Chapter 2

I got back in and punched in the date and pressed GO.

I started walking to the football field at the high school both my sister and I graduated from. It was about ten blocks from the Time Machine. Such a beautiful day as the crowd filled the stands. I found a place to stand out of the way as the events started.

I remembered that I had a big test that day that my college professor wouldn’t let me reschedule, so this will be a real treat for me.

The speakers had the usual things to say, as the celebrity speaker was a thirty-year-old actor named Robert Balaban, who would become a motion picture character actor later in life, having already been in CATCH-22, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. His speech was quite inspirational, although he was rather monotone in his delivery. He still was.

The perfunctory applause occurred, then the reading of the names of the graduates started. I sort of tuned it out until they got to the ‘M’s!

“ ... William Manning III, Robert McArthur, Linda McTavish...”

I clapped real loud seeing my doll-faced little sister Linda, crying her eyes out as she was handed her diploma. She stopped and waved and walked back to her row. I was clapping loud enough she turned towards me and smiled real big, waving at me. I waved back, and she was grinning so much, as the rest of her graduating class was called. The weather stayed nice for the rest of it.

It broke up and she walked towards me, suddenly her face went sour, as she got nearer.

“What’s wrong, why the sour face?” I asked.

“I thought you were somebody else, sorry?” she responded.

“Lucky him! Who did you think I was – I can be anybody you want?” I said.

Giggling she said, “You look a lot like my older brother. He told me he couldn’t make it to my graduation. When I first saw you, I thought you were him, I’m sorry?”

“So am I, my name is Danny – Daniel Hilts.”

The only name that popped in my head was the stupid character name of Steve McQueen in THE GREAT ESCAPE?

“So, who are you here to see today, Danny?” my sister asked with a delightful lilt in her voice.

“I think the smart answer to that would be to say, ‘I was waiting for the first pretty girl who would talk to me’ and that was you,” I said.

“You’re hanging around a graduation to pick up girls?” she said. Boy, she is so darn pretty!

“Not really, my buddy Marty from college had told me about his cute sister who was graduating, and since I went to school with your brother, I decided to come and see your big day,” I said.

She grabbed me by the arm and said, “You know my brother, Danny?”

“Yes, very well – but he never told me just how pretty his sister was. Do you have to be anywhere, I can take you ... no, I can’t! I was dropped off here, so I need to bum a ride.”

“I have a car here,” she said, “My parents had to leave right after my name was called, so I have plenty of room in my car for a handsome friend of my brother.”

I sure didn’t remember my sister being such a flirt, but I was three years older than her and we ran in different circles back in 1975.

1975
Average Cost of a New Home - $39,300
Watergate ‘burglars’ were found guilty.
Rocky Horror Show open in movie theatres.
Bobby Fischer stripped of his World Chess Title.
US forces pulled out of Vietnam.
Apollo and Soyuz linked up in orbit.
US Supreme Court ruled that teachers could spank their students, regardless of parent’s approval.
Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy.
Tiger Woods was born in Cypress California

After spending a couple of hours talking to and laughing with my little sister, I told her I had to get back to my family. She came towards me to give me a kiss on the cheek, but I turned, and we made lip contact.

What’s that expression about ‘kissing your sister?’

We kissed for a minute, before she pulled away and said, “When will you be back, Danny?”

“I don’t know for sure, but you’ll be the first person I find when I do!”

We kissed one more time as ‘our’ parents were pulling up in the driveway.

I appeared back in Doc’s basement, where he was sitting reading the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

He smiled at me as I got out asking, “How long was I gone, anyway?”

“Less than three minutes in real time - time is one of those things that we’ve labeled incorrectly,” Doc answered. “I have calculated a 97^th of a second drag in current time for every hour traveling through time!”

Not understanding what he meant, I handed him the key fob, but he said, “Keep it - I have more of them. So, who did you meet at your sister’s graduation anyway?”

“Why do you ask?” I responded nervously.

“You’ve got lipstick on your face, so, who did you meet?”

“Nobody special!” I sloughed off.

“You go back in time to see your little sister graduate - and you find the time to pick up a girl while you’re there?”

“Not ... exactly! I, uhm sort of ‘kissed’ my sister!”

Now, Doc was doing the laughing as I sat down.

“Doc, something strange happened. I think she saw me as Marty for a split second before she had said that ‘I looked like her brother.’ Could there be some kind of delayed morph attributed to the Time Machine engine?”

“Actually Marty - that’s very probable. The same chemical reaction that causes the yellow glow could be slightly altering how people perceive whoever is traveling through time. Perhaps, it’s a form of energy bubble that protects the true identity of a mild-mannered ex-tennis player. Time itself is converting how you really look to anybody looking at you,” Doc theorized.