"Moby Dick?" Oh yeah. The story about Ahab and the big white whale. They used it in that Star Trek movie you were watching on HBO. But they don't have cable in the fifties. Or computers, or video games. You're growing up at the same time your own father is a boy - Then you remember some other things. Your dad got drafted, and hurt bad in the Vietnam War. You are facing a life without any of the modern things you are used to, and maybe getting killed!
This trip to the past doesn't seem like so much fun now. You're only 12 years old, not the young adult you were before. It will be years before you can drive, and then it will be some monsterous old car like they have in antique shows! If you stay, you'll probably get used to being Tommy. In fact, it is alrady getting harder to remember living in 2003. Part of you is thinking of that far away year as a time of flying cars and spaceships to Mars.
You jump out of your seat suddenly. "Sorry, Mrs. Richardson. I have to run home! It's an emergency!" Then, before she can stop you, you bolt out of the class and run down the hall and out of the school building. The barber said that the changes lasted until you got another haircut at that shop. Well, it's time for a return visit!
Several people stare at you as you run to the barber shop - after all, it is a school day. You burst into the shop, where the Barber is just finishing up giving an older man a trim. He looks at you in surprise. "Tommy! Back already?"
You nod. "I want a different haircut! Quick!"
He points to another chair and hands you a black notebook full of pictures. "OK. Pick something out from here while I finish up this customer. I'll be with you in a minute."
You plop down and look through the photos - they show men and boys with different haircuts. The first pages are what you see around you now - crew cuts, flattops, and plain mohawks. But as you flip further, the hair gets longer - hippies with shoulder-length hair, kids that look like junior Beatles, afros, even some wild-looking rockers with beards and huge manes. Some of the pictures look more normal now - shaved heads, punkers with dyed mohawks, corn rows, military cuts, and spikes on kids with pierced ears and nostrils. Mixed in are other photos of old men in business suits and styled hair, little kids and even a baby boy wearing a Barney jumper. FINally, you find a mix of photos that look like they come from even further back in history - a 12 year-old boy in a Civil War uniform, a teenager on a horse, a young man driving a car from the 1920s, another boy in long curls wearing what almost looks liek a dress, and a teenager in a military academy uniform.
"OK. Have you made your choice yet?" The Barber puts the cloth over your clothes and pulls out scissors. "What cut do you want this time?"