Saturday, January 5, 2013

Senior Prom 1973


My mother hosted an after-prom breakfast for my sister and her friends. I remember it. I also remember wondering what the big freakin’ deal was about the prom. It was 1973. I wasn’t quite dialed into the prom thing just yet. And when I did become prom age, my peeps and I weren't jonesing for breakfast afterwards. Mainly because our dates were puking Sloe Gin and thinking that they were bleeding internally. 
These gals were high school juniors and their fellas were seniors. All three of the girls had been friends since elementary school and remain so today. Everyone in the photo went to different colleges and after the one-year younger girls graduated, three weddings soon occurred  Yep, all three married their high school sweethearts. And my mom’s living room décor and the revelers’ prom outfits just scream…1973.
This is my sister and my future brother-in-law. They'd already been dating for almost two years and he was the older brother I never had.He drove a ’69 Camaro with Cragar mags and he taught me how to drink three beers real fast when we would go run errands for my mom...in his Camaro. Of course he knew who sold beers to sixteen year old guys. He knew everything. He was cool as shit. When he hit college and became a KA, his button down shirts and khakis were so heavily starched that I often thought he was in a body cast.Years later he left my pregnant sister and their two toddlers for a slightly younger woman, still tight bodied and sans babies. And a decade later he called my sister, crying. Seems that the tight bodied woman left him for a slightly younger man, still tight bodied and sans babies.
This twin-set of lovebirds remain married today. I saw one of these guys in a meat and three local lunch joint when I was home last week. He looked like shit. Really.
Sometime around a decade after the prom photo was taken, my mom did some early 1980’sliving room remodelling  Different curtains and an anything but drastic change in wall color. The sofa was recovered and different color matting shrouded the framed engravings. This is what it looks like today. I’ve smooched on this sofa in both its current but yet again outdated sheathing as well as the original, pre-1983 version. And my ten years younger brother swears he doesn’trecall it. “It” being when he walked in on me and my first girlfriend while we were doing something we ought ’n.

Onward.Looking for something I ought ‘n.

ADG II

9 comments:

Cubanchem said...

I wish I had catalogued my youth as well as you have. Would be great to takers troll down my own memory lane. Hope your sister got over Mr. Starchy.
PAB

LPC said...

Of course your sister is the one laughing uproariously. Hope she is well today.

ilovelimegreen said...

I think I had the kid's version of your sister's dress for Easter or First Communion (or maybe ir was the same dress?) the same year!

Cro Magnon said...

Oh those shirts! Almost every time I look at present day wedding photos, I find myself saying 'why oh why didn't he wear something CLASSIC'. When you look back at certain fashions, you just want to curl up and die!

Happy new year.

Anonymous said...

"Onward. Looking for something I ought ‘n."

Didja find it yet?

I found something that might do. How about you write the story of these two southern women, using this photo as a spark for your narrative. This here is the photo of the day, it's all over the dang place and's just screamin with story.

http://gamedayr.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/aj-mccarron-girlfriend-570x425.jpg

-F

Better Government said...

Okay, all I am left with is wondering how your sister fared? Please tell me she healed and went on to have an incredibly wonderful happy life!

ADG said...

Cubanchem... “Mr. Starchy” That’s classic. Yep, she got over him and he got his in return.

LPC...Prunella, indeed she was always that way.

Ilovelimegreen…send us pictures

Cro Magnon...Happy New Year to you. I’m on the record regarding the 70’s being a bad epoch in almost all ways. Butcept Rock and Roll.

AnonymousFlo…Oh, since the 6th, I’ve found all kinda stuff.

Better Government...Thanks for the good wishes about my sister. She was, as reflected in the photo, a sweet spirited, lovely and well revered gal by her girlfriends and the boys alike. She was the perfect straight A student unlike her three years younger brother…that would be me!

Also, she was one of those people who knew what she wanted to do/be when she grew up and she knew it from a young age. She’s a nurturer and caregiver so it’s no surprise that she went on to become an RN and spent a good part of her career at the bedside in critical care units, attending to the needs of the frailest, sickest patients.

She persevered through the tough patch of being a divorced mother of three kids only to be slammed at around age 39 by lupus, one of the most dastardly, pernicious, chauvinistic and malicious diseases on the planet.

At 54 years old, she is unfortunately, unable to work and is wracked with all of the collateral pain and ugliness of lupus symptoms. As an invalid, she still has the sweetest heart and the kindest outlook and the ability to find transient flurries of joy amidst her pain and disease.

She is for me, a source of inspiration and frustration. I’m inspired by her joy and I’m frustrated that a loving God would allow the perpetuation of such pain and suffering on one of His most devoted servants.

Young Fogey said...

ADG,

I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. For reasons we cannot fathom, sometimes God allows the ones He loves to go through the wringer (like Job, Hosea, Paul, and, of course, Jesus Himself).

Consider this analogy: a blade must be tempered by going through fire and water. It is beaten, blasted, and shocked—to make it stronger. I think the various challenges I have gone through—not all of which I was up to—have made me a stronger, better person.

Perhaps God tempers His beloved to make them better.

ADG said...

FogeyYoung...You and I know firsthand of some of each other's challenges so you'll get no pushback from me on the fact that we are wiser and sometimes, stronger on the other side.

And I've heard every conceivable analogy, metaphor and Bible verse that would even remotely uncloak the mystery of why such suffering is allowed by a loving God. I must say that my conclusions are anything but aligned with what I've been taught at church since I was a wee one.