My First Prom
Looking back from 2009-11-01.
I attended my first high school prom in the late spring of 1977 with [Shaina], who worked as a waitress in the lower school at WPSBC. You can read more about [Shaina] here, in the Tom’s Love Quest blog. Normally, tenth graders didn’t get to go to proms. However, the eleventh grade class that year did not wish to raise the needed money to sponsor this event, as was the tradition at our school. So my class volunteered. We ran a car wash for an entire day, and all nine of us tenth graders that spring pitched in and washed almost every staff member’s car. Great memories.
Then, once we had the money, we set to planning the prom. The theme was a combination of early American decorations along with lots and lots of 60s style flowers (flower power). We spent evenings for a week prior to the prom decorating the multi-purpose room in the lower school, and once or twice, [Shaina] would come over from the kitchen to see how we were doing.
My parents drove to Pittsburgh on this night to make sure I was dressed well and to meet [Shaina], who was 21 years old. I still have the one picture they took of [Shaina] and I holding hands and smiling. I wore an avocado green jacket, maroon pants, white shirt, and a tie, the colors of which I don’t recall right now. She wore a black and white dress with lots of swirly designs outlined with silver trim, and these very high shoes. My parents left once the prom got underway, and headed to a friend’s house to spend the night.
We arranged to have a band called The Impulses play at our prom. They were quite good and included a bass player who had graduated from our school in 1974.
I didn’t talk much with [Shaina] throughout the night, although many of the male staff came up to me and said that I had the cutest date of all. I’d have to agree on that, and this was probably why I was so shy with her. Fortunately, she understood.
The prom wrapped up at 11:00 PM I think. We did hold an afterglow until 2:00 AM on the boys side playground. But [Shaina] went on to bed at 11:30 PM, as she had to get up early the next morning to be a waitress for the youngsters in the lower school dining room. So though I had a date for the main prom event, I became dateless for the afterglow and hung out there with the other dateless souls. Actually, there were more who did not have dates than who did. I was one of the lucky few I suppose.
I’ll write more about [Shaina] in the Tom’s Love Quest blog eventually. I often wonder what ever became of her, and occasionally fantasize over how much fun it would be to connect with her again after all these years.