Prom Night Confidential

Unlike many people I know, my memories of high school are pretty darned great: dates every weekend, membership in the cool girls clubs as well as in the look-good-for-college clubs, close girlfriends and boy friends (as distinguished from boyfriends), top grades, a part-time job at the downtown bookstore.  Neither were there significant clashes with my parents except about curfew, which they set unnaturally early and therefore which I regularly broke.  Grounding (from dates) was the punishment of choice.  Unfortunately for family discipline, I was very good at crafting plausible excuses for being ‘out’ at night — school projects, all-girl slumber parties, extra shifts at work. Plus there was a crawl-out-able window in my bedroom.  My busy dating life really didn’t suffer at all.

Being invited to the Senior Prom, back in the day, was the capstone of a teenage girl’s dating career and overall cool cred.  It was even cooler if you were a Sophomore or Junior (and thus were dating a Senior).  I scored a three-fer, which made me extraordinarily pleased with myself.  Until Senior year, that is.

The Barbie Queen of the Prom game had boyfriend cards.  My Sophomore prom date was a dark-haired, nerdy Poindexter type; my Junior date was a thinner version of Bob; my fateful Senior date was a Ken with Tom’s glasses.

Senior Year Prom should have been the absolute best.  I’d been asked by a long-standing boy friend, but we’d never been romantically involved even though we spent a lot of excellent time together.  My ‘real’ boyfriend and future prom escort was a very good-looking guy, and we’d been dating most of the spring.  Because my parents had met him frequently and liked him reasonably well, I began a campaign to get them to allow me to Stay Out All Night.  This was a customary Senior Prom privilege: one would go to after-dance parties and Senior Breakfasts and then, if you were really lucky, head up to Waupaca for a day or so of fun at the lakes.

This isn’t me, but it could be.  I wore my hair that way and my dress was quite similar, minus the chiffon side flounce. 

We’re talking about you're-grounded-until-you-qualify-for-social-security parents here.  What I realistically hoped for was an uncharacteristically late curfew, like 2:00a.m., which would at least let me go to a post-prom event or two.  But what to my wondering ears should appear, finally, than permission to Stay Out All Night!  No Waupaca, of course, but even still!  My Sophomore-Senior prom had a 10p.m. (bargained up to 10:30) curfew and my Junior-Senior prom pumpkined out at midnight. My Senior-Senior Prom:  All Night! 

For some reason, my mother thought orchids were tacky; this opinion was magically conveyed to my prom dates, and my wrist corsages always featured roses.

My Senior-Senior prom started well, with a new dress and a reasonable amount of primping and my date showing up on time with the obligatory wrist corsage.  The prom proper was held at one of the local country clubs, as was the custom at Appleton High in those days, and there was dancing and local 'rock' bands and making sure that everyone saw you were there with an envy-worthy date.  Then, around midnight, the prom ended and it was time for post-prom festivities.

I remember walking to the parking lot, excited about our next destination.  

“Should we go to Sue’s party or do you want to go to . . . “ 

Who wouldn’t be happy to be finished with the lame prom dance part so one could start the real fun?

My date, whom I’ll call Mike because that was his name, fumbled with his car keys.  Unlike my Junior-Senior prom date (also named Mike) who’d had to his credit an eye-turning yellow Kharmann-Ghia, this even cuter Senior-Senior Mike Two was driving the family sedan. It sputtered, and so did he.  

“I have to get home, you know . . . “

This isn’t me either, but the expression of horrified disappointment is accurate.

I didn’t know.  He had never mentioned a curfew before.  Instead, he’d complained about mine. And it was SENIOR PROM.  

Ultimately, following awkward silences and non-explanations, I was deposited back home . . . at 12:30p.m.  After I’d finally been given permission to Stay Out All Night!  Instead of going inside and admitting why I was back so early, I picked my way in my white satin heels to our garage, where I crawled (alone!) into our car’s back seat and tried to sleep until dawn, when I could respectably show up at my house. 

Back seat dreams: the expectation and the reality.

I pretended to my parents that I’d had a great Senior Prom night because it was too embarrassing to say otherwise. I later found out that Mike Two had been surreptitiously dating a Junior girl named Janet (whose father was the coach of our municipal minor-league baseball team; who could compete with free tickets all summer?) and had ‘arranged’ his double prom night allegiance by keeping his word to take me to the dance but then meeting his new squeeze (who obviously didn’t have the curfew regimen I had endured) after disencumbering himself of . . . me.

 “That’s Life!"

This painful night was not the perfect way to end an otherwise happy high school sojourn.  But in a way it was.  Being dumped by Mike Two freed me (in a stupid teenaged emotional way) to spend that last summer before college with long-standing buddies, including my dear boy friend whose prom invitation I’d rejected for the more dashing parvenu boyfriend's. What I remember most about that post-Senior-Prom summer: my boy friend (teetering on the edge of being a boyfriend), my best girl friend, her boyfriend, and moi playing cards and board games, going to movies, making music together, slinging fractured jokes in French, complaining about our summer jobs, hanging out with our parents (!), discussing our hopes and plans for the future, promising to be friends forever, and . . . laughing.  Laughing in sheer pleasure of being together and in anticipation of what seemed an unlimited future and about less-than-ideal high school experiences, like being abandoned at the Senior Prom.

From my high school (Appleton Senior High) to yours:  Happy Memories!