Chapter 1: Days of Futures Past

Wednesday, July 11, 1984

The past four days had been something of a slow-motion blur. Hundreds of miles of rural landscapes — some hilly, some very flat — had gone by as we traveled from Wisconsin through Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Wyoming again, and finally Montana again as we arrived in the small tourist town of West Yellowstone.

All four of us had loved the trip. Badlands National Park was spectacular, with amazing views and what looked like some great hiking (which we might do someday). Mount Rushmore was properly scenic and historic. We had ventured over to the still-nascent Crazy Horse Monument, not far away, which would (if and when finished) dwarf even Mount Rushmore. It wasn’t all that much to see in 1984, and I knew it hadn’t been even close to completion in 2021 (even with better funding and techniques along the way), but the imagery behind it was amazing.

From there, we’d wandered the back roads to Devil’s Tower (where we all had to make ‘Close Encounters’ noises, of course, though we kept them to ourselves). The girls had loved the nearby prairie dog fields almost as much as the tower, and I thought the little guys were pretty cute myself.

The Custer Battlefield Monument was sobering. The United States was slowly swinging from the idea of Custer as a tragic hero to that of Custer as an anti-hero or perhaps misguided villain, and the Monument reinforced that, with its depiction of the battle and how the Native American tribes had approached it. A lot of people had died here, and they had died needlessly on both sides.

Imagine if some of the leaders then had the opportunity Angie and I had now! Of course — perhaps they had. Perhaps something still worse had happened and this was the better outcome. Who could tell? ‘All is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds,’ after all.

We’d swung north through Montana nearly to Bozeman, then entered Yellowstone from the north entrance. The RV was not a fan of the grades involved — not at all! — but we hadn’t had to detach the Subaru (which we’d used at the Battlefield — its narrow roads would have been a nightmare in the Winnebago) and made it through the park safely to West Yellowstone, where hookups and tourist restaurants awaited.

Even the little we’d seen of Yellowstone had been amazing, and we had two days here to enjoy it. We would stay at the historic Old Faithful Lodge the last night we were here.

After that, the plan was to head on to Seattle with stops in Missoula and Spokane. We would wander down the coast for about a week, arriving in the LA area while Jess was there. Not right when she got there — she deserved some time with her family when we weren’t even a temptation — but with enough time to see her and hang out a bit.

Friday, July 13, 1984

We’d been wise to plan two full days here. We could easily have taken a week, but two days had given us enough of what we wanted.

There were simply so many things to see! All sorts of amazing thermal pools, geysers, lakes large and small (including the only natural lake — really a pond — that drained to two oceans), vast plains with bison and elk and all manner of wildlife, and so on. We didn’t see any bears — and didn’t really want to, not up close and personal! — nor any wolves, but we knew they were out there.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was very impressive. Had we had time, it would’ve been a great hiking opportunity. Not nearly as big as the real Grand Canyon, but it was still huge and breathtaking.

The girls had wanted me to tell them about my previous trips here (all later than 1984), and I obliged with story after story. It was weird, in a way, but it was really a good way. They knew I’d been here, after all, and sharing that made it just a bit more real.

Since we were staying at Old Faithful Lodge, we had to see Old Faithful itself several times. It was, as always, very impressive.

I gave Cammie a call just before dinner. The roof was all settled, and we’d added $7,500 to the total. She’d saved a bit on shingles, which made sense — her selection was still a fifteen-year roof, which was fine, since I really wasn’t sure if the house had fifteen years left in it. Maybe? Perhaps we would change history, at least for that block.

Or perhaps not.

One of her first two therapists had been a complete bust. The other was, at best, iffy. She’d gotten two more recommendations, had met with one, and he was the current favorite, but she had one more, a woman, scheduled for next week.

I wished her luck, of course, and then let her get on with her evening.

I also called Michael Dell. He was nearly giddy about the preliminary numbers. I didn’t get a lot of detail, but he seemed absolutely certain that the end-of-July quarterly report would be much more than he needed to convince his parents that he was doing the right thing. That had always been a concern of his (and had been in my first life, too).

He could, of course, do what he wanted — he was an adult, and had a business with enough income to sustain him and not fail from lack of investment — but having the blessing of his parents mattered to him a great deal. It would have for me, too, so I completely sympathized.

I didn’t hear even a hint of angst on his end about having given up 10% of his baby. I’d worried about there being some second-guessing — perhaps some feeling that I’d taken him for something I didn’t ‘deserve.’ In the absence of that, we would likely have a long and fruitful friendship. I knew him better than I should have (or at least I knew enough about his other-universe alter-ego), so I knew when and how it might make sense to push, and what sorts of pushing would be well received.

While I’d been on the phone, the girls had all called home and checked in. We weren’t calling home that often, but all of the parents had our pager numbers and seemed fine with the regular check-ins. Of course, we’d called home about once a week last summer, too, so they’d gotten used to it.

Angie had also called Lizzie and Janet. She’d spoken to Janet, who confirmed that they’d be home for the next couple of weeks. They’d set a tentative date of the 20th or 21st for a get-together.

Once we got off the phone, we had dinner in the ornate dining room, then retired to our rooms. We’d splurged and gotten two rooms — the occasional bit of separation was definitely a good thing, though we were all getting along very well.

Then we enjoyed our evening.

Thoroughly, and repeatedly.

Tuesday, July 17, 1984

Some of the drives from West Yellowstone to Seattle had been ... interesting. Still nothing that required us to detach the Subaru and drive in two vehicles, but there were times a lower gear and patience was a necessity. And caution on downhills. A lot of caution!

We’d arrived in one piece, though, and had thoroughly enjoyed the trip. I’d been in these states before, but not the parts of them we’d been through. Missoula and Spokane were new. It wasn’t until we got to Seattle that I was on even vaguely familiar ground, and I’d spent only four days of my life in Seattle during my first life.

And, of course, it wasn’t the same place. Oh, parts were, but this was 1984, when Seattle was Boeing’s town. Not Microsoft’s — they were here, but tiny and no one knew they were going to be what they became. Certainly not Amazon’s — that idea hadn’t even occurred to Jeff Bezos yet.

That was one I would never try to steal. The odds were thoroughly against some weird upstart bookstore taking over even books on the Internet, much less everything. Back in the day, I’d worked briefly with an account team that was supporting Barnes and Noble. They were flabbergasted at how fast Amazon’s book search was and wanted to replicate it. We couldn’t, not without doing what Amazon was doing: throw a mountain of hardware at it and index every possible piece of data. Of course, at that time, we hadn’t realized that providing internet services was a part of Amazon’s strategy, not just a necessary evil.

Jeff could have that one. I wouldn’t have tried it even if I’d been a totally unethical greedy bastard. If I could invest, though, I’d be there. Sure, it hadn’t made much money for a long time, but that was actually part of the draw. Easier to get in, and the long-term payoff was huge.

In any case, we did the touristy things: the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, and so on. The most hilarious part of it was visiting Starbucks. This was before the expansion — before anyone but a handful of people outside of Seattle had even heard of Starbucks Coffee.

The looks Angie and I exchanged told the story, but it wasn’t until later that we could explain to Jas and Paige that this little coffee shop was going to become absolutely ubiquitous around the world over the coming decades. Angie didn’t have any idea how much it would grow, but she knew what was coming.