During my first three years of grade school, there could well have been a plaster famine. Nobody at my school so much as wore a Band-Aid. Seriously, it was a drought situation from a cast standpoint.

While I was in the fourth grade, a girl in the fifth grade broke her lower leg jumping rope in the school yard. At the moment of the incident, I was unfortunately playing at the other extremity and around the other side of the building. I only heard about the accident from classmates after we had returned to class.

She'd been taken to hospital and her leg was placed into a short leg non-weightbearing cast (slc). The ironic thing was that she did not attend school while she was casted and ambulating on crutches. Instead, she’d be seen around the outside of the school at finishing time, 3:30 pm. I never was able to understand why it was that she could be in proximity to the school at quitting time while she couldn’t attend class. Incidentally, she convalesced well into spring and despite the warm weather, she wore a knitted slipper on the foot portion of her cast, the rest of which was clearly visible since she wore dresses all the time. I would be curious to find out how much of her ordeal she remembers today.

During fifth grade something occurred that profoundly accentuated my love of casts. On a Monday afternoon in late January, while we were busy working on art projects, our teacher announced to the class that a colleague of ours had suffered a broken leg the past weekend. We were told that Michael was doing OK and that he'd eventually be back at school in the next couple of days. Except for a few brief "ooo's", "ohhhs" and "awwws", a hush befell the room full of usually rambunctious preteens. The sullen atmosphere slowly cleared up as the kids gradually became talkative again.

Talk was predominantly about - you guessed it - Michael. Eventually, someone began a rumor that Michael's leg was merely sprained. Ironically, the individual who started this odious rumor (or at least the person I first heard it from) would go on to break his arm a few years later; that's neither here nor there. As the rumor spread, the mood in the class almost became festive. Even a "castard" like myself was getting in the festive mood as although the term had yet to be invented, being happy for the guy was at the very least, the politically correct thing to be.

"HIS LEG IS BROKEN - HIS MOTHER TOLD ME THAT HE HAD A BROKEN LEG AND NOT A SPRAIN," yelled the aged teacher at her flock of suddenly stunned lambs. In the time that it took for her to scream her words, the festive mood vanished. In fact, at least one girl started to cry.

I had to wait for the Friday in order to finally get to see our gimpy hero. It was about a half hour after school had started that morning when the teacher was informed by the principal that he had arrived. The teacher ran out of the class. About half the class rushed on out after her. I slowly made my way out and I saw that everyone had gone downstairs to a bench near the main entrance. By the time I got there, I could hear Michael's voice but I could not see him, he was completely surrounding by teachers and fellow students.

"I don't think I can go all the way upstairs on these crutches" I overheard Michael.

"OK, just a minute," assured the teacher. "Give me some room everybody," she ordered as she leaned over and picked up the gimpy fifth grader. In an instant she was heading up the stairs toward the classroom with Michael and the cast. Another student took his crutches up.

It was during his elevator ride that I finally got to see for myself that he was casted. Although no plastered surface was visible yet, I could see that his foot was incredibly thick under what was at least one sock.

Once inside the classroom, he had been seated at his desk and things settled down. The teacher then took it upon herself to help poor Michael by uncovering his cast. She had to remove several socks of varying shapes and sizes (his mother was from France!). Eventually, his broken ankle stripped down to just the cast, a walking heel and a set of exposed toes. I had a choice seat as he occupied the second desk ahead of me. At any time, all I had to do was look downward and I'd get to see the cast.

There were many a class discussion about his accident and his cast. It turned out that he'd gone over a bump while skiing. He had not fallen but he claimed to have felt a pop in his ankle. he walked away from the hill that afternoon but pain and discomfort later that evening had made his parents decide to take him to the hospital for an X-ray. A fractured bone in his ankle was detected and into the cast he'd went.

Just like clockwork, ten minutes before the end of the school day, the teacher would dress his cast up for him. It was then that I saw exactly how many socks the boy was using. he had four of them. The first would only cover his toes and the tip of the cast. The next was shaped like a canoe and primarily covered the base of the cast from front to back; over the heel. His next sock was actually a little tube-shaped thing that went up around the ankle. the final sock was an extremely oversized one that went from his toes almost up to his ankle. I never ever did figure out how a person who suddenly breaks a leg and gets a cast would be so darn organized when it came to dressing it up for winter. This was bizarre when the second most common cast protective method of the day after the knitted slipper was a combination sock and plastic bag.

During the second week a cast discussion between him and the teacher resulted in her suggesting that everyone get to sign his cast. When it came to my turn, I had a felt tipped pen ready to go but he declared no more felt so I had to go back and get an ink pen. I was excited as this was going to be my first cast signing. I felt the hard cast with my hands as I signed my first name and my initial onto the top front of the cast at about the angle between his foot and his lower leg. I was able to see my signature for the duration of his castedness.

Up until the middle of the second week, he had yet to make use of the green walking heel that adorned the bottom of his cast. The procedure was always that someone would fetch his crutches from the corner of the room where they were being stored whenever he wanted to get up. Then, we were doing arithmetic exercises individually when he got up to go see the teacher. No crutches, he limped gimpily over to her location. There were "ooos" and "ahhhs" and sparse applause from the class. the guy had begun to make use of his walking cast! Perhaps it was because I somehow saw this act as a sign of his imminent recovery but I wasn't impressed.

All told, the experience of being in a class with a casted kid was a good one. Talk was often turned to casts, walking casts, fractures, and broken bones. But, I did get to despise the guy at one point. For fundraising purposes, we had to sell chocolate bars. My parents were dead-set against such an activity as they felt that it was like the school system was turning us into peddlers. I took my usual dozen bars and I managed to sell about four. Poor broken and casted Michael took a dozen and he supposedly sold six by going door to door - so he claimed. The teacher gave the rest of us a tongue lashing calling us a bunch of lazy do-no-gooders allowing ourselves to be outsold by a casted kid. I was pragmatic about the whole thing, first, I hated his guts. Second, I realized that HE had the advantage and it was us "normal" people who were at the disadvantage. After all, who would refuse to buy a chocolate bar from a kid who had come crutching up to their door through the snow with a leg in a cast? But this was all speculation anyway as it may well have been his parents who sold the chocolate for him...

Eventually Michael was uncasted and became a mere mortal once again. I do not recall for how long he wore his hardware.

I had to wait until the sixth grade in order to get to see another school cast. This was a short arm cast (sac) on a guy who had suffered a Christmas break during the Christmas break. I never did get to sign this guy's cast but the teacher was coaxed into doing that in front of everyone. His cast already had a ton of writing on it, she could barely find a clear spot for her name. She was the antithesis of the previous year's teacher as she had youth, looks, and a sense of fashion. I recall that she only touched the cast with her fingertips as she winced at having to come into contact with what for her was a heavily soiled and grimy excuse for a cast. A cast that a few days later, I got knocked on the head with. It was as school ended and he'd been told by someone that the cast was very hard and that he should put it to good use. So, as imaginative as a sixth grader gets I guess, he proceeded to run along the sidewalk knocking everyone in his path on the head with it.

"You best keep that white piece of crap away from me," I lied.