Time Machine
The Source
A sort of “Time Machine” made a recent visit to the Lincoln Land facility up on the square. Administrator Jan Terry pushed me into the mechanized cubicle that resembled one of those photo booths you’d find at the county fair. I plopped down, lined my eyes up with little X’s on the video screen, then wiggled the joystick a bit. Viola! I had aged ten years…then twenty…then thirty. This was getting depressing. The machine is a part of a program designed to enhance racial and ethnic understanding as it also has options to reconfigure your face as an Asian, African-American, Mexican, and a resident of India. I tried the last one in an attempt to resemble my good friend, Dr. Prabhakar. It didn’t work. He’s still cuter. Maybe I should have tried sticking three pharmaceutical company pens and a thermometer into my pocket. It was an interesting experience as the machine also displayed my face as if I’d suffered various medical afflictions. Since I couldn’t find one that simulated 34 years teaching 7th-grade English I got up and made way for the next contestant. The machine also had a setting whereby you could crawl into the booth with a friend and find out what your prodigy might look like. The only other person wandering around the Lincoln Land lobby was the janitor and I didn’t have much interest in determining the looks of our offspring. I didn’t complain to Jan, but what the machine didn’t show me is what I look like right now. Yes, I own a mirror, and often make use of it when trimming my moustache or combing one of my remaining hairs each morning, but when I look into my bathroom reflection I still see the 21-year-old college senior with bellbottoms and a flattop. He has hair, a handsome grin, and a twinkle in his eye. The Ken Bradbury in my mirror hasn’t changed a whit. But…and this is a big “but,” I HAVE discovered the ultimate and all-too-terrifying Time Machine. It’s called Facebook. This week I got a message from an old IC friend named John Dooling. John was a football standout for the Blueboys, graduated and moved to Tucson where he’s been selling Allstate Insurance and turning out children and grandchildren like a pancake factory. Back in ’71 this guy was a hunk…a bruiser…a football tackler who ate raw beefsteak before each game and had the girls falling at his cleats. Then I looked at John’s picture on Facebook… Lord! This guy is old! Yeah, he’s still trim and still looks like he could gnaw the bark off a tree, but he’s sixty-two! That used to be old! Gray hair…wrinkles around his chin lines…a droop to his eyes. The guy just looks tired. Bottom line: he looks fantastic for a sixty-two-year-old but he still looks like he’s sixty-two! The Dooling story has been repeated again and again as old college friends “friend” me on Facebook, and none of this group resemble the guy who faces me each morning in my mirror. And here’s where it gets really ugly…. My former students look just as old when they pop up on Facebook. Well…nearly as old. Once upon a time in Triopia land I had this frizzy-haired little seventh-grader named Jay Wessler who’d giggle uncontrollably when I’ll slap him on the back of the head in the middle of his spelling test. I once woke up in a Granite City motel while traveling with my speech team, and found my hand and face covered with shaving cream. Looking across the room I saw Jay’s Afro guffawing behind a stack of pillows. So…I look at Jay’s Facebook picture, holding his grandson, and Jay’s hair is gray! Yes, he still jogs 500 miles a day and can out-run most of the local dogs, but he’s getting old! So I looked into my bathroom mirror this morning and something had happened. I have a good cleaning lady, but apparently she’s been shirking. The mirror seemed streaked with lines. The top of the mirror…where the hair should be…seemed to dissolve before my eyes. My once-bright eyes seemed to droop due to some imperfection in the glass. So…I resigned myself to my fate. I accepted the truth. The Time Machine does not lie. I need a new mirror.