The sun set below the horizon casting the last rays from its palette through the the lacy filigree of skeletonized autumn leaves. The kids crossed through the train station parking lot adjacent to the town's gem, the Haji Mansion. Lanterns outside the estate made the imposing Victorian Painted Lady glow. No sleepy one-horse town is immune from Promethean genius, and a mathematician immigrant named Zaman Haji who most scientists agree caused quite a stir in the Patent office back in his day, built the stately residence on the cusp of the twentieth century. Years later it was turned into a convalescent home, then an interactive murder mystery dinner theater eventually to be closed and abandoned until the only thing holding the place up was habit. In order to save the neglected manor a historical society was formed. Haji Mansion was restored to its original grandeur, with tours given during the summer months.

While walking by the landmark house a sign with a grainy photograph of a smiling Zaman and caption that read, "See you next summer," Kashton remembered he still held the folded piece of paper in his hand. Complex mathematical calculations were dashed around a technical drawing of a machine that pushed the boundaries of form and function. At the bottom of the illustration was a forcible, if not poetic moniker scrawled with flourish by the modernist vanguard: "Tempus Fugit -- Haji's Time Jumper."

"It's a time machine!" Romi Rae exclaimed.

"I bet the pieces for it are in the warehouse," Kashton added. After weeks of progress and avoiding the mansion caretaker their clandestine work on the Tempus Fugit was finished (Like, if this were a movie it would totally be the time for a dazzling '80s power ballad montage).

Word on the Street

"VERY ENJOYABLE
AND SUCH A TREAT"
- Hal Sutherland

Co-founder of Filmation Studios, and
whose father, like mine was a barber.

About the story. Watched by three generations of family (this beauty school dropout put in a minute there myself before going to art school for degrees in animation and multimedia while doing unpaid internships at Disney.com and the place where The Simpsons is made), Valley Barber Shop opened in October of 1968 on Main Street in Puyallup, Washington. The real-life inspiration for Between Times could almost pass for Floyd's of Mayberry, with a one cent gum machine, trains running on the railroad tracks behind, and an adjacent view of a Victorian era mansion with Mount Rainier in the background.

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