We are used to time progressing in a linear fashion, one event leading to another. Strangely, it doesn’t always work like that. Consider the experience of Eula White in rural Alabama when she was a young girl in the 1920s.
“In those days,” Eula says, “rural Alabama was still kind of backward. Little electricity, and horses and wagons the only transportation for many farm folk. I remember it was a bright summer day. Early that morning the other women and I had gathered on the front porch of the Hawkins' farmhouse to shell quite a few bushels of peas and beans.
“About mid-afternoon we were still on the porch shelling peas. We looked up and saw Mr. Hawkins approaching the house. Thrown across the saddle in front of him was a large white, cloth sack of flour, and cradled in his left arm was a brown bag of other groceries. We watched as he rode up to the gate, and he stopped there, waiting for someone to open it. One of the boys ran to the gate and opened it. Then, in full view of all of us women and children, Mr. Hawkins vanished! He just disappeared, instantly!
“We sat there for a second or so, just astonished. Then, terrified, we began screaming. After a few minutes, we calmed down, but were still shaking and confused. We just didn't know what to do. So after a while we went back to shelling peas. Mrs. Hawkins made one the boys close the gate.
“About a half hour later, we looked up and again saw Mr. Hawkins riding toward the house with that same white sack of flour across the saddle in front of him and that same brown bag of groceries in his left had. Again he rode up to the gate without a sound and stopped. None of us had the nerve to open the gate. We were all just too afraid to move. We just sat there staring at him, waiting to see what would happen next. Finally, to our relief, Mr. Hawkins spoke: ‘Well, is someone going to open the gate for me?’ Mr. Hawkins got there before he arrived.”
Instant Replay
A similar replay of time happened to Ryan Bratton at the age of eight. It was an otherwise ordinary day for him and his friend as they were sitting in his yard while other kids rode their bikes up and down a driveway.
“A car came down the road and stopped at a house,” Ryan remembers. “A kid got out and ran inside making noises that kids around his age make. Then a girl rode her bike down the driveway.
“A couple of minutes after this happened, the SAME car went down the road, stopped at the house, and the SAME kid got out of the car and ran inside screaming the EXACT things he had been saying. Then the girl went down the hill on her bike AGAIN. I looked over to my friend and he said he had no idea what had just happened.”
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