If you asked me what questions I anticipated during this year-long series it never occurred to me one would be about Prom. Here is chapter 8 of answers to questions (this week - Who did you go to prom with?) posed through StoryWorth.
I didn’t go to “my prom.” The signature event for seniors at J.A. Craig High School was a big deal to many classmates. I wasn’t dating anyone from the school, and the costs associated with it were higher than I wanted to spend.
In 1980 and 81 - the word in the hall was that guys needed to rent a tux; arrange a limo alone or as part of a group; plan for a special meal at a fancy restaurant preferably miles away from Janesville; and spring for tickets to the dance and “after-prom” which included breakfast for the excited couple.
Instead, the girl I was dating at the time, a pretty red-head named Terry (photo below) who I met at awards presentation (she won second place, I was third), and I spent a day in Milwaukee. At the District Awards for the Voice of Democracy contest,
third from left isTerry Lopes. I'm on her right. (1981 VFW photo)
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I worked my usual Saturday night shift at WCLO then drove the next morning 55 miles to a small town near Kenosha, Wisconsin to pick her up. As I recall, this was our 2nd or 3rd date, with an occasional long-distance phone call or letter sent between outings.
We spent the day picnicking and visiting the Mitchell Park Conservatory (known as the Domes) and Milwaukee Zoo. My mom helped sending me off with a cooler of fried chicken and the fixings for a proper picnic.
We had a good time and it was appropriately romantic without the pressure or discomfort of tight shoes and fancy clothes.
Terry and I dated through the summer and into the first couple months of our freshman year in college when our paths diverged. All these years later we stay in touch once a year with a Christmas card and family newsletter.
The Prom I did attend came two years later during my sophomore year of college when I escorted a young lady to the dance in Center Point, Iowa.
(left to right) Sister, mom, dad, and Rhonda at the Page's Ball. 3/17/1983
Rhonda and I met in either January or February of 1983. She was a Page serving in the Iowa House of Representatives. I was an intern for KWWL-TV covering Iowa Government and the legislative session working full-time during my spring semester at Drake. KWWL is broadcast out of Waterloo where the signal covered northeast Iowa including Center Point where Rhonda's family lived.
Reporters and Pages don’t have reason to talk, but as a young college student I was closer in age to the Pages than anyone else in the Capitol. We spoke in passing, but that was it.
Then one day, this attractive brunette asked me to the Page’s Ball. I wasn’t dating anyone at the time and thought it might be fun. A get acquainted date before the dance went well. Her parents and sister came to the event - it was a fundraiser for an area nonprofit - and we kept dating, which is how I went to her senior Prom.
Instead of limos and high-priced dinners… there was a dinner at the school for the students and their dates if they were also students at the school (I had dinner with her parents and sister).
After dinner, the Prom court made their way into the gym as parents and members of the community cheered. I was on the sideline by this time, waiting to meet up with my date.
The smaller affair meant no limo, expensive food, no tuxedo. I did wear a new suit. Well, new to me as I picked it up at a consignment store near Drake’s campus a week earlier.
We had our picture taken before the dance started, then joined Rhonda’s friends and their dates on the dance floor. Before dancing Rhonda and I posed for a picture. (1983) -----------------
Just weeks after the Prom she graduated from high school, then worked as a nanny for a wealthy family in Long Island, New York before returning to Iowa where she enrolled at Central College in Pella.
By then I was a junior at Drake an hour’s drive away. We got together as often as possible. It turned out that one-time, “why not, it might be fun” date to the Page’s Ball worked better than expected.
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