Man travels back in time to drink sewage water and become the property of George Washington
New York City, New York – Larry Hollins is back from the past…with cholera.
“I always grew up thinking that life was better back in the day,” a dumbstruck Hollins told The Daily Orb from a New York hospital bed. “No such thing as the good old days.”
Hollins, a 43-year-old history professor at Vassar College, recently traveled to the year 1789 in New York City to experience the post-revolutionary excitement exhibited in Broadway smash hit, Hamilton.
“That show was just so good you know. And I saw all these people of color rewriting the narrative of our place in that time in history. So I thought I’d make it a reality.”
Hollins, who identifies as African-American, said he was excited about the opportunity to meet America’s first president and see such revered men putting our democracy together in real time. He also says he finds the lifestyle, fashion, and music of the colonial era to be particularly fascinating.
“I thought I might play the fife, go to one of Martha Washington’s notorious soirees in a pointy hat, and hang out with Washington and Hamilton at a bar,” he explained.
But Hollins was surprised to observe the unsanitary filth and racism that carried the day.
“As soon as I got there, I started doing the fun stuff, you know wearing a wig and hanging out at the bars… I couldn’t stop singing the song “World Turned Upside Down” from the musical. But everyone smelled you know? I don’t think they had deodorant back then.”
“Plus I got cholera, hepatitis, and yellow fever because my drinks were full of sewage water.”
While Hollins spent the first hour of his time in 1789 muddling through these minor discomforts and chalking it all up to “the experience,” he suddenly found himself in grave danger.
“Well I had just walked into this shoppette to buy a fife and I walk out and this guy is asking me for my papers. I showed him my driver’s license and he threw me in a wagon.”
Hollins said it was not until he woke up at George Washington’s Mt. Vernon Plantation and was given a slave name that he realized it may be time to pull the plug on his trip.
“It would have been interesting to experience slavery firsthand, but I’m not sure I couldve waited it out until a White person came to save me like they did in 12 Years a Slave,” he explained.
Hollins is currently recovering from cholera and hepatitis at Mount Sinai Hospital, he says the refund for his trip is still “in-process.”
