Back to the Future for My Ancestral Fathers

Have you ever seriously thought about what it might be like if you were to go back in time and meet not only your father, at the exact same age as you are now, but your grandfather, and hisfather, and his father, and so on? All grouped together in a room set in some sort of timeless zone, placed anywhere in the world of your choosing? What would you all do? 

If that's a little too much to think about, then lets settle for the one man we all knew (or for some, never knew) too well in our lives - the one who put the rules down, who whipped us guys into shape, our out of shape; who told us what not to do and what to do at any given moment, the man who taught us sports, how to fish, how to talk to women... the birds and the bees? Well, that story wasn't told by my father, sadly. That would've been way too funny to sit and listen to seriously. 

If you've never thought about it, then what the hell? THINK, man. Fathom. Imagine. Just take a couple of minutes and conjure up the kind of weirdness it would be at first but the possibility of perhaps, being bitter rivals for the same girl. Or maybe teammates on the school's baseball team? Maybe even burger flippers at the local hop? WHo knows, right? 

Screenwriter, Bob Gale - who co-penned the script, Back to the Future - first conceived part of the story after he found his father's high school yearbook in an attic. He browsed through the pages and learned that his father was the class president. Soon after, Gale and Robert Zemeckis (co-writer and Director of the Back to the Future trilogy) came together and formed a plot for the film. Gale's idea came about after thinking if he would've been friends with his father if they had gone to high school together. With a few ideas from Zemeckis and the greenlight from the studio, Back to the Future was born.

 

Papa Mcfly and sonny boy, seen together in their youths for the first time, onscreen. I loved the little hand gesture they do before Marty even realizes who he's sitting next to.. and their reaction to their names called out. AH! 

Gale perhaps believed that him and his father might've been even the best of friends. Inseparable. Total loyalty to one another. Giving each man what they need from one another. Applying the balance to a relationship, u know? Heart-to-heart in the father/son man-to-man, brother-to-brother sort of way. 

Imagine what it would be like to play a game of pool with each other, on equal levels perhaps; debating against each other in class or chatting up with the popular girls together, taking turns being each other's wing man and all. 

Whatever fits your fancy, you have to admit that you two would find endless things in common. Possibly do everything together. Well lets not hope everything but certainly lots! 

But what if your dad met your mum back in high school? And then you met her? And then she felt "differently" towards you, oh because... you're an 'absolute dream' to her? What if she had... dark secrets about what she'd like to do to you...? 

... like having the hots for you. 

I know. Absurd and unspeakable! Hush, Tak! ENough of this crazy hocus pocus! It's really weird to imagine and I'm sorry if I was taking this a little too far - but you can't ignore the possibilities that are out of your power. If in fact you do run into your mom, who's - you've gotta admit - pretty darn cute, and is your dad's object of desire, please no cock block. Let her go and let daddy have her. If you don't, or if you fail to get them hooked up at that important dance, then u know what'll happen to ya - 

does, "Erased... from existence," ring a bell in there? HELLO!! Anybody, home?? 

No cock-blocking each other, alright? Lets get that straight. No friend should do that to his fellow mate. Never. Know when to respect your elders, especially dad, and let him have who he wants... especially if the girl's your mum. You don't want to erase yourself from your own present, now wouldya? 

I recently watched Back to the Future and thought of the same thing Gale thought when he found that year book that belonged to his dad. I pondered for a while after the film and imagined me, with my dad, playing cards but with our ancestral fathers playing along just the same around this huge round poker table. Life comes in full circle. The youngest sat with the oldest of the family lineage and those in between. It was a wonderful thought. I knew it would be the way I'd learn more about myself and about my family. I figured, since evolution proved that life forms posses something from the past, what do we - us humans - posses in our soul that our ancestors once had in them? What got passed down and what got hung up? Who was the first to create visions on paper? or the first to make a living out of culinary? or the first who was thought of as the joker in the family? When did my mind, my way of thinking, first kick off? Who else is a Pisces amongst my fathers? 

To know the future you must know the past. 

This entire post just gave me an idea for a film...