From: av214@yfn.ysu.edu (Barbara E. Walton) Newsgroups: alt.tv.quantum-leap.creative Subject: Return, pt.00 Date: 10 Jul 1995 15:28:31 GMT Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH Message-Id: <3trguv$odg@news.ysu.edu> If anyone has a problem with my posting this longish story in 10 parts (including this one), *please* tell me. It is available in hard copy, but not electronic form. ------------------ QUANTUM LEAP: THE RETURN a novella by Barbara E. Walton A Few Notes This novella is also available from Jim Rondeau, at 1853 Fallbrook Avenue, San Jose, CA 95130, for $8. It is the second version I wrote of a post-"Mirror Image" Leap world, the first being "Fires that Forge." The two stories are alternate ideas, and not meant to be dependent on, or even related to, one another. In _The Return_, I use a few foreign words and phrases; I have tried to provide definitions or demonstrations within a few lines. The only three for which I couldn't do this in the space of the text are the Yiddish words _nosh_ (which translates to "snack" as both a verb and a noun), _meshugge_ ("crazy"), and _chutzpah_ (an exceedingly useful word that defies a good English translation -- the closest is "gall," or, in American use, "ballsiness." An old joke says, "The _chutzpah-nik_ is a man who kills his parents and then begs the court for mercy because he is an orphan."). For technical questions of Orthodox Jewish life, I'm indebted to Yapha Schochet. If I missed something, it's because I forgot to ask; if I got something right, it's because Yapha helped me out. I would like to stress that although I am sympathetic to the character of Aaron Galanter, I do not share his political leanings. I have placed Al Calavicci's birth year at 1940, an estimate that is arrived at in _The Quantum Leap Book_, presumably from the episode "Rebel Without a Clue," which places his plebe year at Annapolis in 1958. It would also place Al in the year 2000 close to Dean Stockwell's age in 1993, when, in a sane world, _Quantum Leap_ would have been filming its sixth season, instead of eight years older (or seven, depending on sources). I chose to ignore the 1934 birth date given in "A Leap For Lisa" because (a) it came after "Rebel," which should have set the precedent simply by its placement in the sequence, and (b) Ruthie's early life cycle is dependent on the events of World War II, and the '34 date would have separated their ages too much. Please don't be offended by this; I had to make a call one way or the other for flashbacks. Many of the quotes I used as epigrams were culled from _Leo Rosten's Treasury of Jewish Quotations._ A post-creative rationalization: After I finished Ruthie and Al's back story, I found out that lines regarding her close-knit family had been cut for the USA Network version of "Thou Shalt Not" that I'd been working from. So: in the original history, Ruthie was excommunicated earlier, at about 14, and taken in by a new foster family, the Burkholtzes, who matched the description given by Al in "Thou Shalt Not." At some point in between that and _The Return_, the time of her excommunication was shifted, possibly by Alia, or by some chain reaction started in one of Sam's other Leaps, and she never met her new family. The events of 1962 occurred either way, but the mood was different. I hope you enjoy _The Return_, and I would love to hear from you about it (or anything else _Quantum_!). Barbara E. Walton 315 Sterling Ave Buffalo, NY 14216 ah329@freenet.buffalo.edu -- Barbara E. Walton | The Road goes ever ever on, | Down from the door where it began http://freenet.buffalo.edu/~ah329| Now far ahead the Road has gone | And I must follow if I can...