Class of ’47

By Jeff Baker

“Where’s your Brother?” Dad asked. Uh, oh.

“I dunno,” I said honestly. “I think he was headed upstairs.”

“Pete!” My Dad hollered. I knew that tone.

“Yeah?” Pete’s voice came from upstairs.

“Get down here!”

After a couple of minutes, my Brother trudged down the stairs. Dad held up some brown photographs on thick cardboard.

“You know you’re not supposed to be doing this.” Dad said.

“Doing what?” Pete asked innocently.

“This,” Dad said, holding up a picture.

I popped in behind Pete. The picture was an old one, a group of young men wearing football jerseys, some of them grinning, some serious, all of them looking into the camera.

“Great-Grandpa’s college football team from about a hundred years ago?” Pete said, again innocently.

“1947.” Dad said. “I’ll bet you know the date exactly.”

I heard Pete breathe a quiet “Uh, oh.”

“Take a good look, Pete,” Dad said. “That kid right behind the player on the end of the back row. Right-hand side.”

I looked. Yeah, Pete. He’d probably popped in behind them right before they’d taken the picture.

“You know you’re not supposed to time travel,” Dad said. “Not unsupervised.”

“Dad, somebody brought up photobombing in school, and I…”

“Photowhat?” I asked.

“You hush,” Dad said. “You’re going back, supervised this time, and this time, you are staying clear of the football team.”

“Aww, Dad, I was just…” Pete started.

“No, ‘awwww,’ we’ll talk when we get back,” dad said. He looked at me. “And don’t you follow us.”

In another instant, my Dad and older brother vanished.

I smiled. Maybe when I’m older.

—end—