That Was Then

Travis Glass is a door salesman who lives with his mother, while the woman he really wants to be living with is married to his older brother. Travis needs a makeover—and he gets one when a lightning bolt and the Kinks' ""Do It Again"" combine to send him back 14 years to high school. Now he does have a chance to do it again. Trouble is, his actions produce consequences that will keep him hopping back and forth in time.

Back in the present, Travis is mayor of Jasper. He's also married to Lanie, and that makes his ex-best friend Pinkus (who has a crush on Lanie) his abiding foe. So he must return to 1988 to unhitch himself. And while there, he must also get Claudia to stop hating Greg. If he doesn't, his nephew Ethan won't be born. Then there's the matter of the $5000 Travis stole from his bookie father, Double G. And Timmy, whose life he just saved, is demanding that his wrecked truck be replaced.

Travis sees a high-school classmate on an unsolved-crimes TV show, and goes back to 1988 to deter him from a life on the wrong side of the law. But that's not all Travis has to fix: There are Gregg and Claudia to reunite; and Double D's life to save, one strip of bacon at a time. Meanwhile, the teenage Pinkus wants to travel back in time himself. (It seems that there was an incident at summer camp he wants to change.)

Travis is in jail, so he figures he must go back to 1988 to change the course of his life. ""I have to clear my name,"" he tells Pinkus. ""Lose the bad-boy label. Labels stick."" Also back then: Claudia's relationship with Timmy Robinson is blossoming, which really wounds Gregg. And Zooey's not doing well in school, even though she's really smart. The reason, she says, is that she doesn't want to be a ""freak."" Travis' advice to both siblings: ""Just be who you are."" They do so, with results that, while predictable, aren't pretty.