Chapter 1

I felt myself falling, free falling from thousands of feet. I could not see the ground but I could feel the adrenaline flowing through my body as the fear built inside, knowing that the end was near. Then I woke up. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I took deep breaths to try to regain some control of myself. I looked around the room and knew exactly where I was. I was in my room, but it was 1971. I had done what I thought or maybe dreamt was impossible. I had made the leap in time.

Late in high school, I had a very interesting teacher in Physics, Mr. Hunsaker. He taught all the things in the books but often would go off topic about less accepted and unproven theories like transcendental meditation, string theory and Quantum Physics. String theory was always something I thought was an interesting concept.

I didn’t think any were totally real but I had dreams and when I got to college, I tried a few different things where my mind would feel like I was moving away from my body either physically like when I did mushrooms or morally when I drank too much. Even when I wasn’t on drugs my mind strayed when I was dreaming. It felt like there was a parallel universe or timeline that was out there for me to follow.

Occasionally I could sense that I was coming up on an intersection, where they came close together or crossed. At those points, I felt like I wanted to break free of this reality or path and make the leap to try to grasp onto the intersection and change over to another timeline.

If you look at good skiers, they are relaxed and go with the flow. Those that are beginners or scared, tend to snowplow. If you’re relaxed but in control you can make it look easy when you do tricks and make the jumps, moguls, turns or stops. I had been working on understanding the feelings that I was having and I sensed when they got stronger and stronger until that point in time when the timelines were closest or touching. At that point, I usually found myself in a dream state, falling uncontrollably. I would wake up and be in my own time and then the feeling would go away. If I was awake, it would feel like I nodded off and then the feeling would go away as if the intersection was left in my rearview mirror.

Tonight, I again had the feeling for the first time in about nine months. I went out onto my porch after my family had gone to sleep and lit up a joint. I don’t smoke every day or even every week but it does help me relax. I tried mushrooms when I was in college and it freed my mind but made me too paranoid to relax. I sat on my deck, meditated, and felt the feeling get stronger and stronger. Finally, I let my mind take the leap and instead of feeling repelled like a magnet with the same pole, it felt reversed and it pulled me to the other string. I felt like I was falling like usual but this time I had bridged the gap.

I woke up and knew where I was and what year it was. I lived in Ft. Lauderdale for one year when I was in sixth grade and I was in my room. I also saw the moving boxes and figured we were either just moving in or getting ready to move out. After looking at the bare white walls, I knew we had just moved in, and it was June 1971.

My name is William Britton. Everyone calls me Britt. I am an only child. My parents just transferred to South Florida, so my dad (Michael) could come to manage the computer division of a big bank. My mother is a stay-at-home mom and looks after the house. I’ve jumped from being 45 back to being 10 years of age. I wasn’t scared but I had to think through what was going to happen.

I pictured that when I made the leap that I had simply tied a knot and started another string or I may have created a fork in the old string. Otherwise, I thought that I would have to live the same life as I had experienced before. I could try to mirror that life but to be honest although I had enjoyed that path I was ready to try a different life experience.

In my old path, I had a wife, three kids, a dog, a cat, a house and a mortgage. I’d put one child through college, had one in college and one ready to start. I’d just spent over $120,000 on my oldest to get her through school and now all she wanted was a wedding so she could stay home and have babies while her husband worked as an office manager.

I was in sales my whole life. I started as a waiter, then bartender, stocks, medical devices and computer software. I was good at what I did but there was always some type of cycle. Sales were up then down. Layoffs, new bosses, lousy bosses, got bored and the grass was greener somewhere else. If I were to look back, there were a couple of jobs where I could have made a home. However, at most, they only were a step up. My wife was a stay-at-home mom. I love, loved, or will love her depending on how you look at it. We always seemed to live right at the edge of our means and then something would come up to set us back. We loved life, we loved travel and we loved our kids. We drove decent cars and lived in decent neighborhoods.

I was good at sales and did well. When I turned 35, I had over $500,000 in the stock market and I was looking forward to keeping up the living pace and retiring early. Instead, I became passive and watched as my aggressive stock portfolio plummeted and then found myself either laid off or quit depending on whom you asked. I spent the last $150k of my savings over the next few years trying to cover the difference between my income and my expenses.

I loved my wife and kids but felt like everything I did was for them. I lived to make them happy. However, now that I had a new timeline I could try the path less traveled. I had a fresh canvas to paint my new life story. I would have to choose, starting with my ten year-old timeline, where to go. I think that for the most part, the rest of the world would follow a similar path. I thought about friends that I’d miss, my wife and my kids, but then said that if they were to be in my life then they would be there. If not then someone else would replace them.

One of the reasons I was good at sales is because I would listen. As I listened to the people I was trying to help with my products and services, I learned a lot about different jobs, companies, people and places. As a result, I had a very broad knowledge base to build on, and on top of the fact that I thought that I had a good understanding of what was going to happen in the future. I also loved to gamble. I’d bet on sports and would typically have some fun in the casinos when I was at conventions in Vegas.

The main differences between a kid and an adult are experience and confidence. Maturity and size also come into play but to a lesser degree. I had the confidence and experience to stand up for what I wanted. I could make knowledgeable decisions and not have to back down too often. Think back to the first time you asked someone on a date or asked a girl to dance. Those events were terrifying the first time through. Later you learned that the girls were just as scared as you were. If approached in the right way with the right confidence things would be much easier.

Getting back to my story, I had a million things going through my mind but being only 10 my body finally just conked out and I fell asleep. I woke to my mom gently rubbing my back and saying “honey it is time to get up, we have a busy day”.

I hardly remembered what my 29 year old mom (Linda) looked like but she was young. I rolled over and just looked at her. She had blond hair that fell just below her shoulders. She was medium height around 5’ 7” and was in good shape with nice breasts, maybe a little on the small side. She looked at me funny and then looked around the room. “We have a lot to do today. I know you want to try out the new pool but we need to get your room straightened out first. I haven’t even unpacked your bathing suits yet.” She got up and as she walked out the door said, “We picked up some milk, cereal and sandwich stuff last night on our way in, come get your breakfast.”

I have always been intrigued by time travel stories and thought about what I would do the same or differently than some of the stories I had read. I took a quick look at my body and everything was small. When I made the leap, I was 6’ 3’’ and 250 pounds. I was overweight by a few pounds and was not much into exercise. I did not have a 12” cock the size of a coke can but was above average in the 9” range. Right now, everything was just the opposite. I was short, skinny as a stick, loved to play and had maybe an inch or two downstairs. I knew that all that would change in time. However, in the meantime, what was I to do?

Most people going to college have no clue about what they want to do in life. I had a good idea about the direction I wanted to head in but needed to come up with a plan to get there. However, first things first, I thought about breakfast and then seeing my dad as my next steps.

When I went downstairs and saw my Dad, he looked young too. He didn’t have a beer gut. He had a full head of hair and looked like a young 30 year old should. Breakfast though, did not look so good.

As I mentioned before, my wife stayed at home, was a good cook, and always had tasty, interesting food. As a result, I was overweight. Cheerios were not a staple in my house but now, there was a bowl of them in front of me. My mom was’t a bad cook but a Jell-O mold with bananas made her think she was creative.

I was quiet. I am sure my parents thought it was because I had just woken up or because I was in a new place but truth be told, I just didn’t want to freak everyone out. After breakfast, I went into my room to unpack my stuff, something that a 10 year old wouldn’t normally do. When my mom walked in and asked what I was doing I told her I was looking for my swimsuit and some toys that I couldn’t find. I guess I had forgotten how to be a kid. I helped my mom get my room together and went out to swim.

I’d taken lessons the last couple of years so my parents only needed to check on me from time to time. After a couple of hours, I changed into some shorts and went outside to see what was going on. Dad was in the garage and sorting through some of the boxes. I said hi to him and walked down to the end of the block and back. I saw a couple kids outside and stopped to say hi and introduce myself. I didn’t stick around too long and went back home. I found my room in good shape. In addition, the rest of the house was coming together. All of the furniture was placed by the movers and the boxes were all marked and placed in the correct room so unpacking was just time consuming and not difficult.

I saw some empty boxes lying around and started taking them out to the garage. Dad was going to run to the K-Mart and pick up a couple things and asked if I wanted to ride with him. When we got to the store, he was getting a mat for the front door, some new trash cans and other stuff that you just don’t want to include in the move. I saw a diary as we passed the office supplies and I asked if I could get it. I needed to start making plans and did not want to have an open notebook lying around. Later after dinner, my parents wanted to watch TV. I didn’t want to watch ‘reruns’ so I told them I was going to my room.

I’d made up my mind to take a different path in this life based on what I now wanted. I didn’t want to be a selfish jerk or unkind. I just wasn’t going to structure my life to take care of and cater to others. I would need to have money, not billions but eventually a few million so I could dictate my life and not answer to the MAN. I’d read about the Hunt brothers cornering the silver market in 1979 and of course the stocks that were going to be big winners over the next 40 years. I remembered real estate trends and areas that would be hot during different times.

I used my first night to write down the timeline that I remembered and events that would be potential opportunities for investing. After that, I thought about sporting events that I had been to or remembered the date and score and wrote those down. I did not know if I had any money or if I did, where it was. My grandfather gave me some money when I was born to start a college fund but I think it was only a couple hundred dollars. (This was quite a bit of money back in the 60’s). I also remember that back then I used to pick up coke bottles and get a nickel each for the deposit. There were many construction sites as South Florida was expanding and building neighborhood after neighborhood. If I could pick up 10 bottles a day that would be about $3 a week and other odd jobs if I was lucky maybe $5-$10 a week or $250 - $500 a year. That is a lot of work for a 10 year old and all of that work so I could come up with 100 pounds of silver. If I sold at the top of the market, I would have around $80,000 and a lot of explaining to do. I could ask my dad to invest my couple of hundred in IBM. He is a computer person and does buy stocks so that may be a good long-term play.

Chapter 2 »