Proms away! (Sad face)
They’re not happening this year. For anyone. Thanks to lockdown. For our writer, they never did.
There are two kinds of people, as they say. Those who went to their proms and those who, like me, stayed home and watched the Carol Burnett Show with their mom and dad.
I’m so glad we had this time together. Mom? Dad? It’s over. C’mon. Stop pretending to be asleep. Let’s play some more gin rummy. My deal.
No, I didn’t go the prom. I couldn’t get a date. I couldn’t even get a straight face. “You? Go to the prom with you? Please someone, get me a puffer. I’m hyperventilating I’m laughing so hard. Listen, do yourself a favour; while the rest of us are at the prom go to the drugstore and get a good skin cream.”
Wasn’t high school wonderful? Now, no one gets to go the prom. Ha ha. Look who’s laughing now. Actually, not me. I bear no grudges. I know it was, still is, hard for everyone. What I’ve learned after all these years is that the purpose of childhood is to prepare you for high school. The purpose of high school is to prepare you for life. And the purpose of life is to somehow get over high school.
Yes, I stayed home. But still, I have my memories. Harvey Korman was funnn-nnny that night! When he and Tim Conway broke each other up, they reminded me of Lisa when I asked her to the prom.
I was managing OK until Simon (Strike Out) Lavoie called at 11:20. I was watching Knowlton Nash when the phone rang. Earlier in the week Simon had invited me over to join him and some friends to spend prom night at his house playing Risk and studying chess openings. “Nothing fancy,” he said, “Cream soda and Baby Duck.”
I refused, of course. “Sorry, Simon,” I said. “As you might expect, I’ve got other plans.” Then, at the last minute, unbelievably, Simon was going to the prom. Sylvana said yes.
Simon was calling now from the prom. I could hear laughter in the background, and the band playing “Whole Lotta Love.”
“It’s fantastic,” Simon said. I could hear kissing sounds.
Over the arm of the chair by
the phone, my mother had draped my pale blue suit, just in case, and a tie with a knot still in it that my father did for me two years earlier.
As I went up to bed, I thought I heard my father say to my mother from another room, “So, he’ll die a virgin. It’s not the worst thing.” But probably what he really said was, “White shoes. I don’t think they’ll ever go out of fashion.”
We all develop at our own speeds. And while I didn’t get to the prom, there were other moments, other dances, other rituals of passage.
For all the Hamilton kids-becoming-adults this summer who were really counting on it but now have to wait for another day, I say, I hope that other day will come. I bet it will.
Prom or not, may you have your time. Sitting on the grass long after the dance, feeling the dew rise, watching the moon ebb, collars open, unknotted bow ties snaking down white shirts, stiletto heel shoes kicked off to the side, longtime friends in moody silhouettes talking wistfully ’til dawn about the birth of the universe at Hometown High.
And just beyond the bushes, something heard only in their hearts, scary and exciting at the same time — the future tugging at its leash.
(Jeff Mahoney updated and adapted a prom column he wrote in 2009 for today’s piece.)
Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com