. On the north side of the Columbia River. The native americans were still pretty friendly and hadn't been confined to reservations or killed off by European disease. Yet.

No railroads to speak of west of the Mississippi. Or east either come to that. The transcontinental line wasn't finished until after either the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression. I guess the name depends on the color of the uniforms of the armies. And there is the great sticking point. 

Yes the war was largely about "states right." IE the right of a state to make slavery legal before the war and to use the law to keep the former slaves in a state of semi servitude through the use of terrror while the law either looked the other way or aided and abetted. (Here we go again. the piece is taking its bit in the teeth and heading for the tall timber. This is why most of my term papers were never really finished. I just handed in the version I completed by the due date)

Anyway. No airplanes. Didn't even get close until the early 1900's. The Wright Brothers get the credit. I guess we can credit WWII for kicking commercial aviation in the ass. All those lovely surplus planes. The twin engine DC5 and the four engine DC4 and later versions were in use until the era of the jet engine was born. 

Heck the Erie Canal the provided a link between the Atlantic Coast and the Great Lakes hadn't been finished until 1825. Main reaon one set of great granparents was born in Ohio and not New York or New England. When the Robinsons and the Heaton moved to Ohio they came as families. My great greats and triple greats upped stakes and tried their luck on what was still  close to frontier country. My Heaton great grandparents spent enough time in Kansas to have three childred and fetched up finally in Oregon by the 1880's. 

Watch Gunsmoke and dial it back a little and that just might been what my folks were facing. Add in the heat, tornadoes, drought and what they heard about Oregon probably sounded real inviting. Fetched up west of what is now Portland. Green, rivers, good land. We don't do tornados very often. However there are earthquakes and volcanoes. You can see three from Portland. St Helens, Adams and Hood. And they've all burped in the last two centuries.

 suspect that some of these folks are looking for the "a place for everyone and every one knew their place." Except for those who couldn't change the color of their skins that has never really been true. Change your name, lose your accent, change your religion and after a couple of generations no one can tell you from a WASP.

So if you manage to go back a couple of hundred years don't assume anyone will be tipping their hats to you. You will likely either be looking after the cows and the chickens or spending a fair amount of your day mucking out stables or looking at the south end of a north bound horse, ox or mule. Oh, or knowing when the bad weather or fire is coming your way instead of finding out the hard way..