A Little Knowledge

Today, kids have it easy: the Internet and the modern search engine have placed everything they always wanted to know about anything at their fingertips. We had to scratch for every little scrap of knowledge we could find.

I remember one time, a bunch of us guys were sitting around after school, desperately trying to further our educations. We were fresh out of ideas. Then somebody said, "My father has some magazines in his closet with pictures of women in them."

Somebody else said, "Are they naked?"

The first guy said, "Almost."

He was hooted down. Almost was not good enough for the likes of us. Then somebody said, "I know where we can get a 16-millimeter movie."

Suddenly everybody was making noise at the same time. When we settled down, I think I spoke for everyone there, when I said, "Now, you're talking."

But then, soberer heads said, "Where are we going to get a movie?"

All eyes turned to the originator of the suggestion. He said, "It's easy - there's a bunch of them in my brother's fraternity house at college."

The rest of the afternoon was spent laying out a general plan and logistics for acquiring this bit of knowledge. In addition to the film, a projector of the right caliber had to be procured, a place had to be found and a date had to be set. We were ready in three days.

That morning, we gathered on the front terrace of the school and synchronized our watches. I got cold feet. I said, "I'm not sure that I want to do this with people I know."

They all said, "Good, we'll give your seat to somebody else." I decided to go.

The plan was to meet at this guy's house, whose mother worked afternoons. After school, we all gathered in his driveway until the guy got there, and then we filed, furtively, into the house. Especially furtive was the guy who had to carry the projector.

It took less than 45 seconds to set everything up: blankets over the windows; sheet up on the wall; film loaded; projector going; fight for the best viewing positions. I stood up in the back.

We looked at the sheet on the wall; at the little square of light coming from the projector. At first, there was nothing; then there were a lot of moving spots, which we took for progress; and finally, these words:

%
CHANGING PARTNERS
%

That was the title. That's what it was all about. We realized that a rite of passage was really about to happen. We sat, silent as carpenters, watching. What came next was not as clear as the title. Mainly, it was more spots, moving around on the screen. Nobody wanted to say anything. A minute went by. Finally, in frustration, somebody said, "What are they doing out in the snow for?"

It was a reasonable question. But we had no time to take it up, because right then the projector went clunk and stopped, but the light stayed on and burned through the film, which was the most interesting thing we had seen yet.

The projector had to be fixed. A quick poll of the group for mechanical aptitude turned up a guy who helped his father work on cars. He was given the job. He looked on all sides of the projector and said, "Where's the clutch?"

Next, we got a guy who had completed a year of shop. He looked at the projector and said, "Here's the problem - somebody spliced the film with friction tape." We found some scissors, cut the splice out of the film, threaded it from that point on and resumed the show.

We saw more spots. But the longer we looked at them, the more they seemed to resolve into moving shadow images of something. We were transfixed. Then, the projector went clunk again as another piece of friction tape went through the gate. This time, there was damage to the projector's delicate mechanism. A couple of guys set about repairing it. We turned the lights on, but left the blankets up. Somebody started doing his homework. One guy went to sleep. I began to think of home.

The next thing we knew, the guy's mother was pulling into the driveway. Chaos ensued. At all costs, we had to hide the projector and the film. Then we all got busy doing our homework. Except for the guy who was asleep.

When the mother came back to where we were, she smiled and said, "All doing your homework - very good!"

"Yes, ma'am," we all said.

"And whose idea was it to put blankets over the windows?" She said. "Was it to help you concentrate on your studies?"

"Yes, ma'am."