Rita Van Winkle

I've been somewhat captivated by a recent news item concerning a young woman who, after being seriously injured in an auto accident in 1985, has recently awakened from a coma, twenty years, ater, faculties fully restored. It's something of a wish-fulfillment scenario, as it was back in Washington Irving's days, to leap forward into the future after a Long Sleep, even if it costs you a large chunk of your life. It's instant science fiction, the closest we can get to time travel.

In the early 1980s one of my incipient pilot ideas was "2002," a standard issue sitcom set in that remote future time. I made a list of scientific breakthroughs that would be considered normal in the second year of the 21st century. I was surprisingly prescient, though most of my ideas were along the order of hand-held computers and human cloning. Now it engages me to wonder how I would have reacted had I been in this girl's unfortunate shoes and awakened last week to this world. For instance, what features in today's Los Angeles Times would have most piqued my interest or wonder, from the vantage point of the mid-'80s?

1. Ooh, all the front-page photos are in color.
2. "Conservatives Put off by Bush Talk of Tax Hike." Well, looks like the V.P. finally made it big.
3. All those ads for funny little cordless phones that take photos. Is America in 2005 totally obsessed with personal phones? And what in hell's an "Ipod"?
4. What is this 9/11 everyone is referring to? Isn't 911 the emergency phone number? Was there some emergency, and why the forward slash?
5. "Hi-Definition TVs?" Doesn't sound like such a great breakthrough. I'd expect 3-D TV by now.
6. Cialis--a pill for "erectile dysfunction"? Does that mean what I think it means? Cool.
7. Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar? You mean the body builder who was in that movie "The Terminator?" Well, our current prez is an actor, so why not?
8. Christian Activist Ralph Reed to run for Georgia Lieutenant Governor. I've heard of this guy Reed--actually I thought he'd be a bigger name by now.
9. "Cosby Avoids Fondling Charge." You mean the star of "The Cosby Show?" I love that show. Why would anyone want to pick on him? Next thing they'll do is attack Michael Jackson....Oh...
10. Is the most popular word in 2005 "genetic?" What do they mean by genetic profiling? Genomes? Genetic mapping? DNA evidence? Do they bring microscopes to court now?

That's all from the first section. Perusing the other sections would be even more mysterious. The business pages would show the NYSE up outrageously from 1985 levels, with mysterious companies named Google and Yahoo and Verizon thriving and AT&T dying on the vine. And what do they mean by NASDAQ? Sports news tells of the apparent death of the NHL, and just who is it defending its World Series title? (although 1985 was pre-Bill Buckner, so the Red Sox saga would seem far less melodramatic). As for the comics page, it's nice to see "Peanuts" going strong. How nice that Charles Schulz has survived.

I hesitate to project what the paper will be recording in 2025, because I am naturally pessimistic and don't like the direction the country and world are headed. But ask me if I'd like to sleep for twenty years and miss some of the likely developments, including an almost certain Big Earthquake, probable nuclear terrorism, and at least one major pandemic in addition to AIDS, and I'll be pretty ambivalent, even if it means waking up as a septuagenarian.