THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506080430
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
The control-top, black panty hose were on the verge of running. Slightly wrenched, my arm ached from zipping the formal. Those silly little hanger hooks kept slipping out, drooping from my armpits. The pouring rain was bound to ruin my hair.
Nothing was going right. At the last minute, I started not to go.
But for 18 years, I had been missing a memory. Something didn't happen that was supposed to. We are, after all, but made of memories.
So it was that I accepted an invitation to Norfolk Collegiate School's senior prom on Tuesday night at Nauticus.
The cream-colored Mercedes limousine, opalescent in the rain, backed into my driveway in Riverview. Inside was my date, Will King, Norfolk Collegiate headmaster.
Two weeks ago, King's invitation had come in the mail. I laughed from the belly. Senior Prom. Yeah, right.
During a recent workshop at Collegiate on diversity in independent schools, I had mentioned offhand having missed a senior prom. King had remembered.
In 1977, I graduated from a private school in Ohio. Newly coed, it had no prom. A few students put together an unofficial semiformal. Unpopular, ungainly and uncomfortable with who I was, I stayed home.
As the Mercedes moved down Church Street, past blight and silhouettes of homeless men, there was uncomfortableness again.
Inside the limo there was luxurious gray leather seating, carpeting, a television, and a bar. King presented a wrist corsage of gentle baby carnations and blooms. We toasted with non-alcoholic champagne.
Sea-green balloons inside of balloons, shimmer-paper bubbles, and goldfish in a bowl as table centerpieces transformed Nauticus' stately rear plaza deck into a fantasy land. Loud music assaulted me. I kind of wanted to go home.
Couples drifted in, a dazzling promenade.
``It's the same every year,'' said Jan Snodgrass, a Collegiate art and psychology teacher who has missed only two proms in 18 years. ``The dresses are really still the same, the slinky mini, the southern belle.''
Cummerbunds are probably brighter. Corey Allen, a grinning long-haired senior headed to Virginia Wesleyan College, sported a vest and tie checkered with Disney: Mickey, Donald and Daffy.
Indeed the songs were the same I would've danced to 18 years ago.
At first, the DJ dished out popular rap beats. They didn't exactly move me or the crowd. Then one young lady stepped boldly up to the DJ dais. Cut. ``Carwash,'' a '70s fave definitely from my day, boomed. The floor started to bop, jump, shake and break.
``Respect,'' ``Celebration'' - a Kool & the Gang favorite - ``YMCA'' by the Village People, ``I'll Take You There.'' Some danced in couples, others in packs. Girls danced with girls. There was good old-fashioned hand dancing and just a little bit of slow dragging.
And Will King, in his red-striped bow tie and cummerbund, well, he boogied hard for a headmaster. For a minute, he outmoved me. Then I caught the swing, leaving him in the shimmering dust.
Portsmouth's industrial skyline glittered to the west. Rain pelted the river.
In her purple sequined crisscrossed mini and silver pumps, Jamie Rock, the junior class president and chief prom coordinator, danced a creepy crawler step up to me. ``Are you having a good time?''
The night was full of bright promise, excitement and anticipation of what adulthood would bring.
For a heartbeat or three, I thought about the many young people who hadn't made it to their proms, who had missed this magic moment for whatever reason.
We whirled some more to ``Brown-eyed Girl'' - ``Sha lala lala lala la la dee da'' - and ``Disco Inferno'' - ``Burn baby burn. Burn this mother down.'' We laughed, howled and hooted out of sheer joy of being alive and together.
I was starting to feel what I had been missing. ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo by L. Todd Spencer
Lyles attends Norfolk Collegiate's prom on Tuesday night.
by CNB