I didn't go to my high school prom. Neither did my best friend Kate. We both boycotted it. That isn't as easy as you might think.
McLean High School in 1986 was not exactly a typical high school. The spirit of the "me decade" was a very prevalent theme, and even though at the time I thought I was not part of the "me" phenomena, looking back, I think I was. I may have been different than everyone else, but I, too, was obsessed with my own importance in the scheme of things, even if I didn't care for anyone else's opinions. I was recovering from depression, I had an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, and most of my life since 8, I kind of took care of myself.
My best friend, who happened also to be a girl, shared in this dance with unpopular reactions. This was hard to do in a High School that was so over-focused on its own image, that they expelled pregnant people, and either feared or didn't understand individuality. I think it was harder for girls, because even though "the system" didn't actively discriminate against girls, there were a lot of kids who were "expected" to be a certain way. Like our cheerleaders, for instance, who always looked bored and awkward, like someone forced them to be in that position. I never recall them being happy or full of school spirit. Kate was a sharp cookie, however. Highly intelligent, with a rapier wit and a sarcastic bite that would best even the Daria standards set in the late 1990s. In fact, when I watch Daria, I think about how Kate and I were back then a lot. She was one of those kids who spent half her youth overseas. In her case, she was in Germany as a wee tyke, then Thailand for a few years, and even Yakoska, Japan before she moved back to the US when she was about 11. She had a lot of typical demeanor like the "state department brats" or "military brats" I knew growing up. You know the US isn't the only thing around. You have seen better or seen worse (in Kate's case, she witnessed a murder on her front lawn in Bangkok), and you feel out of place. Kate felt VERY out of place, and was always out of step with her peers. She was short with a slight limp, she had a face that was accented by wild and semi-curly hair, and bottle-thick glasses. People who looked like her in horror movies often have a loud and angry chorus playing in the background. She spooked a lot of people, an image she adored and used as much as she could. I heard the rumors. They ranged from her sexual preferences to her supposed violent exploits, with a lot of occult stuff thrown in. As if. I liked her company because she was funny, witty, and non-mainstream.
I met her as a freshman when another friend (a girl named Donnalee) needed me to mediate an argument between her and Kate. Donnalee was a typical big sister teasing type of prankster, and loved to horse around at the pool, and got carried away when she tried to dunk Kate. She didn't know at the time that Kate didn't know how to swim. This mediation ended up as a tenuous apology at best, but I began to know Kate, and when we found we both had a healthy interest in the Science Fiction community later that year, we became friends. Both of us experienced each other's growth from pre-teen to pre-adult in all its horrifying glory. I can't speak for Kate, but I know without her friendship and support, I never would have survived high school. But despite what people thought, we never were really "boyfriend and girlfriend" in the romantic or sexual sense. We were platonic best friends. Actually, I had more female friends than male as a teen. I just along better with the females, partly because they were better conversationalists, but also because we had common interests. I was never a jock, never looked at women as potential sex mates, and didn't go for the male bonding sort of thing. I felt I could trust a girl.
But being with Kate had implications. Kate's image was very "haunting" to others. I got asked a lot of questions over the years I was with her, and people saw our punkish-goth sort of relationship as "weird" and "probably unhealthy." I used to be annoyed at this, exclaiming, "Hey! That's my best friend you're talking about! And no, I am not screwing her brains out." Kate never cared about the rumors. It was all a joke to her, but I was in a frame of mind where I took everything way too seriously anyway. I hated my high school at the time, which she did too, and so did most of our friends, for that matter. I hope the high school has changed for the better, but there's only so much shallowness that spoiled rich kids can avoid. But while I was living it, it was hell, and I would do anything to distance myself from the masses.
Part of the reason was the adult establishment. We had this extremely lame principal named Elizabeth Lodal. A typical clueless hyper-happy adult who seemed to think that "Communication and Understanding" were fun buzzwords rather than something that you had to actually work at. Most of the teachers hated her right off the bat. Students rolled their eyes at her inane ideals of happy-wappy student spirit in a school full of apathetic rich kids. She just could not connect at our level. One of her extremely stupid ideas involved the funding the Prom. Kate and I had already resolved by the end of our Junior Year that we were not going to our Senior Prom. It wasn't so much the school, but our feelings towards pomp and circumstance without substance. I had many senior friends who graduated that year, and most of them said the prom was a disappointment and a waste of money. But we received more opposition to this than we would have imagined. It all started with those damn peanut logs.
Imagine a disgusting glistening log about a foot long and five inches thick, dark brown in color, and covered with walnuts and pecans. A description that another kid made was, "a giant turd covered in nuts." This was so perfect a description, I wish I had thought of it. Thank God these things were encased in shrink-wrap or any decent citizen would have called the health department. A golden label adorned one side, showing its contents that read less like food ingredients, but more like a chemistry book with words that had dozens of syllables, and some that sounded like radioactive isotopes like, "Polysorbate 80" (and please don't send me e-mail on this, I know Polysorbate 80 is not an isotope and it is something like a glucose product, but it sounds a lot like one, like say Strontium 90 or Uranium 238, doesn't it?). The goal was set to sell ten of these nauseating things per student to help finance the senior prom. You were supposed to pick them up, sell them at $35 a pop, and bring back the money within the month. Quickly, our little neighborhood was swarmed with people begging door to door to have pity upon their souls to exchange these frozen bowel movements for cash or check. Quickly, even the most sympathetic old lady, who always bought candy for the band, began to hide behind her closed door, lights out, pretending not to be home. What ended up happening was parents bought the logs themselves and tossed them (or gave them as gifts to relatives they didn't particularly care for). One of my friend's parents said, "They might as well have just said, ‘Pay up $350 or your kid doesn't go!'" Now, as parent myself, I have had to deal with similar situations with school photos, gift-wrappings, and supermarket receipts.
Later in our Junior year, someone made a list. I am not sure who had this list, but it went to our guidance counselors. This list showed who had paid for their logs, and who had not. Since at first there were a lot of no-shows, they made it a "law," so to speak, and said if you didn't sell them, no prom for you next year. This is why they had a list. You actually had to show up to some room, sign out your logs, and sign in your $350 when you got it. A few people, like Kate and myself, completely blew off this bogus idea. So, in late Spring, we received pink slips to show up to our respective counselors. My counselor was a cool guy, who knew about my problematic family life, and rarely gave me hassles. I think he was just glad I never skipped class and cared enough to get a passing grade. His speech was pre-fabricated, and carried with a tone that he didn't care for hearing it either. "You should take these and sell them," he said. "They help pay for your prom next year." I pointed out to him that they actually paid for this year's prom for the class ahead of me, they had to pay $75/head for tickets anyway, so would we next year, and it was all moot anyway, since I was not going to my prom. This last statement didn't shock him much, but I did get the speech I would hear from a lot of people for the next year: "Oh, but it's your PROM… you can't miss that!"
Kate fared much worse. Her counselor called her parents. Kate's parents were a bit odd, but pretty fair, and her mother said, "If she doesn't want to, I am not forcing her." Kate, being female, received far more pressure than I did. My mother told me about her prom, and how nice it was, but knew my father certainly wouldn't allow $350 of his hard-earned money to go towards anything as ridiculous as this. Kate's parents had the, "I hope you know what you are doing…" talk but it only made her more determined. Finally, we were let off the peanut log harassment, citing we had "psychological differences" with the concept. Since both of us were seeing therapists once a week, this explanation was good enough for most people. But both Kate and I got smarmy comments from adults over the next year, hinting or outright stating that it was okay to go to the prom without dates, as if that was our problem. Uh, no. It seemed no one actually believed we just didn't buy into the whole concept.
Then came our Senior year. Prom mania began to take hold, although only slightly so with the students. I think a lot of them went because it was something you were supposed to do. Then came the tickets. This will probably come as no surprise to my readers, but Kate and I did not buy any. This completely confounded everyone in charge of the tickets, and again our counselors were brought into the fray. I again got the, "You know, if you miss this, you will regret it the rest of your life," speech. I think everyone who left us alone thought we'd somehow "get over it." Kate somehow got in trouble over the incident. She got a speech that it would end up in her permanent student record, and this "silly stubbornness" was a discredit to her. They really wanted her to go the prom, "for her own good." She fought back, and since you can't really force someone to go to the prom, they finally left her alone. Kate ranted for days about how people were treating her over this, and rightly so. She received FAR more pressure from people just because she was a girl. Her counselor even came to ME and asked me to change her mind. Right. Yeah, I'll just flip a switch in the back of her head and change her mind. I had always respected Kate for her stout resolution, and I wasn't about to get in the way of it. Besides, I didn't want to go to the prom at all, and even if I did want to go, I couldn't have afford it anyway. I wasn't as brave as Kate was, however, and usually said nothing when I got these speeches.
Other students were puzzled as to our actions. Some had heard about the peanut log incident, and some were completely blown away by what some called that ultimate "up yours" to our school. "Why don't you want to go?" I got asked. "I have no desire to go," I said, with a tone in my voice that it was all so bourgeoisie. I didn't want to shell out $300 for a tux, pay who knows how many $$$ for the limousine (McLean people always showed up in Limos, it was the way things are done, don't you know...), and then the parties afterwards where people got drunk, screwed each other, and all for what? To prove that you were a semi-adult? I could do that by doing my own laundry, cleaning up after my mother's vomit, and go to school and work so I could buy food for the week so I wouldn't starve. I wanted no part of this prom crap. As the date grew closer, I actually had some people questioning it themselves, but no rebellion started (nor did I want or expect one). One memorable discussion I had involved a girl who said, "$300 for a tux? That's pocket change! My dress cost me $1200, you males get it off easily!" She was right, you know. But then I asked the simple question, "Then why are you going?" She sputtered for a moment, and then said, "It's the prom!" Petito principii – it is because it is. I wasn't buying it. Then she said she had a date, had he was going, and that she had to go. I didn't buy that either, but now that I am older, I feel kind of bad I was challenging her beliefs. She really got mad, mostly because she couldn't really defend it except to say all her friends were going to be there.
Then came January 10th. My mother committed suicide, I was put in a temporary home for a while,
and then allowed back in school after a two-month absence. Due to some vicious rumors, many fellow students
thought I was dead. Let me tell you, if you want to spook the hell out of people, let them think you are dead,
get them past acceptance, and then return suddenly like nothing had happened. Kate knew I wasn't dead, but
she wasn't going to just blab to anyone about what happened, and she didn't speak to many people anyway. The
important people (my friends) knew I was not dead. I reappeared a month before the prom, and after people got
over my exaggerated absence, many thought it was the ultimate prank. "That was SO cool!" some people said.
"What?" I asked. Some people actually thought a lot of events in my life were some carefully staged acts of
demonstrative rebellion. I was becoming an underground hero without my knowledge. That, to me, was the ultimate
joke. Here I was, just wanting to survive my horrible life, and people were respecting my mishaps as some
brilliant political maneuver designed to humiliate and shock. Whatever!
And Kate and I never went to the prom. Sorry, no Disney ending here where we fell in love and went or anything. Actually, in a moment of irony (sort of), Kate and I went to a science fiction convention called Disclave 87 that was on the same night as the prom. While the prom was blaring its Huey Lewis goodness at rich kids in costumes that cost more than my college tuition, Kate and I went to a Dance at Disclave called, oddly enough, "The Anti-prom." That dance was dedicated to those who hated their High School Prom. Kate wore a costume someone had loaned her, I had a black monk's robe still from Halloween, and we went dancing. Okay, we hung around and watched middle-aged white sci-fi geeks attempt to dance, and laughed not so much they they couldn't dance, but we couldn't but at least we didn't TRY so hard. We had a good time at Disclave 87, and celebrated this would be the last convention we would have as high school students. I didn't know it at the time, but it would also be the last convention we spent together. After we got back home, we heard a few things here and there about the prom. The major consensus was that it was a minor disappointment, that some people got too drunk (notably a major player in the SADD program), and a few people lost their virginity. It really had no lasting impact on anyone that I know of.
You want to know something? I am very glad I did not go. And I am not saying that like sour grapes either. I didn't do a whole lot of smart things in my youth, but this one I am proud of. Not only did I make a personal statement that I stuck to (increasing my own self-respect and confidence), but I saved a ton of money, avoided some people I never wanted to be at a party with, and all-in-all felt a great pressure had been lifted. It's been over ten years since that prom, and I have never regretted it once.
I did regret something else, however, my wife's prom two years later. Well, Christine wasn't my wife at the time, but she is now. But her prom happened when I was manager of a bookstore, and I had no assistant, and the other manager was off on his honeymoon that weekend. Christine also lived in West Virginia, so I couldn't exactly just go after work closed. I doubt I could have changed those events, but Christine's Prom was something I have always regretted missing.
Kate and I also tried not to go to our own graduation. That didn't go very far. Kate's parents would have none of that, despite rules that said Kate had to wear a white dress, something she abhorred. Kate's parents also urged me to go, since this would make Kate's likeliness to change her mind at the last second rather slim. It was at this time I realized just how much they tried to use me to get to her. I wished we had missed Graduation. The damn thing was six hours, in record heat, during a 17-year Cicada swarm. So we were sweating in those robes while dark green bugs the size of my thumb flew about the place, sizzling in the stadium lights, and landing all over everyone. Actually, it wasn't six hours. It was supposed to be, but after about 3-4 hours of this, students began to rebel. Finally, some unknown person, like the shot that started the American Revolution, screamed, "It's over! We've graduated!" Some people started to get up to leave. Our principal tried to say, "No no… we still have a guest speaker… no no…." but then people GOT THE IDEA, and everyone, including people in the stands, began to get up and leave. We all tossed our hats in the air, and some unknown benefactor unplugged the PA system, so we couldn't hear the principal over the roar of the crowd. It was the only school unity I ever saw. We ended it ourselves. Go Highlanders!
After High School, Kate and I went our separate ways, and I haven't seen her in over ten years. Last I heard, she was going to art school, or managing a drug store somewhere in Falls Church, and that news is real old. She was pretty smart and self-determined, so I think wherever she is, she is doing well for herself. Some of my high school friends I still have contact with, like Ellen and Julie (both who actually graduated from Jefferson Tech, a magnet school that took a lot of MHS students that year), but for the most part, I hadn't seen or heard anyone from my graduating class since graduation.
Until a few years ago, when I joined www.classmates.com, which has a Delphi message board. Since then, I have spoken with some students from my class, but the majority are still a mystery. The odd thing is that a lot of people we have been speaking to were not the same people we spoke to in high school, which I think is a good thing. We are curious how everyone did, and I want to compare their memories. They cancelled our ten-year high school reunion when no one showed interest. There is some talk of a 15 year, but then again, how many of us are still in the United States?
One final note: In my Senior year, I was really ticked off at Ms. Lodal and I wrote a letter of complaint
to the school board, citing many situations of incompetency, inadequacy, and issues questioning her
motives. It was very professional, but written and sent off in an ugly moment, and I quickly forgot about
it. In 1991, four years later, I got a call from the Superintendent of District III. Apparently that letter
showed up in their files, and was being used in a case against Ms. Lodal and a group of parents. After I stopped
laughing, I declined to show up at the hearing, citing I had gone on with my life and wanted no more to do
with McLean or its politics. I wonder what happened? I think she was still principal a few years after that,
so maybe the charges were dropped, or she got out before the trials begun.
People I know sort of what happened to: