George Gray e-mailed yesterday. Even though I hadn't heard from him for a couple of years, it's always easy for us to talk - as though we were still in Cub Scouts or high school band together.
One of the things George often recalls when we're reminiscing was "the strange 'prom party'." Some events seem strange in a child's world, but make more sense later from the vantage point of adulthood. As we look back on this one, it just gets stranger.
I'm thinking it took place some time shortly after (or perhaps just before the end of) fifth grade. It seems likely to have been in the summer, because of the bloom illustrated above - but that comes into the story later.
I expect it was someone's birthday. We were told in advance that it was to be a "prom party," but no one could tell me what that meant. In our isolated semi-rural community, none of us (as ten-year-olds) had ever heard of the kind of "prom" which I was later introduced to as an end-of-year high school dance in formal attire.
I vaguely remember that the song "Wayward Wind" was playing in the background as we were herded into somebody's living room. There we were given little pads and pencils for the purpose, we were told, of signing up a member of the opposite sex for a "prom" in each of the slots on the card. Being dutiful achievers (mostly Cub Scouts and Brownies, as I recall), we busily set about filling up our cards. Clearly we were pre-pubescent, and much more naive than today's ten-year-olds, but we had a vague notion that we were supposed to be fond of the person we signed up for.
I later realized (from movies, I think) that in an earlier period these would have been "dance cards." But these adults seemed very confident in their designation of the individual slots as "a prom" instead of "a dance." We ten-year-olds were certainly clueless (and struggling to appear interested).
As I recall, the "prom" periods were about ten minutes each, and when my first girl had been secured, we watched to take our cues from everyone else. Apparently the thing to do was to wander around the neighborhood (and talk?) until some responsible adult sounded a car horn at the host house to call us back to busily locate the next name on our card. Thenceforth to head out "on a prom" (perhaps promenade?) with that name, and so on down the list. Alternating patches of boredom and (silly) frenzy, over and over.
What did the adults imagine we should be gaining from this experience? And why was the word "prom" imported to mean something that was nothing like its original meaning (promenade) or its future meaning (a ball for dancing)? Maybe they thought we couldn't (or wouldn't) dance, but I distinctly remember that sometime within the previous year we had had a great time dancing to "B-I-N-G-O was his name-O" in some square-dance-like format at Jane Holland's birthday party. So who knows? Just rushing us to "grow up," I expect.
Fortunately, the evening was saved from utter and complete boredom when one alert "prom" couple walked by a home where the elderly owners were sitting in lawn chairs just outside their carport. With acceptable small-town curiosity, the prommers walked up the driveway to see what might be the occasion. They discovered that the couple were staying out to enjoy the once-a-year blooming of a member of the cactus family - the "night blooming cereus." This gave the "prom" couple wonderful social capital, as they excitedly ran back to the host house offering to lead guided tours to view "the amazing night-blooming flower" for the rest of the evening. I remember that the elderly couple wanted to convince us that the stamen and pistils of the flower represent Mary in the grotto at Jesus' birth. So we examined the bloom closely and carefully, and then sagely nodded when we could "see it."
I don't remember if the elderly couple ever tried to explain how they came by such a plant. I do remember describing the event to my parents, who seemed to know all about the night-blooming cereus already. Only in my adult life, after many years of living here in Arizona, did I discover I live in the only part of the U.S. to which this cactus is "native." In my own inner world, it remains an object of childhood wonder. It almost redeemed what was otherwise an uncomfortable and ill-conceived evening.
And as I look back on it, I wonder if the "prom" moms who organized this event were distraught when we abandoned the whole "prom card" farce halfway through the evening, in order to enjoy our own (somewhat more age-appropriate) excitement?
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