I sat down in my chair, and suddenly I was in a small town in Massachusetts, where a woman was being humiliated for the crime of adultery. It was evident that she was guilty, because her husband had been away for some years and yet here she was, carrying a newborn baby.
I leaned back and took a breath, and it was centuries in the future, when a man named Hari Seldon was revered for using mathematics to predict and shape the fate of civilizations.
I sighed and looked another way, and it was 1928 and boys who ran about town like lightning were visiting a Civil War veteran who, as it happens, was also an honest-to-gosh working time machine.
Of all the lessons my parents taught me with words or actions, I am most grateful for the times when they picked up books and explored other times and places and minds. By following their example, I have expanded my horizons in infinite directions.