April 26, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

Life may be just a bunch of déjà vus all over again, as Yogi Berra tried to tell us. The Yankee baseball player also came up with paradoxical witticisms, such as “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Or “I usually take a two-hour nap from 1 to 4.”

Think about it: You lie down to take a nap, and it may amount to two hours, but is it continuous, or do you slip in and out during the three-hour period? The individual brain has proprietary circuits, it seems.

As for déjà vu, French for “already seen,” there may be something to the strange feeling that you have been somewhere before. Perhaps, as some scientists suggest, the experience is simply a misfiring in the brain as it retrieves images from life, movies, dreams, etc., and flashes them, triggering associated emotions that you may be seeking. Or it may be a way of time travel, which some say may exist.

A few years ago, I was in Texas with family, and we went to an garden-style outdoor eatery, the sort popular in the hot climate. As we sat under trees with giant fans gently spraying mist that evaporated before it hit you but cooled the air a bit, we heard children’s voices. We could not see them, yet I knew they were behind us in a field with play equipment. As if prompted by a prepared script, I described the entire scene down to details. Someone got up, peered over a tall fence and told me I was right. How did I know? I had never been to Texas, nor to this garden restaurant.

Later, thinking about what had happened, I recalled a distant dream in which I saw the playground. Now was this déjà vu, or had there been time travel – had I been there in a previous existence?

The strangest moment was in Boston at the famous Old North Church where on April 18, 1775, Robert Newman and Capt. John Pulling, Jr. climbed to its steeple and signaled to Paul Revere that the British were on the march to Lexington and Concord. We were visiting, and the crowd was deep. I stepped outside the multi-entrance area and saw a woman walk in one door and instantly leave by another 25 feet away, an impossibility. I was clear-headed, had not yet had a Sam Adams lager.

Some day we are sure to learn the reasons for déjà vu, but in the meantime I will take some explanation from Yogi’s quote, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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