Digital Timepieces and the American Revolution

Nephew #1 is starting to visit colleges, and it's got me thinking some about my own undergrad days. A lot of good stories, a lot of fond memories, a lot of learning and experience. Easily the most formative part of my life, and the one I look back upon with the most nostalgia. If I had the chance to relive any month of my life, I'd probably choose any random month between Sept. 1986 and February 1991 -- excluding the summers, when I had to work at my dad's drugstore, and Lord knows I don't need to go there again.

For some reason this story seems to be on my mind tonight:

It was my first quarter in St. Cloud, and I was loving it. My roommate and I got along great, and a lot of guys from his hometown were always around so I had a built-in circle of good friends early on. I loved the anonymity of college life; I could walk anywhere on campus and be completely ignored by the whole world. And believe me, after surviving the social politics of a cookie-cutter suburban high school, that anonymity was absolute bliss. Things were going really well. I was even enjoying most of my classes.

Most. But not all.

One that should have been great was "Early American History Until the Revolutionary War." No, that wasn't the actual title; even my freakish memory for detail can't drudge that up. I was looking forward to it because the content sounded interesting, but was about to be reminded that even in college, the teacher can make all the difference. The guy teaching the class, and I won't name him because this is the Internet after all, to this day is probably one of the three worst teachers I've had. Coke-bottle glasses, greasy black hair, short-sleeved button up polyester shirts... he really could have been the cousin genetically linking Dwight Schrutte to Louis from "Revenge of the Nerds." He was a very smart man and knew his subject, but couldn't teach his way out of a paper bag. Now, pair this fact with me having the class at 10:00 AM in an old, poorly-ventilated building, and in a classroom with twelve-foot windows filling the room with morning sunlight, and my admitted propensity for falling asleep in classes when I'm not engaged... I was dead meat on a hook before the syllabus was passed out.

Except for a brief time in the middle of the term. There were about ninety of us in there, sitting in rows of 20-30 1950s desk/chairs long. I usually sat in the back so I could write letters to my friends under the guise of taking notes (yes, this story predates e-mail, get over it), but this meant I had that morning sun beating down on me the whole time, keeping it just warm enough to make me constantly drowsy. One day I noticed the sun was shining on my fancy 80s digital watch, and reflecting a small patch of light on the ceiling above me. Since I don't really have any attention span to speak of, all it took was something shiny to distract me. I started moving my wrist with tiny jerks, marveling at how such small moves would translate into broad sweeping motions on the ceiling. I suspect Isaac Newton might have started out like this....

One day while I was playing with my watch reflection, much like a new pet, I discovered that I was not alone. There was another light on the ceiling, reflecting off another watch somewhere, swaying and swirling around just like mine but at the far end of the classroom. I don't remember which of us noticed the other first, but it didn't take long until we had some version of Reflection Tag going on up there. I'd move, he'd follow, he'd circle, I'd dodge. I'd cover my watch and reappear somewhere else, he'd shoot over to meet me at my new spot.

This went on for weeks. We even had a few fans who'd start to watch for us. I found this out when I noticed some people in the rows ahead of me looking at the ceiling one day instead of paying attention to the professor. I got a little thrill from that, but also felt a little self-conscious. I was still a brand new and naive freshman and pretty sure I was going to get in trouble for this somehow, so it all eventually died out.

As the class continued and the morning sun changed its angle over the quarter, we soon lost the back row sunlight, and I managed to catch enough of the class in the few weeks before the final to pull off one of the three Cs I earned in college. To this day I still don't know who had the other watch, but the experience sticks with me. And now, if I see a kid in my class playing the same light game while I'm teaching, I'll usually let it go for awhile because I understand the fascination. But you can bet I'm going to call on that kid after awhile to bring him back.