Like many children of that era, the chance to have the pink and blue lines blasting like lightsabers across his annual school portraits eluded police Corporal Brian Kelly of Pelham, N.H.

They were the envy of elementary and junior high school students everywhere in the 1980s and ’90s: the kids who were allowed to get the coveted laser background on picture day.

Ever since he was a kid, Brian Kelly wanted the laser background in his school picture. Now, the Pelham, N.H., police corporal finally nailed it.

“I never got to get lasers,” he said. “I think my parents just didn’t want me to have it.”

But he’s an adult now, an officer of the law. And so this week, Kelly finally achieved his lifelong dream.


“I’m the [Pelham High School] resource officer and get an ID every year, and this year I walked in and said to the photographers, ‘I want lasers,’ ” he said. “This one photographer, of the five or six who were there, said, ‘I’ll give you lasers.’ ”

At first, Kelly didn’t know if the school would actually issue his ID with the lasers in the background. But when it arrived to his desk, there they were in the backdrop around his face.

Kelly, who has been a school resource officer since 2011, shared his unique ID tag on Twitter on Wednesday. It was retweeted by the Pelham Police Department and was “liked” more than 150 times.

“It only took 34 years,” Kelly wrote on Twitter, “but I finally got lasers in my school picture.”

Kelly’s certainly not alone in feeling like he was denied a rite of passage growing up by not being allowed to pose in front of the beams on school picture day.

In response to Kelly’s tweet Wednesday, someone from the Probation and Pretrial Services Office for the District of New Hampshire expressed their longing for such an opportunity.

“Our parents would never allow the #LASER background,” the person wrote. “We are in envy and in awe.”


Although the laser background was in its heyday more than two decades ago, it hasn’t lost its appeal.

Like many things old school, the Internet helped bring back people’s love of laser beams full-force, offering up the nostalgia in the form of costume ideas, memes, and blogs.

In 2016, rookies for the Minnesota Vikings even took “class-style” photographs that used the criss-crossing beams as a backdrop.

Elizabeth Hockmeyer-Williams, second-generation owner of Hockmeyer Studios in Amesbury, said of the 150,000 students her company takes photographs of throughout New England each year, a small percentage still ask for the laser beam background to this day.

“It’s still one of our top-selling backgrounds for students,” she said. “I think retro is in a little bit, and it’s fun.”

She said teachers — who, like Kelly, were denied the chance to have the background as kids — also sometimes ask for it on picture day.

“We literally just had someone that called in this morning — a school secretary — who wants her school picture switched to the laser background,” Hockmeyer-Williams said.

As for Kelly, he said he may not have been the envy of his classmates growing up. But now, all the officers in his department are jealous.

“Very few kids would be allowed to get lasers and everyone was always jealous of that kid,” he said. “So I figured I’d be that kid. And I did.”


It only took 34 years but I finally got lasers in my school picture. pic.twitter.com/3W4rvkJkIb — Corporal Brian Kelly (@OBK_SRO) October 3, 2018

Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.