Everybody seemed to like Carl’s response to Clinton’s staff. Chapter 124 is a longer chapter, so people should be happy with that. Also, we start to see some major differences in the timeline from here on out.
As to how much those changes matter, I’m not really sure. I have certainly heard from the ‘butterfly effect’ readers since the story started. That theory is that ever since Carl returned, his least little change would radically affect everything afterwards. In other words, he could not profit by his return, since history would be inconceivably altered. I hold to the ‘ebb’ and flow’ version of history, instead, that there are genuine trends, economic and historical, that hold sway. While Carl can make changes, he cannot alter the history and thoughts of eight billion people. Maybe I read too much of Asimov’s Foundation series when I was a kid.
The scene with the boys and the gun was modified from something that happened in real life. A friend of mine was down in his kitchen cleaning his shotgun when a young man came by to pick up my friend’s daughter for a date. Now, my friend owns a big old country farmhouse, and as is the case with a lot of homes like that, the kitchen is the main focal point. A lot of the driveways and parking lots are near the kitchen, so young Romeo parked there and knocked on the kitchen door. He was greeted by my heavily bearded buddy holding a shotgun. Scared the crap out of the kid! All this happened at roughly the same time the Rodney Atkins hit song Cleaning This Gun came out. I had told my wife the story, and she knew my friend also, so whenever the song plays on the radio we both start laughing!
Do I really think Bush 43 was so bad? This one I had to do some research on, since I didn’t want my personal feelings to interfere with Carl’s. I found a fascinating ranking of the Presidents on Wikipedia. The composite rankings of the Presidents had Bush 43 at # 34, in the bottom quartile of achievement. The names of those below him were a Who’s Who of disaster, including most of the Presidents who led us into the Civil War, and the hopelessly corrupt reigns of Grant and Harding. At least George W. Bush didn’t start a Civil War! His father was a respectable #22, right in the middle of the pack. And don’t get me started of the current #47, who also ranks #47.