Auntie Meme, Or "Am I Going To Prom, Or To Hell?"

[Jonno's musings on his prom, and the recent visit of Rochester Terri (who was part of the group with whom John went to his prom; the pictures are a John Hughes wet dream) take me right back to the three Sonoma Valley High junior-senior proms I attended. Precocious as always, and (just as typically) flailing at the end, I went to prom my freshman, sophomore, and junior years, and skipped "my" prom senior year. I also went to the "senior ball," a separate event, my sophomore year. These stories are going to have a "last year, at band camp" flavor, so bear with me.]

[As a freshman, I befriended lots of the older kids in band. Most especially, F. and J. were...well, if I'd been an out as a fag, they'd've been my hags. As juniors, they wanted to go to prom. J. had an unfortunate boyfriend M., with whom she had a secret (to many of us) pregnancy and childbirth that year. (Yes, this sounds as strange to me in retrospect as it looks in print; however, at the time, J. just seemed to be getting fatter as the school year went on, missed the jazz band's trip to Reno in March, and was back at school the next week after putting the oops up for adoption. What a world...) M. and J. went to prom, leaving F. to ask me.]

[F.'s mother, while raising two girls alone on a school secretary's salary, was creative with the needle and thread, and made F.'s dress, a spectacular red satin number with black piping, which went great with F.'s vaguely Latina looks. I wore a rented black tux with red bowtie and cummerbund. After the obligatory photo sessions (me solo in my parents' backyard, F. and me in F.'s living room), J. & M. and F. & I went to dinner at Alioto's on Fisherman's Wharf, and the dance at the (then Sheraton) Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco.]

[While I certainly wasn't out of the closet, there was no question of anything romantic happening between F. and me. As "just friends" (a phrase I hated then as much as I do now; what, like friends are chopped liver? "Just," feh...), we were free to relax and have a good time. Oh, and unlike Jonno's Hair Metal High's prom theme, this one was "Walking On The Moon" by the Police, which I've always thought was kinda cool. Good for the class of '84.)]

[The Class of '85, J. and F's class, didn't do such a good job. Their theme was "Almost Paradise," from the Footloose soundtrack, which is about as haute fromage as you can get. By this time, Lars had moved to town, F. and Lars had dated and broken up, Lars and I had had a secret two-month affair that had ended abruptly when his brother may or may not have caught us fooling around, J. had broken up with M., and J., while weathering a soul-destroying crush on Lars, had taken me to the Senior Ball at the Sonoma Mission Inn. By the time prom rolled around, Lars and I weren't speaking, J. and F. (best friends since junior high) were barely speaking, and F. and I gratefully decided to go to the prom together again. This time it was at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. F.'s mom again made her frock (this time a black, cocktail-length dress; again, very flattering), and I was in a standard-issue black tux with black accessories. A friend of F.'s family drove us to dinner at the Alta Mira Hotel in Sausalito, then across the Richmond Bridge to the Claremont, and then home again.]

[F. and J. graduated, and I really believed my prom-going days were over. Junior year, my friend Colleen (who now lives in San Francisco with her wife Frankie, and who John and I see from time to time) asked me at the last minute if I'd like to go with her. She was the latest of my female band friends to have a crush on Lars (he'd escorted her the previous year; life in the closet is a sick and a terrible place) but he decided to go with a clarinet player two years our junior.]

[Anyway, Colleen didn't come from a rich family either, so she wore the same white lace, floor-length dress she'd worn the year before; I was in a grey tux with burgundy accessories; and we doubled with her best friend Christina and a freshman trumpet player, both straight and maybe dating by this time. (I can't remember.) Dinner: the Hotel Mac in Point Richmond; dance, a waterside nightclub in Tiburon whose name escapes me; theme: the class of '86 gave up on the song title game and just called the dance "Breezin' on the Dock," which is not quite Otis Redding. It was my least favorite of the three, mostly because I knew Colleen wanted to be there with Lars, and, truth be told, I probably did too.]

[After all this, people kept asking me whether I was going to my own senior prom. It was to be held at Piper-Sonoma Winery in the town of Windsor, north of Santa Rosa. (My friend Susanna, who I assume was an amused spectator to all the above drama and wisely brought in dates from outside band most years SHE went to the prom, now lives in Windsor, which she calls Stepford for its plastic, suburban feel.) As the time drew closer, a. I didn't really have anyone I wanted to go with; b. I was deeply involved in the school play; c. I was writing a weekly "high school scenes" column for the local paper; and d. I was looking forward to getting the hell out of Sonoma that fall. So I gave it a miss, and I don't regret it one bit.]

[I will say I was glad that I fell in with a group in high school that didn't drink, do drugs, or have (much) sex (Lars and me, and J.'s pregnancy notwithstanding.) I'm glad I never had the apres-prom-hotel-room tussle to deal with, or, for that matter, never puked out of a car window. I saved all that crap for college...]

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