4. Living in the Past

7:42 AM.

A long "country" road that I knew in 2005 was bordered on both sides by office buildings and modular retail businesses, most of which didn’t exist in 1976, stretched out in front of us. I was driving a 1975 Chevy El Camino, carrying two passengers, neighbor kids Dean and Betsy Sawyer, who rode with me each day. They were twins, and two years younger than me, but our families were friends and I somewhat reluctantly had agreed to let them ride with me to school each morning. I wouldn’t have my beloved Plymouth Fury for a few months, yet, but was happy to use an El Camino owned my my father’s company. Juniors and Seniors at Ben Davis High School in 1976 simply didn’t ride the bus.

As most mornings had gone, it was quiet, with only the sound of the radio heard. As usual, we were listening to the WNAP morning show, a mix of talk, phone calls from excited listeners winning tickets to concerts, or $92 dollars or (apparently the best of all) a WNAP Buzzard T-Shirt, and lots and lots of music that in my mind were called "oldies," but coming out of the radio in the El Camino, were the "Hits." As I said, most of these morning drives were quiet because, well, Dean and Betsy, though friends, were both Freshmen. This particular morning, however, things were quiet because (again, at least in my mind) I was LOTS older than them. I was a 47 year old in a 17 year old body, sitting right next and uncomfortably close to 15 year old girl. To say it was weird should be a needless understatement. In addition to this, I was worried.

The fact that this wasn’t your basic lucid dream was obvious. It was somehow all really happening. I started to wonder again if I were dead, the initial moments of the car crash in Cincinnati were vivid, as were the details of my life there. Suddenly, I asked Dean "you ever heard of a Chrysler Pacifica?" Dean’s father worked as an engineer at one of the General Motors Plants in Indianapolis, so both of them were complete car buffs. If it was a model made by an American auto maker, Dean would know about it.

He shook his head. "No. Never heard of a…Chrysler what?"

"Pacifica."

"Nope."

I nodded my head. "How about a Hummer?" I remembered the Hummer vividly as well. At least the sight of the front grill.

"A Hummer?" He again apparently came up blank. He shook his head. "What are they?"

"Oh, nothing. Just something I was reading," I replied, shrugging it off. I could tell I’d picqued Dean’s interest though, and he’d surely ask his father about it when he got home from work today.

At this point, let me say that though I wouldn’t have believed I could have coped with being suddenly plopped down in the middle of my past, it couldn’t have been easier to simply ride the flow of the day. After watching my father close the door to the garage behind him, I had gone to my closet, and pulled from it a favorite short-sleeved light blue shirt with darker blue stripes. There were clean and folded jeans in the dresser that I pulled on, then white socks. I retrieved my tennis shoes, actually Adidas basketball shoes from my aborted 1975 season, and put them on, doing the familiar stretches that would sometimes reduce the pain in my left leg. The jeans were fairly new, still a a little stiff, and had a waist size of 34. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore 34 inch jeans. Probably about this time, I reasoned as I walked to the kitchen to try and find some breakfast. Despite the fact that I wasn’t sure what I was experiencing was real, I was sure that I was hungry.

I had walked to the kitchen, and finding some Raisin Bran and milk, sat eating the cereal, thinking about the situation I was in. When my mother walked in the kitchen, trailed by my little sister, 7 years old, in her favorite "granny dress" that she had lobbied for for six months, it took my breath away. My mother, barely 42 years old, hair still dark and long, it was a far more moving thing to see, since time does something quite different to women than it does to men. Oh, it ravages both, but men somehow withstand the onslaught better. Here she was, with my little sister, who in the time I belonged, had two children of her own, and always seemed tired. But at 7, that was all ahead of her. It is one of the great understatements of history to say it had been an amazing sight to me.

Finishing my Raisin Bran and ducking out the door at precisely 7:30 had been a welcome escape. The vertigo was back, and my leg was starting to hurt again. I had found the El Camino in the driveway with Dean and Betsy standing by, ready to go to school.

In the parking lot, I parted ways with my younger passengers, with them heading left and me, remembering the routine, to the right. It was a strange, yet euphoric feeling, walking across the parking lot in the crisp, clean April air. I couldn’t remember smelling air this clean in a long time. In reality, it had been so long that I’d forgotten air could smell this clean. What have we done to the air? I thought. Or maybe it’s just I’ve got my 17 year old senses back and the only thing that’s changed is my ability to smell, taste and see. And speaking of seeing, when I got close enough to the flow of people funneling into door #5, I began seeing faces that had been gone from my memory for decades. People I knew, people I barely knew, and a few whose names I hadn’t known in 1976, let alone on this day. Oh wait, I thought, this is 1976 again. Right.

The noise rushed into the building as well. Everything was so clear. The sights, the smells…and the sounds. Too loud really, the sounds had an almost metallic edge to them, as if they weren’t plain old analog sound, but rather a badly digitized version of the original sounds. But man, were they loud! The vertigo was easing back into my head, and I edged over to walk along the wall, in case I got a little woozy. Good thing, too, because no sooner had I reached the edge of the flowing crowd, than the vertigo rose in a crescendo and the world went sideways. I grabbed for the wall, felt the cool metal of a locker door and found myself falling into it, then sliding down to the floor. My head lolled back and smacked the locker door, sounding a loose, metallic crash that attracted the attention of several kids walking by. Three boys, who looked about 13 stepped over, and looking down at me asked "you ok?"

I opened my eyes and with great effort, focused on each of their faces. I nodded.

"You’re Rich Girrard, aren’t you?" asked the one on the left, the smallest of the three. "The basketball guy," he quickly added.

"Yea." I felt a little embarrassed, but probably not nearly as much as I would have when I was doing all this for the first time. "Help me up, would you?" I really wanted to get back on my feet, but knew I couldn’t do it myself.

"You just stay there for a minute," a deep voice interjected from behind the boys. "Just sit there and collect yourself."

I looked up and saw a face I hadn’t seen since the day I graduated. Coach Bob MacLaren, who had died just before tipoff of a midseason game in 1980, stood before me, looking down, concerned. Our last two conversations, three weeks after I had graduated, had been strained, but were more polite than the reamings I’d received when I was at the bottom of my descent into surrender after the accident, a descent that had started not far from the time I seemed to be living in at the present. In late April of 1976, we were on good terms though. He, fully expecting me to recover and take up my place on his team again in a few months, and me wondering if I was ever again to have a pain-free day. Except for falling in the hallway as I’d just done, I’d lived this before and knew that I wouldn’t have a pain-free day until I discovered the wonderful world of self-administered pain medication. That wouldn’t be all that I’d hoped for though, and by the time I’d gotten myself into that mess, Coach MacLaren would be dead and forever lost to me, our last words to each other full of bitterness.

But here he stood, his heavy black framed glasses squarely on his face, below his neatly-maintained flat-top haircut. Stocky, wearing a plaid sport jacket, black dress pants and a blue shirt. He looked like nothing but a coach. All of our conflicts lie in the future, here he wore his concern clearly on his face. Coach MacLaren squatted down next to me, like he did in front of the bench during a game. All that was missing was the small blue towel he always kept draped over his shoulder. "Just sit there a minute and we’ll get you to the nurse."

I nodded. My three would-be helpers had vanished, obviously preferring to get lost in the crowd rather than face the attention of two members of that most hallowed organization – the varsity basketball team. I laughed a little to myself when I realized this. If they only knew how little that all mattered, I thought. If they only knew.

3 hours later, I was sitting in the multi-purpose room that in the middle of the day was used as a massive lunchroom. Across the table from me was Billy Saunders, another member of the basketball team. Next to me sat my best friend, and confirmed non-jock, Rick Underhill, and another long-time pal, Micah Steinberg, also a non-jock, but a really, really good trumpet player in the band. Rick would in the years to come, be termed a "nerd," thanks to his knowledge of computers, Star Trek and later, Dungeons and Dragons. Sitting with him while he happily ate his lunch on this day in 1976, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d wake up one morning after a D&D weekend, hungover, naked and next to a large wiccan practitioner. He’d grab his clothes, run out and within three weeks find himself "born again," and in a Seminary studying for a life in the clergy. After graduation, I’d completely lose touch with Micah, who would go on to college, then med school, followed by a career in the Navy. I’d wanted to fly airplanes for the Navy at one point, but addiction and getting thrown out of college tends to get in the way of that kind of thing. Today though, Rick and Micah were simply  a Science and Band nerds, and as such, barely tolerated by my jock friends. A couple of them might talk to them, but only if they needed some help with an assignment from Chemistry, Math or Physical Science class.

We sat and ate. Lunch for me was a wax paper wrapped ham and cheese sandwich, an apple, two chocolate chip cookies and two small cartons of milk, all purchased from the cafeteria for the sum total of $1.75. Fortunately, I’d thought to put my wallet in my back pocket as I always had in high school, and later found it contained $12, more than enough to get me through the day, even if I had to buy gas later.

The topic of conversation wasn’t the fact that I had apparently traveled back some 30 years into my past, my consciousness somehow sliding into my 17 year old body and brain and taking them over. It wasn’t about how to get back to the time from which I’d come. We were talking about the previous Saturday night’s broadcast of NBC Saturday Night, hosted by Raquel Welch (and musical guest Phoebe Snow, who was of absolutely no interest to us). I barely remembered the episode, but the more Rick and Billy talked and laughed about it, the more I kind of remembered it. By the time I drew a pair of puzzled expressions from my reference to "SNL," it had become apparent that I hadn’t watched the show that week, something fairly rare. After all, what else was on television late Saturday night before cable and satellite?

There was a pause, as the Saturday Night critique had exhausted itself, the bits sufficiently redone and shared among ourselves. Then, as Billy stood up to return his tray and leave, he looked at me and said, in his level, direct way "I hear you passed out in the hallway this morning…"

"No," I replied testily, without thinking "I didn’t pass out. Just slipped and fell."

"Coach says you’re not doing your rehab."

Damn. Coach McLaren knew. Once again, I didn’t remember having this conversation 30 years before.

"That what he says?" I asked. My leg was starting to ache again. I’d forgotten the pain for awhile, but it was back.

"Don’t you want to play next year? Next year’s what we’ve been working for for 3 years. I don’t want to miss winning State."

Billy turned and left before I could say anything. Just like him. One minute we’re laughing over Raquel Welch’s tits and the next he’s giving me a direct stream of flack to the face and then walking away, making me feel like the biggest loser Indianapolis has ever seen. Just like him. Meanwhile, Micah and Rick both sat mute, not wanting to get in between us. Micah gave me a sympathetic half-smile and rolled eyes. But, looking at Rick, I saw a kid much younger than his 16 years, in over his head. His expression seemed to say "what the hell was that?"

Which, for some completely unjust reason, pissed me off. All I could think to say as I stood up and gathered my own tray was "stay away from Wiccans, Rick. You’ll be better off." And then I made the decision to do something I’d never done before. Cut class.

So far, I’d run into Coach MacLaren, gotten some shit from Billy, and despite what I told him, passed out briefly in the hallway. A lot of nostalgia for one day. All I needed now, was…And on cue, the scent hit me. The only perfume I could identify immediately – Taboo. I looked to the right, and there she was, walking away from me, her thick, blonde hair in a ponytail, which was swaying as she walked, just a bit less than her hips. The immediate, visceral feeling of youth washed over me. Oh, right, I thought. This was how it felt to be young, to have adrenaline, testosterone and…youth…coursing through your veins. An amazing feeling. As the wearer of that ponytail walked away, and out the double doors that led from the lunchroom to the hallway, I realized that she was the one person in this whole damn school I didn’t want to run into until I was ready (or preferably never), the girl/woman who over the past 30 years I’ve struggled with not having in my life.

Her name was…Well, is, I guess…Tammy Sorenson. And her 17 year old self was less than fifty feet away at that moment and yet I could still detect the Taboo. Holy Christ, I thought. That is the most beautiful creature in the world. I thought it then, and I’m here thinking it…Well, THEN again. My stomach felt like it was turning over five or six times a second. I hadn’t had that feeling for years.

I need to tell you about this girl, and I say that with a shake of my head and a pretty sincere wish that I could forget her. She wasn’t mine then, nor is she mine now, but the knowledge that things could have been different is something that’s haunted me for years. 15 years, to be exact.

When I say that Tammy Sorenson is/was the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth, I don’t mean in the glossy magazine way. Someone who’s not been completely in love with her would see a very pretty, very self-assured and attractive girl, but they’d be able to sleep at night. Not me, though. I loved Tammy Sorenson from the first time I saw her in the 7th grade until…Well, except for short spans of time, I never stopped loving her, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I still do. For a long time, I was able to rationalize the whole thing by telling myself that I love the idea of the Tammy I knew then, which of course simply represents my childhood. Who was it who said "when you long for your childhood home, you’re not longing for the home, but your childhood?." There’s much truth in that. But seeing her walking away, knowing that it was her, and having the scent of that perfume, subtle as it was, told me all my rationalizations were nothing but bullshit. I loved her then, and I love her now. Whatever this experience is, I knew I was in no frame of mind to see her, much less talk to her.

I just knew that I was SO cutting class.

Actually, escaping was easier than I’d ever dreamed it could be. Between 5th and 6th period, I just took a left at the hallway intersection instead of a right, and rather than head to Physical Science class, I was in the parking lot, pulling the keys to the El Camino out of my pocket and opening the door. This little full-immersion trip down memory lane had gotten old, and wasn’t as much fun anymore. I had to get clear of this memory factory and think. Normally, I’d head to a Starbucks, or Seattle’s Best, but since this was 1976, so I didn’t have that option.  It’d have to be someplace quiet, where I wouldn’t run into someone I knew.

It hit me in an instant.

The library.

Fortunately, no one saw me walk to the parking lot and get into the El Camino. Or, if they did see me, my self-assurance while leaving school in the middle of the day made them assume I was legitimately doing so. It had been so long since I was in a position that didn’t allow me to go where I pleased when I pleased, it hadn’t even occured to me that I couldn’t just get in my car and leave. As I was driving toward the public library, it hit me that my being AWOL wasn’t the same as ducking out of work for a couple hours. I had just committed a crime. Actually, it felt kind of good, and I wondered why I never did this kind of thing when I was really 17.

In reality, if I had cut class in high school, it probably would have been to the Library anyway, and I’m sure the punishment would have been fairly light. I mean, it’s one thing to ditch school to smoke cigarettes or chase girls and something else entirely to go to the library.

Driving to the library, away from all the familiar and nostalgic sights and sounds, I really started to worry about what was going on here. The thought that I had died was back, so to distract that line of reasoning I started reviewing facts about my life in 2005. I wanted to convince myself that this experience was real, and not some symptom of some chemical imbalance in 1976. I thought about the bank accounts I had, at branches in San Diego, a city I never visited until the early 80s. I thought about my computer passwords, what the computers I owned looked like. I thought about Steve Jobs, and how he looked while giving his 2005 Macworld Keynote Address. I had been in the audience as a representative of my company, a developer of Macintosh software. There was no Macintosh in 1976, yet in my mind’s eye, I could see the various screens, how the operating system looked, and how it worked. How could I have envisioned the iPod in 1976? I thought about all the music, movies and TV shows I had on mine, and how I moved them from my Mac Mini to the device. I was always a smart kid, but I knew I could never have come up with all this in such detail. If I was crazy, I seriously needed to be writing this stuff down, because these are million…No, BILLION dollar ideas.

I started to think about my family, my mom, dad and sister and of course, my wife and daughter. I thought of their names, what they looked like in our house in San Diego, the presents we bought for Samantha for her birthday just before I flew to Cincinnati for the first time.

Cincinnati.

With a mental thud, the thought of the Hummer hit me, harder than the real vehicle had and I seemed to feel it all over again. The thought that I was dead came back in a rush of certainty. I must be dead. Oh, crap. Is this what death is? A sudden backtrack into a previous point in our existence? What if a 1976 version of a Hummer, or a semi-truck or something t-boned me here on Girl’s School Road at the next intersection and without side airbags or 2005 auto safety technology I died again? Would I then be shot back a decade earlier and be sitting in Mrs. Henderson’s first grade class thinking of  the specs of an Apple Powerbook while the teacher read "See Jane run" to us? Except for the pain that was starting to come back again, it was pretty cool to be in a 17 year old body again. But did I want to be in a pre-pubescent form again? If this is how it all works, it sucks. Surely not, but to be safe, I started driving like Tom Cruise’s character did after picking up his Dad’s car from the shop in Risky Business. Which reminded me how would I know about Risky Business, or Tom Cruise for that matter, in 1976?

The Wayne Public Library wasn’t the biggest library in the world, or even on the west side of Indianapolis, but it was a great little refuge from the rest of life, and in the 70s, the biggest resource for my considerable curiosity about a lot of different things. When I was 11, my Mother would drop me off for the afternoon and I’d spend hours poring over books on dogs. By the time I was 13, it was airplanes and sports. After the accident that shattered my leg, I spent entire days there, at first unable, then later unwilling to do much physically. Starting at about this time, I was spending a lot time reading about meditation, which a few "experts" were starting to say could help with pain. Mostly, what was available then was hippie stuff inspired by The Beatles’ study in India a few years before.

What was available in pretty good quantity, were medical books that I would find late in my Senior year of High School (a year or so from now). In the short term, that study would inspire an interest in medicine that pleased my parents greatly. What I really ended up getting out of that research however, was information that would result in years of trouble. Information about opiates, and their benefits in managing pain.

I walked through the familiar double doors and looked around. No one in sight, it was still and quiet. I didn’t even see either of the two librarians who worked here during the week. I smiled a little, realizing that these were two people I hadn’t thought about, even once, since I last walked out of here, even though they were in the background during the majority of my life from age 10 until 18. I wouldn’t have remembered their names if they’d walked up to me and said "hello."

I turned to the right and headed toward the section that held the medical books, and arriving there, started looking at book spines for Neurology texts. It didn’t take long, and I pulled three from the shelf and carried them to one of the tables at the end of the row of bookcases. Not really sure what I was looking for, I started skimming the first book. After a couple minutes, I sat back, looked to the left out the window and began to again try to put this whole thing in some sort of perspective that made sense.

Boy, was that a waste of time.

I couldn’t find anything about any neurological conditions that could "unstick" someone in time, or even make someone think that was happening. I began to look for cases of people in comas who imagined highly detailed worlds that were really hallucinations. There wasn’t as much as I thought there would be. In fact, there was nothing. No answers here.

After a couple hours, I realized that school was over and I’d be expected somewhere at some point soon. Home? After my accident, I didn’t work for my Dad that much. Even after recovering, he seemed reluctant to ask for my help, either at a building site or in the office. I know now that it had been a huge case of guilt, because after all, I was working for his company when it all happened. Once again in Tom Cruise mode, I drove home.

When I arrived at the house, I realized there was no reason for my haste. My mother was gone, at my father’s office, according to Thelma, the always smiling, but strict disciplinarian black woman who took care of our house and my sister. Thelma was downstairs ironing clothes, helping my sister with her reading. Kristie was working through a thin, hard-backed second grade reader, rarely needing prompting from Thelma, who seemed to know the books from memory. Looking  back on these days I again found myself in, it seems now that Thelma was a character from a TV show. She was much smarter than 1970s Indiana assumed a middle-aged African-American woman would be. Apparently feeling she had nothing to prove, in all the years she worked for us, maintaining our household and taking care of my sister, she never displayed that ample supply of knowledge unless prompted to. Seeing her again, I suddenly felt ashamed for not knowing what had become of her after I left home and then, a couple years later, after she left my family’s employ.

"Hello, young Mr. Ricardo," Thelma said, greeting me with the name that she alone used for me. It had been so long since I had heard those words, I couldn’t help a small smile and the quick warmth and throat tightening remembering long-forgotten things brought. Almost immediately, I remembered that at the time, I had hated her calling me Ricardo, as I had hated most things. Such was my mental outlook in 1976.

"Hi Thelma. Hi Krissy." I said as I bent to kiss my little sister on the top of her head. I looked up to see Thelma looking at me through narrowed eyes.

"How was school today, boy?" Thelma asked. Kristie had gone back to her book.

"It was a strange day, Thelma," I replied, turning to leave. "A strange one."

Later, I was lying on my bed absent-mindedly rubbing my thigh, which had begun to hurt again, and I heard my mother come into the house. Through the wall, I heard her close the front door, put her keys down on the shelf in the entryway and then her footsteps echoed down the stairs. A few minutes later, Thelma’s heavier footsteps came back up the stairs and I heard her approach my room. She softly knocked.

"Richard, you in there?" She asked.

"Yea, Thelma. Come in." I sat up, swinging my feet to the floor.

Door opened. "How you doin’, boy?" Thelma asked, her voice hushed and clearly wanting the answer to the question.

"I’m fine," I answered, smiling.

"I was born at night, boy, but it wasn’t last night."

My smile faded. For some reason that I don’t understand, I paused a heartbeat and then said "I’m 47 years old, Thelma. At least I was when I woke up this morning. Then, I apparently had a car accident, and I woke up again here this morning. For me, this is all 30 years in the past."

A smile that I doubt touched my eyes accompanied my words.

Thelma looked at me with the same narrowed gaze I saw on her earlier. "30 years, huh? You got any kids?"

"One. A little girl." I replied.

"Where you live?"

"San Diego."

She laughed a short bark-like laugh. "I thought so. Well, at least you got out of this town," Thelma said, nodding her approval. "Good."

I lightened up at this point. "You making fun of me" I asked.

"Me?" Thelma replied, her eyebrows raising, innocently. "When did I ever make fun of you, boy? Never."

"Always," I replied. "You always made fun of me."

"MADE fun of you? You mean MAKE fun of you, don’t you?" She asked.

I wasn’t sure where this was going, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Why you think you’re back here? Thought about that?" Thelma finally broke the silence after a few seconds. I couldn’t believe she was treating this as if it were not only true, but common…Ordinary.

"Haven’t the foggiest idea," I said.

"Maybe you got something to do you didn’t do the first time. Something left undone. What would that be, Rich?"

Thelma called me "Ricardo," or "Richard," usually just "boy," but never "Rich." I shrugged. "Yea, maybe. I don’t know."

"And then, you’re probably thinking you’re dead, too. Right? You said you had a crash?"

I nodded. "Yup. I think that’s probably the best bet, especially with you and I having this conversation."

Thelma frowned, shaking her head. "No, you’re not dead, boy. You’re alive. You’re just living in the past right now. It happens."

I nodded, silent.

"And by the way," she continued. "You better come up with a good reason why you left school today. You were supposed to see your coach, but you weren’t around when he went looking for you. He called for your Mom." A small smile had slipped onto her face when I wasn’t looking.

"Yea, right." I answered. "Thanks."

Thelma shrugged. "Your ass is probably grass, boy. Let me ask you something. Is Tammy the mama of that baby girl in the future?"

"No, she’s not."

"MMMM HMMM," Thelma half-said-half-sang. "Maybe that’s why you’re back here, Richie."

I didn’t answer.

"She called, too," she continued, with a little laugh. My stomach again sank as I realized I didn’t leave school today to get away and think, I left so I wouldn’t run into Tammy. Shit.

"Well, future-man, I gotta go catch my bus. They got them flying cars 30 years from now?" Thelma asked.

"No. Not yet."

"Too bad. What about the stock market? Got any tips to make me rich?"

I thought for a minute. "Yea. A new company starting up in a couple years. Apple. Go buy real estate in Las Vegas and Phoenix. You’ll do fine," I replied.

"See you later, boy." Thelma called, as she left, leaving my bedroom door open.

What the hell? As always though, I couldn’t tell if Thelma knew something, or if she was just yanking my chain. It would be completely bizarre, I thought, if Thelma somehow believed me when I said I had traveled 30 years back in time, but then would it really be more bizarre than the fact that I had actually done it?

My leg had stopped hurting, and I heard my mother starting dinner in the kitchen. I realized that I was really hungry, so I got up and went to help. Thelma would have loved to see that.

Thelma was telling me the truth when she said that Coach MacLaren had called to tell my Mother I had skipped coming by his office, and neither my Mom or Dad were happy about that. You have to understand that in Indiana in the 70s, and I suppose to this day, basketball is all-important. Like high school football in Texas, during the season, it would dominate life for those involved. In the off-season…well, it dominated life then, too. Coach MacLaren was respected like no other coach or teacher at Ben Davis, by both students and parents. He was usually an authority most parents held above their own. Not being as anchored here as I was the last time I worked my way through April of 1976, the whole thing didn’t bother me very much. I took the chewing out, appearing appropriately chagrined, and promised them I’d go see the coach first thing in the morning. I also got quizzed about doing my physical therapy, this mostly by my Mother, after Dad found a reason to excuse himself from the discussion. Talking about the physical therapy, given the reason it was necessary, was just too uncomfortable a topic for him. I didn’t understand that the first time through this time in my life, but completely understand it now. I even felt sympathy for him.

More than anything though, I felt a constant running current of amazement. Everything was familiar, yet not so. Pretty much everything that had happened over the past day didn’t happen the first time I lived this day. Passing out in the hallway, "opting-out" of my afternoon classes, and the conversation with Thelma were all new. They’d never happened before. Obviously, if this was real, I thought as I sat at my desk in my bedroom, things would continue to branch off and my life would get stranger and stranger to me. Familiar in setting, but completely new in what I did and how the world reacted to me. How soon before things spiraled out of any kind of familiarity? What the hell was going on?

After dinner, my folks put Kristi to bed and then a short time later, turned in themselves and  the house went quiet around me (though our house never really got that loud). My thoughts turned to my experience in Belton, what? Two days ago? Two days ago and thirty years from now, actually. How did that weird experience fit into all of this? Did my coming across a letter written several decades ago that I apparently inspired cause it? Did some strange metaphysical interaction spawn this death or coma dream I seemed to be in, after getting smacked broadside by a big black Hummer in 2005 Cincinnati?

And what the hell was I going to do about Tammy Sorenson if I woke up here again in the morning? I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid her forever and somehow, I knew what she was calling me about today. Her boyfriend, a buddy of mine since childhood, had a birthday coming up and I had agreed to help plan his surprise party. Tammy had asked me to do it because though Steve Collins was a year older than me (and Tammy as well, who was just 3 months older than I was), he and I had been friends since we were elementary school. He was both friend and hero to me, a role model I’d always judged myself against. He was smart, quiet and a good basketball player. Unfortunately, I had become the better basketball player, and that had strained things a little between us. I thought at the time (my first tour through 1976) that it was Tammy’s way of trying to patch things up between us. I learned several years later that it was more than that. Much more than that. And see, this is where this whole thing gets really complicated. I didn’t know her true motives toward me in 1976, but learned them in 1990, and by 2005 had 15 years to think about, digest and get bitter about them. I knew that all now, had come to a kind of peace about it, but now found myself right here in the middle of it all over again. I knew that I’d handle it all differently this time, but the prospect of doing that scared the hell out of me. Was it wise to act on what I know, instead of doing exactly what I’d done the the last time I went through these days? Things had worked out pretty well the first time, after all. Did I really want to mess with that? Was it even possible for me not to mess with it?

I stripped down to underwear and climbed into bed. It wasn’t long until, still thinking through all that had happened today, I must have fallen asleep.

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