I remember making my own flip books....

My mother just got back from a vacation, and she gave my daughter a really cool flip book that uses actual photographs of sea lions, so when you flip the pages, it's like you are watching a wee movie. The book is awesome, and it sparked a memory for me.

I was bored in many classes in junior high and high school. I would take my pencil, start on the first page of whatever textbook I was using for the class I was in, and I would draw a stick man. On the second page, the stick man would be moved very slightly, the third page a little more...you know how flip book animation works, right? I never knew what would happen to the little man until I drew it. Sometimes his head would pop off and he'd have to chase it, sometimes he'd fall off the bottom of the page and have to climb back up, sometimes he'd meet a stick woman...every text book was a different story.

It was perfect. I could still listen to the teacher, and as far as they could tell, I was absorbed in making notes or something. Once the drawings were all laboriously completed, I'd sit back in my seat and flip through the pages of my text and feel very pleased with myself as the little man would come to life. I don't think I showed these animations to anyone else. I had learned early on in junior high that any creative impulse must be hidden or you would be tortured for it. The little men were my little secret.