When they showed us a movie, they had us push our chairs and desks to the perimeter of the room. We all sat on the floor. I don’t remember the movie, no doubt some boring, educational film. I didn’t judge the movies based on how interesting they were. I judged movies by how long they were. The more time watching instead of doing work was always the prime directive. You could tell how long a movie was by how big the film reel was. Even better if there was more than one reel that had to be changed somewhere in the middle. As the film slowly unspooled from the front reel to the back one, the amount of film left on the front reel was a good timekeeper letting us know how much movie time was left.

After the movie was over, they turned the lights on and everyone started standing up and moving around. When I attempted to stand up, I realized that my cross-legged style of sitting led to my foot falling asleep. I remember lifting my foot up by the ankle and letting it fall down on the floor with a loud THUMP. It was a louder than normal thump for two reasons. 1) It was winter and I was wearing what we referred to as “moon boots.” 2) My classroom was actually a trailer that was used as an overflow from the main school building. The trailer was up on wheels, so the space below the trailer allowed for amplified sounds when walking or jumping on the floor. I continued lifting my foot and letting it THUMP on the floor hoping it would come back to life soon. The general chaos and movement obscured me as the origin of the sound. At one point, the teacher became annoyed with the regular thud of my moon boot and shouted, “Whoever is stomping their feet, stop it!’ I stopped. Thankfully, the pins-and-needles feeling indicated that I would have full use of my foot once more.