June 3, 2005

• My First Prom

  

  “My First Prom, at the age of 24″
  by Michael F. Nyiri

  In Junior High we didn’t have a prom, that I can remember, anyway. We had our regular Friday night dances, and perhaps the last one near the end of eighth grade was semi formal, but I don’t think so, because I’m pretty sure my parents bought my first actual “suit” for my eighth grade graduation. That was in 1967.

  High School prom was incredibly and magnificently special, I guess, for some kids, but I didn’t go. I had too many girls interested in me and I didn’t want to make a commitment, so I missed the affair.  Besides, all the girls I liked had steady boyfriends. I didn’t think I’d ever feel any nostalgia for something I wasn’t really interested in at the time. Although I attended dances every weekend in Junior High, I didn’ t go to the after game dances in high school, so skipping the prom seemed normal, even though it was a gala event in social terms. That was in 1971.

  Fast forward a few years. In 1977 I had been working for Ole’s Home Centers for nearly a decade. I had risen to the rank of “department manager”, running the garden shop and nursery department for the Torrance Store, located on one of the busiest intersections in the South Bay. I was single, having just broken up with my college age girlfriend because of another girl, and that relationship wasn’t working out as decently as I had planned. I lived alone in a bachelor apartment in Torrance, and palled around with a gang of guys who worked with me. Three of us were inseparable.
  My best buddy was Morgan, who lived with his girlfriend and three year old daughter. The other member of our little clique was Steve, a few years our junior. I had dropped out of USC in my fourth year, in 1974. and Morgan, who never finished high school, was my age. Steve had just got out of high school. We did everything together. Our “parties” are legend. Steve was our “designated driver” because he could drive perfectly when we were all on acid.  One week Rolling Stone featured Crosby, Stills, and Nash on the cover, and Steve had pencilled in “Morgan”, “Mike” and “Steve” over the likenesses of the group on my copy of the issue.

  By this time, I had developed a strong nostalgia for high school. I was making pretty good money as a manager, and I was having some good times with my buds, but in the back of my mind, everytime Prom came around, and I would see the high school kids in their finery, I would get nostalgic. I wrote a good many poems about my high school experience.

  Morgan and I got drunk together often, either at my apartment or at his, and even though he weighed in about 30 pounds heavier than I, we matched drink for drink, beer for beer, late into the evenings. Sitting at his kitchen table one night, with sobrietry a far memory of earlier in the evening, Morgan asked me a question, roughly slurring the words, after one of our “staredowns”, “Mike, do you like my sister?” The question came out of nowhere. Morgan had two sisters. One was married, and one was graduating from high school.
  “Who, Shawn?” The young girl in high school was somewhat attractive, but a tad overweight, like everyone in Morgan’s family, and she had bad teeth. I didn’t find anything “wrong” with her, and she was sweet, having been the only one in Morgan’s family to enjoy reading my poetry, which I would lend to her in thick binders for her to read and return when she finished a group of them.
  “Yeah, she wants to go to the prom, and nobody’s invited her.”
   ”Her high school prom?”
  “Yeah” Morgan reached for his beer and almost tipped it over.
  “That’s too bad,” I replied, nearly falling off the cheap kitchen chair. It was pretty late, and I usually retired on the couch in these instances. “Morgan, I think I’m ready to crash.”
  “Not until you promise to take Shawn to her prom.”
  I hesitantly attempted to aright myself from the chair, and in my boozy haze figured out what my best buddy was in fact asking. “That’s funny, Morg. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
  “Not so fast” The big guy was pretty light on his feet now, even with three or four sheets to the wind, and he rose from the table to face me. “You’re going to take Shawn to the prom.”
  “I’m going to take Shawn to the prom?” I parroted.
  “Yeah.”
  “Sure, Morg, now I gotta get some sleep.”

  I decided upon arising that taking the poor girl to her prom would be a nice gesture. Besides, I never went to mine, so this would be a chance to wallow in a bit of nostalgia. In the cold light of the next day, I began to make plans. I was 24, six years out of high school. Although it seemed somewhat strange to be going to a high school prom, I didn’t feel “old” and started to get a bit nostalgic again about the fact that I hadn’t gone to mine. The film “American Graffitti”, about the end of high school, had come out a few years earlier, and the TV show “Happy Days” was fueling the “nostalgia boom”. I found a chance to relive a moment in my high school life that didn’t exist. When she got the news, Shawn was ecstatic. I wouldn’t say she had a “crush on me” but we both enjoyed each other’s company, and I have always had just as many female friends as male ones. Morgan couldn’t think of a way to thank me. He was rather surprised that day when I accepted his drunken offer from the previous night.

  Later in the week I went to the tux rental store with Morgan and Steve. Shawn’s mother bought her a beautiful prom dress, and the big night was fast approaching. The gala was held at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. I drove Shawn in my 1974 Honda Civic. It wasn’t a limo, but I wasn’t really a “date”. I actually made quite an impression amongst these young people, an “older guy” in a tux with a full beard and thinning hair, and in my head, as even today, I don’t necessarily “feel” older than I did at high school age. I used to love to dance in those days, and a prom is essentially a formal dance. It being 1977 the theme was something of a disco wonderland, but the kids at this particular high school were also into rock and roll, so there were plenty of Queen and Journey songs with which to let out all the stops. I don’ t  believe I missed a dance, and became a focal point on the dance floor there, as I had in many bars and discos in Torrance when I began to “strut my stuff.”

  As usual in social situations, even amongst these young people, I struck up conversations with strangers, and my “dance card” was pretty quickly filled with a variety of young women besides Shawn. I had a wonderful time, and even ‘fell in love’ with one young gal with whom I shared the dance floor numerous times. This one gal gave me her head garland and I still have it somewhere. I still remember dancing with this nameless beauty who of course was to disappear from my life forever after the prom was over.

  Shawn of course wasn’t “upset” that her “date” was socializing with all her high school friends, since we weren’t linked “romantically”.  I got the feeling that she wasn’t that popular, and I had begun to feel back “in my element” in the situation so my ebullience and outgoing personality and sudden popularity helped to make Shawn feel good too. Nobody that I remember made fun of the fact that this girl was shepherded to her prom by her older brother’s best buddy.

  A good time was had by all. I had a photo taken so I could cherish the memories forevermore.

  Afterwards, to my delight, any game of oneupsmanship between Morgan and me was instantly in my favor for having done him this one. What started as a somewhat funny and offhand remark on one drunken night actually transformed into an evening of beauty and good memories.

  I lost track of Morgan over the years. I moved quite a few times, and gathered new cliques of friends. Here’s to you, Buddy, and to you, Shawn. Thanks to you guys, I was able to experience not my own, but still a high school prom, at the incredible age of 24. I wonder how many people can make that claim?

  • 7:47 am
  • 19 Comments