past memories

I think probably talking with my old friend had me remembering some of the crazy things we used to do.
One thing, that we all really looked forward to, every year, and BEGGED our parents to let us do, was the Dance A Thon. This was a band fundraiser, people pledged money per hour. We usually ALL made it the full 25 hours.

For one weekend, we would meet in the town hall of this tiny tiny town nearby, where tape players, and record players were set up on a stage. We had signed up in advance for an hour of controlling those things, being the "DJ" as it were.
We would be in that town hall for 25 hours. Dancing. Laughing. Getting punchy at 3 am.
It was set up like this. We would dance, with a 10 minute break each hour. We could use the restroom, moving our feet the whole time. We also got an hour for dinner when that time came about. We had snacks rolling around, things to drink.
And we were crazy! We were a room full of teenagers, with very few adults, and lots of loud music. The person on the stage got to pick whatever it was that came on.
There were hours that were designated for fun things, like a lip sync contest, dance contest, ect. Those were usually planned for somewhere around 3 in the morning, when it was the hardest to stay awake. About that time we would all be wandering around like zombies, drooling teenage zombies. So the contests helped.
At the last hour, those of us that had done 25 hours would win a tee shirt, with some design denoting the success of the years Dance A Thon, usually drawn by a student. Then, our parents would come fetch us, and after a long, sleepy shower, I would sleep, for somewhere around 17 hours if Mom would let me get away with it.
Shortly after I left highschool I heard that they decided they could no longer let the kids have the dance a thon. Something about legal crap and blah blah blah. So they had a shorter one, for just a few hours, right after the home coming dance. Then they eliminated it all together. Which is too bad. Because the Dance a thon weekend was one of the best times I had in highschool.