My Prom Experiences

Do you know what the word "prom" is short for?  Anyone?  Anyone?  If you said "promenade", you are correct.  And now, the bigger question:  what's a promenade?  (I thought you'd never ask!)  A promenade is a walk or stroll in a public place, as if for display...or a march of guests into a ballroom at the beginning of a ball (dance).  When life was more genteel, formal society had balls as social functions.  We don't have too many balls these days--at least not here in the good ol' Midwest--except once a year in every high school in the country.  We call it Prom.

We had Prom back when I was in high school, too.  (That was the mid-1960s which, by today's conventions and standards, might as well be in the books as Ancient History.  Seriously.)  I went to Oak Park-River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois.  I also went to Prom.  Both of them.

In those days, girls were invited out by guys.  The only time a female was supposed to be able to invite a male to a  dance (or a date) was for the annual Sadie Hawkins Day dance at the school.  (The same thing applied to phone calls to boys.  I wasn't allowed to do that.  It wasn't proper.  It would make me appear "boy crazy"--something my parents didn't want for me.)  Prom was no exception. Girls that had steady boyfriends were assured of a date to Prom.  The rest of us who didn't--of which I was one--had to hope that someone would invite us.  That got tricky.  It was customary to accept the first invitation you got.  (It wasn't exactly appropriate to say, "Let me think about it and get back to you.  I want to wait to see if someone I like better invites me.")  So, we hoped and prayed that someone halfway acceptable would invite us.  The alternative was no Prom.  Was any date better than none at all?

Perhaps I should explain that there was no such thing as going "stag" to dances.  Either you had a date or you didn't go.  For the Prom, OPRFHS had some extra rules:  you could only go if you were a junior or senior, and your date had to be another OPRF student.  Tickets--called bids--had to be purchased in advance.  The dance was held in the school gym or a multi-purpose room.  There was no such thing as school-sponsored Post-Prom activities.  (We had to furnish our own after-Prom fun.)  Bands were live--no canned music with DJs in those days--and the music they supplied was almost always the "big band sound".  (Boring!)  But still, those of us dreamy-eyed teenage girls could fantasize that some secret admirer would come out of the woodwork, wine us and dine us in a fancy restaurant, dance with us, and take us someplace fun thereafter.  There weren't many opportunities to stay out late in my household, but Prom was on the "acceptable" list.  Here is also something that may be significant in your understanding of my saga:  OPRF was a BIG school.  The Class of 1965 had over 800 members in it.  In a school that size, if you found someone you wanted to date, it only happened in some smaller congregation, as it were.  And I wasn't exactly a social butterfly.  I was quiet, studious, and...well...kind of geeky.  The Covill kids weren't raised in the rich-bitch high society of Oak Park or River Forest.  We were just plain folk from the corn fields downstate.  And so, I waited for an invitation to the first OPRF Prom for which I was qualified to attend.

I can declare that I had dates to both my Junior Prom and my Senior Prom.  I am also here to tell you that BOTH experiences were absolute disasters!!!

Junior Prom (1964):
My best friend in those days was a girl that lived just down the block, Kristie.  She had been on a date with a fellow...once or maybe twice...who invited her to Prom.  In short order, his buddy decided to ask me.  We were going to double-date.  My date's name was Richard.  I didn't really know him.  Had been in a class with him, perhaps...but...  Prom isn't exactly the best day or time to go on a blind date, but I was grateful to have an avenue to get there...especially since I would be with Kristie and her date.  We could make it fun, maybe!  I should have been smarter.  As the day approached, there were no inquiries as to the color of my dress to match a corsage to it, nor was there any talk about where we would go pre-and-post-Prom.  My mother took me out to buy a formal dress.  It was white lace over a blue liner...sleeveless...and I thought it was beautiful.

And then, on the morning of the Prom, my so-called date called to tell me that he and his buddy had gotten into trouble with their parents the night before and both were forbidden to go to Prom as punishment.  I did not for a second believe that story, but short of having my mother call HIS mother to determine the truth, what was I to do???   I was crushed.  So was Kristie.

Somehow, word got around.  By early afternoon, a fellow called me saying that he had heard I didn't have a date, and did I want to go with him?  No...I really didn't.  This guy was a dweeb that followed me around like a crush.  He annoyed me...but...I had this dress...  I accepted.  I absolutely remember no more about that occasion.  Have no recollection of the evening at all.  I  only know that I felt totally rejected by the whole deal.  And so it was...

Senior Prom (1965): 
I was dating a fellow...sort of.  He was tall and buff and on the swim team.  He only appeared in my life after I had been on stage for a couple of plays.  I think we only actually went out together twice, but we spent the rest of our time in the hallways of the school. etc., and I felt "spoken for".  As spring approached, he seemed to be getting bored with me.   I was expecting an invitation to Prom.  It wasn't happening.  In fact, he began to ignore me.  We didn't break up because we weren't really going together, but I felt that we were...sort of.  ( One time, I appeared in new clothing, and he declared, "Great!  Most of the time, you dress like somebody's grandmother." Even after all these years, that is carved on my brain.)  During one period per day, I was scheduled into the library at the same time his little freshman brother was.  By passing notes, I was asking what was going on.  Little brother liked me but felt put on the spot.  He knew that his brother had no intention of inviting me to Prom, and I think he ratted to his parents.  (His father was a local Baptist minister.)  Shortly thereafter, I got a Prom invitation from Doug.  His parents forced it, but it wasn't to be fun.  I wasn't taken out before the dance, nor invited to go anywhere with him after.  Dance and home.  Done.  Never to be seen again.

As it happened, there were other kids who weren't  part of a Prom party that year.  We formed a posse and went to a Chicago museum together the morning after Prom, while all of the privileged folk drove to their parents' cabins on the Indiana dunes.

I remember nothing more, except when my own daughter came of age to attend Prom at Plainfield High School, she was dating a fellow from Ben Davis High School, and neither one of them had any desire to do the Prom thing at either school.  If I'd had a better experience with Proms, I might have pushed them a bit...but the truth is that Prom...at least these days...has no basis in reality.  I accept that it is a rite of passage...but when is the next time that a woman will be expected to dress up like that, pay for hair and make-up, get picked up in a limo and taken to a fancy restaurant, then back to the dance...then  taken to a place for fun and games, thereafter?  It doesn't happen.

Perhaps I am sour-graping things based on my own failed experiences...but you know what?  This whole topic only came up because of a conversation I was having with my daughter online yesterday. I didn't create this but was, rather, a victim of it.  Thank goodness times have changed!