Throw-Back-Monday: Prom

I apologize for lacking in posts last week. Life sometimes gets in the way. I will try to make it up to you this week, though! That said, my social media pages have been inundated by so many posts and tweets about prom the last couple of weeks, I feel compelled to share a prom with you. This post is dedicated to Fairfield Jr.-Sr. High School’s Class of 1998 …

Prom. Yeah, not really my scene. In hindsight, it was never going to be the end all be all of my high school years.

Firstly, I have no rhythm. At a club you can get away with looking the fool because you can chalk it up to being tipsy, or at the very least there’s always some yahoo twirling around in sky high stilettos flailing about worse than you. Always.

Secondly, it’s kind of lame. Overpriced dress attire, terrible food, corny photo-ops and forced mingling set to cheesy ballads and crappy pop picks. Does that really sound like an exciting night for anyone?

Thirdly, deep down, I just didn’t care.  

I will say this, however – prom was so much simpler back then. In my day, it was put on by the Junior class. The Junior class officers and elected student representatives were our prom committee and decided the theme, the colors, the decor, the trinkets, the DJ, etc. It was supposed to be their gift to the Seniors.

As a class, they were required to raise funds to pay for these things by selling magazines which was sort of a self-perpetuating money making scheme embraced by the entire community. Typically magazines are sold as annual subscriptions. What did this mean for the Juniors and their magazine sales? That every year people would need to renew their subscriptions. So as long as the new crop of 11^th graders continued the legacy of knocking on doors and calling all contacts, there was a high probability that those targets people were likely in need of re-upping their yearly magazine commitment. Thus prom would always be…

Here’s where things get interesting. The whole operation was a little competitive. Every year the Juniors would break the previous year’s record of funds raised. Every year they were driven to crush their predecessor’s final tally by selling more magazines and bringing in more dough. Until my class rolled around…the class of 1998. And this is just one of the reasons why I loved my class.

We were a whopping 81 students strong. We were the smallest class my Jr.-Sr. High School had had for many years. All other classes capped out at a hundred plus. Breaking the previous class’s magazine sales record was going to be an uphill battle from the start. It was a numbers game and we were definitely on the losing end of that one. But we’re Hoosiers, right? They made a movie about us. Underdogs overcoming adversity because of numbers… Ring a bell? (Darewood only made me watch the damn thing about 150 frigging times) The difference was – those underdogs gave a shit. My classmates did not.

We were the first class since the beginning of time, according to our Prom Sponsor, to not reach our goal. This meant we could not afford the prom we were supposed to provide.

1. We would need to seek a new location. (God forbid)
2. There would be no prom feast. (Oh my)
3. We would not be able to purchase an archway of balloons. (The horror)

Translated?

1. We could no longer host prom at the local retirement center where it was held every year. (yep, you read that right. Our school’s previous standard was that of a local retirement center.)
2. We would not be able to afford the chicken finger buffet and fruit punch fountain. (i.e. the feast)
3. No archway of balloons. (so that one’s kind of the same)

Needless to say, Prom Sponsor was devastated. And kinda pissed.

This forced our band of misfits to be a little more creative. So we ended up with a gorgeous hotel on a lake as our host site. I think we may have had a sit down dinner with gold place settings and awesome food. And we decorated with white Christmas lights instead of so many tacky balloons. It was kind of a killer change up from the old folks’ home. Not bad for a bunch of small fries that caught a ton flack for slacking in their class duties.

My peers made me proud with how that prom turned out. That said, I hated being on the prom committee. Being VP of my class, it was thrust upon me to be a part of the group preparing a dance like they were preparing for the Second Coming. I don’t begrudge the girls who went to town with their prom planning shenanigans – clearly it worked out well for all involved. In fact, I imagine most little girls look forward to prom only next to their wedding. I just wasn’t that girl (anyone who knows me also knows I had a half-assed wedding. Again, not much of planner in the big life events department).

Regardless, my class came together and conquered prom in a way no one expected. Fairfield Class of 1998, I tip my hat in your direction. We were pretty cool cats and always managed to pull off the unexpected.

Now, I only attended because I was on the committee. I made a pact with a couple of girls that if we didn’t come across dates, we’d go together. So I attended with these lovely ladies and had a great time.

Prom 1997. Me, Krista and Melissa. This is the only picture I could find off hand. I’m sure there are others somewhere. Again, didn’t quite care …

Pretty positive Krista got a speeding ticket in her dad’s Corvette that night … (totally have to call you out on that one, dear. It takes steel balls to rock a borrowed car like that at 100 mph + on their way home *wink*)

I still hated the corny photo-ops, the cheesy music and the fact my parents wasted $48.95 on a dress, but Melissa, Krista and my classmates made it fun.

I still bailed on my Senior prom. Don’t regret it for a second.