It’s prom season and I thought I would share with you all one of the reasons being from the town I am from has meant so much to me and how its history feels so personal.
At this point, we’ve established that I’m from Pernell, Oklahoma and that I graduated from Elmore City – Pernell High School in a neighboring town, Elmore City. And you know about the celebration that went on back in April. Well, there’s a reason why this all hits home for me.
My parents don’t believe in dancing. Or didn’t. I’m not really sure. I don’t press the issue anymore since I’m an adult, but the point is that growing up I was taught that dancing was a sin. No explanation, no verses to back it up, no classifying what kind of dancing was evil…nothing. All I knew was that once junior high rolled around I got to feel like even more of an outsider than I already did. Never in all my years at school did I get to attend a homecoming dance or a spring fling.
I got used to it. Got used to throwing out excuses that wouldn’t make the kids accuse me of going to a “snake church” (I heard that one a few times). For the record, my church had nothing to do with it. All of the kids that I went to church with in Duncan were going to dances. I tried to bring that up as a point to argue. It wasn’t pretty.
Junior year. In our small town it meant planning prom, putting it all together, and getting to attend for the first time (unless you’d been invited by an upper classman during your freshman or sophomore years). I tried to push it out of my mind. I was on student council, was a class officer, and was a part of the committee that was making it all happen. There was really no escaping it. It is, literally, the biggest thing of your junior year of high school.
And as far as I knew, I wasn’t going.
No one’s going to miss me though, I thought to myself more than once. In my mind, I was frumpy, a nerd, I had frizzy hair, and had never been on a date (or even asked out) in my entire life. (cue Janis Ian’s “Seventeen”) It wasn’t as if someone was going to ask me to go.
But someone asked me and I said yes, still not knowing if my dad would let me.
Then another one asked. And then another. And then two more. (At this point, I must ask: Isn’t there some kind of guy code about this? I would have never dreamed of asking a guy to prom if my friend had already asked him.)
I begged and I cried and I wrote terrible poetry and hoped that maybe…maybe I would be allowed to attend. There’s no leftover memory of how it happened. But my parents said that I could go under one condition. Anything, as long as I can go.
I’m sure you’ve guessed it. They allowed me to go as long as I wouldn’t dance. The classmate I ended up going with (I went with the first one that asked, as I figured that was the fair thing to do. If I had it to do over again, I’d pick the person I was better friends with) was fine with that. I made sure and asked beforehand. Seriously, there are few boys age 16-17 who really want to dance. I sat the whole thing out…but I was there. My hair was done, I was in a pretty dress.
It’s been 8 years since that night. We visited my hometown a few weeks ago to celebrate the 30th anniversary of prom, but the rain really washed away a lot of the excitement surrounding the day. Still, it brought back a lot of memories of my first prom and the thrill of being given a chance to do something I had fully expected to be left out of. It made me think of how much things have changed. How my parents never fussed over me taking 18 hours of upper division dance courses at OU (enough to get you a minor in anything else, but they don’t offer it there). And how, if I hadn’t taken those ballroom dancing classes, I wouldn’t have been there for this final dance, where this guy came to watch me and took this picture of me and my best friend.
And then I married him.
What are your memories of your first prom? If you didn’t go, why not? Share you memories of this special occasion because I’m dying to know!
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Oklahoma girl through-and-through. Writer, aspiring domestic goddess and totalitarian dictator. Taking on the world one carb-induced coma at a time. Founder of GodlyGals, a ministry for women established in 2002. Co-host of Picture Shows & Petticoats. 
Both my senior and junior proms were…interesting. My junior year I was “convinced” to go with a friend’s guy friend who supposedly liked me (never go with a date who has a crush on you if you don’t like them back!). I was so shy….I had also never really been to a dance with a guy before, so I basically hid in the bathroom all night with my girl friends to avoid dancing with him. He apparently wasn’t happy about it afterwards and wouldn’t talk to me at school. Ah well.
Senior year I decided to go with a friend who asked me. I’m not sure WHY he asked me as he was one of the most popular guys at the school and any girl he wanted probably would have said “yes.” He said it would be fun to go with a friend so I agreed to. A few days before prom I heard he and one of my girl friends kinda started liking each other, so I told him he should ask her to go because they would probably have more fun together (I’m not a huge dancer and he was). So, I went solo to senior prom with all my friends in a big limo (I paid for 2 people) and we were late to the dance because we went out to someplace nice to eat and the servers basically ignored us because we were “kids.” We had about an hour or 2 at the dance before it was over. I almost missed being announced for homecoming court (didn’t win) got a lot of pictures then went home while my friends hung out later because I had to get up early for my sister’s college graduation the next morning. I had really wanted to go with a junior friend I liked and he wanted to go with me, but a week before prom I went with him to a school awards event and on the way home we got stuck in a major storm, stalled out, and his car flooded, so all his money went into fixing his car). Ah the memories! Haha.
I didn’t got to my junior prom. I was not interested in boys or what “everyone else did.” I think I stayed home and watched The X Files or something as equally ridiculous.
For senior year, I attended Senior Ball. I was on the Prime Time Committee. Prime Time was the all night after party at school – completely drug and alcohol free.
It is particularly memorable for a few reasons…
1. My date and sort of boyfriend dumped sprite on my dress. You can still see the mark it left to this day. YES, I still own that dress AND the shoes that I wore with it. Shoes still fit, dress doesn’t but maybe someday.
2. My date asked one of my friends to his prom while he was with me at MY prom. Funny thing was this wasn’t the only time he did this. He invited a different friend to a winter ball earlier in the year and she said yes… and he tried to put the moves on her. At least this friend said no, because she thought that was a totally scummy thing to do.
Looking back, I wish I would have gone alone and partied to my heart’s content without my date.