I hate to disappoint Cher, but no matter how desperately you may want to, you can’t turn back time.

       But that doesn’t stop some of us from fantasizing about it. What would it be like to live in another era than our own? Is there a place in the past that more suits our temperament?

       Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight

       I recently asked readers to share the times they’d like to visit. For Ron Frezzo of Silver Spring, that’s the 1930s, specifically an Art Deco-filled Manhattan.

       Wrote Ron: “Living on the upper East Side. Dinner at 21. Theater or opera. Clubbing with George and Ira [Gershwin]. Of course, I would have had to be born into inherited wealth — sigh.”

       That’s always the problem, isn’t it? But we mustn’t let reality intrude on our fantasy.

       Story continues below advertisement

       Stew Pollock of Batesville, Va. — a nature lover and a doctor — says he’s mused on this topic over the years “around campfires and with corn whiskey at hand.” He has two recurring thoughts.

       Advertisement

       “I would love to have seen the U.S., especially my home state of Virginia, before European settlers changed it,” he wrote. “Think about elk, buffalo, beavers everywhere and virgin forests of massive, old trees.

       “My second thought is, thank god I live in a time with antibiotics.”

       Cindy Ocamb of Corvallis, Ore., would go back to a time before Europeans, before Europe, before humans, even, to the Cretaceous period, where — or when — she could see dinosaurs and witness the advent of mammals.

       Story continues below advertisement

       Wrote Cindy: “I’m a biologist who works with plants and the Cretaceous period was also when angiosperms began to populate the earth. To see those plant forms in living color would be endlessly fascinating. Likely though, regardless of what period of time I could experience, I would feel the awe and wonder at the beauty of nature. But I wish I could have experienced a time when Mother Earth was less blemished by human activity.”

       Advertisement

       Fast-forward roughly 65 million years and you’ll be where Charles DeLuca of Mandeville, La., would like to spend some time.

       Wrote Charles: “As a retired engineer, I think everything magical happened between 1870 and 1930: the great machines, relativity and its confirming experiments, the age of electronic communication (telephone, radio telegraphy, transatlantic cable, electronic amplification), polyphase electric power — just everything necessary to create the foundation of the modern age.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “I so wish I could have been a part of it.”

       Great machines can be — usually are — beautiful machines, and even beautiful machines can be horrible machines. Joseph Harrington of Wakefield, Mass., wonders what it would have been like to have been born in 1920.

       “At age 20 I’d have gone to England, joined the RAF [Royal Air Force] and flown Spitfires,” he wrote. “I wouldn’t have made it to 21, but what a way to go.”

       Advertisement

       Robert O’Connor of Columbus, Ohio, said he’d choose the 50-year period between 1670 and 1720 in England or New England. The appeal? “Isaac Watts writing hymns, the Glorious Revolution, John Locke writing political philosophy, the early growth of the American colonies,” wrote Robert.

       Story continues below advertisement

       For Bruce McClellan of Turlock, Calif., the sweet spot is 1735 to 1800. Why? “An intelligent person could learn everything known at the time,” Bruce wrote.

       Learning everything would be great, of course, but learning just a few things might be reward enough. The District’s Kelly Elaine Navies would go back to the period of Reconstruction — those years after the Civil War — to meet her direct ancestors.

       “I am in awe of them and want to know how they survived that era,” she wrote. “My great-great grandfather and his brother — Edward Eugene Carter and Hannibal C. Carter — were captains in the United States Colored Troops and then went on to hold office in that short-lived era of American history when Black men first exercised their right to vote and participate in democracy.”

       Advertisement

       Story continues below advertisement

       After Edward died, his widow, Mary Victoria Carter, was left with three young sons. “She attempted, unsuccessfully, to get his pension several times, and her applications, written in elegant handwriting, are held here in Washington at the National Archives,” Kelly wrote.

       “Yes, I want to meet them and see what I can learn of their fortitude and intelligence in person, rather than imagined from the distance of time.”

       Tomorrow: More time traveling.