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Science fiction gave us the time warp, an imaginary way people from one era can leap forward and backward in time. Culture and fashion give us time warps, too, but they’re real, and instead of letting people move through time, they set a deadly trap—locking you in the past.

The other day I was pumping gas into my car when I heard a commotion down the street. An old Volkswagen bus pouring smoke clattered into the Hess station. Seemed like nothing but bumper stickers held it together. Things like “Love One Another,” “Peace,” and “Bare Feet, Not Arms.” And of course it had the requisite peace symbol. Seeing it was like going back to 1968. It was a cliché straight from the Haight-Ashbury.

© Idran / Creative Commons

Out stepped an old fellow with long grey hair hanging to his waist. He was as bland as oatmeal except for a greasy tie-dyed T-shirt. Does this hipster smoke left-handed cigarettes and see the establishment as his enemy? Probably. The ’60s surely must have been his golden era. He never left that decade and that’s why he’s trapped in a time warp.

A lot of afternoons when I get my run in I see a fellow in his seventies with a crisp, snow-white Marine haircut taking a brisk walk. His Marine days are long behind him, but he still has that distinctive cut. A recruit’s first haircut is a rite of passage from civilian life to the service, but for him it became a hairstyle for eternity, yet another time warp.

And you’ve seen the Greg Allman wannabes. Long, blond hair, tattooed arms, and a wispy goatee. Problem is Greg Allman’s a rocker with a lot of bucks and his appearance fits his profession. When you’re a hitchhiker, though, that look makes you seem a tad dangerous. Hike on brother and enjoy that time warp!

In the mall, I saw a man with a ducktail cut. I can’t recall the last time I saw one of those. Maybe back in high school? His was industrial strength, a mallard on steroids. I never saw so much hair wasted in such a bad cut. Pomade held back two tsunamis of hair poised to collide in the middle of his head. He was a greaser but all the grease from his era dried out in the ’50s. Yet here he is in 2009, stuck in a time warp.

Last week I saw a woman with big hair fashionable in the ’80s. She had her mane of blonde hair fluffed up high like she was the lead vocalist in some glam rock band. The time it takes to coif, curl, cascade, and sculpt that “do” must take hours. Her hair had more layers than a celebrity wedding cake and more bangs than a 21-gun salute. The only thing rivaling her hair were the high society wigs of 18^th Century Europe. What, I wonder, trapped her in the ’80s? I’d wager flattery did her in.

Let’s turn back the clock to 1982 and eavesdrop on two women folding clothes in a laundromat: “Wow, Nicole, your hair is gorgeous. I swear child, you look just like Farrah Fawcett.”

“Why goodness, Rene. You really think so? Thank you!” (Jubilant thoughts: “That clinches it. I’ll stick with this ‘do’ the rest of my life. I’m set!”)

Back in the ’80s, I almost got trapped myself. I was a big fan of “Miami Vice,” in particular Don Johnson. My friends and I loved the show and would stay home to watch it Friday nights or tape it for viewing Saturday. I had a bit of extra interest in the show because a girl had told me I looked like Don Johnson. The fact that she had legally blind status meant nothing to me. I even joked that my name was “Jon Dohnson.”

One evening, my friend, Burns, and I decided to go out on the town in our finest Miami Vice attire. I had a stubble of beard and wore peach-colored linen pants, a mint green T-shirt with a beige linen jacket and, of course, Wayfarers. We went to Panama Jacks, a place awash with music and lovely women. Within five minutes, a pair of lovelies sidled up to Burns and me. We gave each other a wink. And then—disaster!

The blonde cupped her hand over her mouth and said to her brunette friend, “This creep thinks he looks like Don Johnson.” Then they started pointing us out to others and laughing.

Thirty minutes later Burns and I were back home ordering a pizza. Our night was over before it began and—big sigh of relief!—that fiasco saved me from an ’80’s time warp. Ridicule can be a good thing.

Time warps can be of recent vintage too. I saw a guy at the bookstore all dressed up like Yanni in a white suit with a white T-shirt and a mane of hair black as a crow’s wings. He sported a bushy mustache Gene Shalit would die for. He looked like some cat hired to drive a limousine for a high school prom. You’d think his friends would pull him aside and tell him the ’90s ended ten years ago.

Why do some get stuck in a time warp when most of us move on? Maybe they long for what was their day in the sun. It’s a trap nonetheless. Folks, you have to keep moving with the times or risk becoming a dinosaur. So affect your best Clint Eastwood voice and ask yourself a question. “Are you stuck in a time warp, punk? Well are you?”

The times they keep a’changing and if you don’t want to be the target of pointing fingers and stares, laughter even, take a good look in the mirror. Are you in 2011 or some decade long covered in dust?

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• Asheville Deja Vu
• Hippies in Atlanta! However did they get in?

Tom Poland

A Southern writer, Tom Poland’s work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. He’s published five books and more than 800 columns and magazine features. In 1996, Reckon magazine published his literary feature, "Deliver Me from Leviathan," on James Dickey. Excerpts were published in The World As A Lie–James Dickey, the Dickey biography by Henry Hart. The University of South Carolina Press has published three of his books, most recently, Reflections of South Carolina, now in its third printing. For six years, Tom worked as a scriptwriter and cinematographer, working primarily along the South Carolina Lowcountry and its barrier islands. While filming on a primitive barrier island one evening, fog rolled in trapping him overnight. That experience led to his novel, Forbidden Island, and the mythical Georgialina. Currently, he’s working on two nonfiction books. A Lincolnton, Georgia, native and University of Georgia graduate, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina. Read more at www.tompoland.net Favorite Quotes On Writing and Creativity: Writing is a kind of smoke, seized and put on paper. —James Salter I never wanted to be well rounded, and I do not admire well-rounded people nor their work. So far as I can see, nothing good in the world has ever been done by well-rounded people. The good work is done by people with jagged, broken edges, because those edges cut things and leave an imprint, a design. —Harry Crews

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