authorjeffbaker

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—

From the Journal of Leon Gibbs

By Jeff Baker

December 4, 1875

I never imagined this! We had to take a different trail after the river flooded and we were slowed down when one of the wagon wheels broke and put us way off schedule and we lucked-out in finding a small settlement where we could stay over the winter. Pa has a job here on one of the farms and Katie and I have tried to keep up on our schooling. Like how I am writing all of this.

I had seen snow back east of course, but nothing like this! The mountains here in Colorado are huge and right now covered in snow with only the green tops of the trees sticking out. It will be Christmas here soon and it sure looks like it!

December 5, 1875

Ma told us to stay close to the house today. Usually, we can walk into town but Ma thinks more snow is coming—she can feel it in her bones. The house we are staying in is right at the edge of town, and nothing is too big. A few houses, the store, the church and Doc Pomus’ office. And we have school in the morning in the old saloon they closed. Not much here. Ma said she wants to head on to California in spring, but I think Pa wants to stay. The people in town know us now; no more being called Bub and Sis as if we were strangers. But we are here for the winter, I believe.

December 8, 1875

Katie ran off! She is only eight! I am a lot older, I’m eleven! So I am going out to find her!

December 9, 1875

We are both back home, safe and sound! I still don’t know why Katie took off like that but it was dark and snowy and I could see her foot tracks in the snow when the Moon came out from behind a cloud. I walked a few yards from the house into the trees and then I heard a low kind of noise I had never heard before. And I heard Katie talking away. That was when I saw them. She was being carried by what I first thought was a man covered in snow. Then I realized it was covered in fur with snow stuck to it. Long, brown hair, which covered much of the face of the thing except for the red, gleaming eyes and big, shiny teeth.

It walked over to me and I was too scared to run. It handed Katie to me and pointed back into town with a hairy arm. I half-walked, half carried Katie back to the house where Ma was.

When Pa came back from searching, he about had a fit that I had gone out on my own but he was so relieved that we were both okay. I didn’t get a whuppin or nothin.

But the thing I remember the most is, when Katie and I were just outside the house, I turned around and the hairy man was still standing there. He waved his arm and turned as he walked into the snowy night.

—end—

The Dog and the Bastard and Other Oddities of History

By Jeff Baker

Talking with dogs is one thing, but this was one time I should have gotten a tape recorder.

“There are advantages to being a reincarnate,” Montpielier said, nuzzling the chair I was sitting in. “Go on, scratch my ears and I’ll tell you about it. Ah, right there! Yes!”

Montpielier had a silky coat, cold nose and big brown eyes. I knew if I kept scratching he’d tell me more. I was right.

I haven’t always come back as a dog (Montpielier said.) I’ve been a man several times. A woman too, but I digress. I was a young man named Stephen of Golweck from about 1056 or so. In England. I worked for His Majesty King William the First, also known as William the Conqueror, and let me tell you that last sobriquet wasn’t given him by any women he knew. Most of us who worked for him thought of him by his other nickname: William the Bastard.

Anyway, back in 1086, Big Willie decided since he owned something he wanted to see exactly what he owned. So, he sent out a bunch of us, myself included to do a survey. Armed with nothing but paper, ink and quill. Or, as one of my fellows said: “The bloody king is in his counting-house, but we’re the ones doing the bloody counting.” Anyway, we went up north, trying to find a route where there was a tavern on every road, those were basically the motels, and we took our survey. Yes, the one that got called the Domesday Book. Sir Anthony, a real piece of work, kept quoting the bit about Caesar calling for all the world to be numbered.

Everything went fine, and we were managing to write down everything without making a lot up, when we ran into some trouble with a group of soldiers who didn’t work for the king we were working for. We ran and left our notes behind. They were safe, in a metal box in a cave but we didn’t go back for it like we planned, we took another route and bypassed the King altogether.

“As a matter of fact,” Montpielier said, pausing to bite at a flea, “we didn’t even finish our survey. So the so-called Domesday Book was off by about an entire section of the country.”

“Thus affecting the course of history?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Montpielier said. “By the time we made it back to court, King William was dead and the new king didn’t know who we were. Anyway,” the dog stood up and sniffed the air. “Open the door will you? I have to take a survey of the yard.”

—end—

AUTHOR’s NOTE:  I owe this story to a jumble of sources including a ramble through the internet that led to an article on the Domesday Book.