Prom Night 1968

(OMG--look! Behind Frank!  It's the little rocking chair again--the one I still have.  Am I being stalked by a child's rocking chair?  Is it haunted?  Ooooooooo.)

Moving on:  I did not date in high school.  But before you start feeling sorry for me, don't.  I was so busy taking care of and showing my horse that I just wouldn't have had time for dating. 

Yeah.  Right.

OK--so one Friday night my equally as unpopular girlfriend and I somehow got up the courage to go to a dance at St. Mary's College not too far from our home in Lafayette, CA.  St. Mary's was a small private men's college and had weekly mixers for their students.  We walked into the gym, took a seat in the bleachers, and waited for the male hordes to descend. 

Suffice it to say, descend they didn't, but after about 20 minutes a fairly nice looking guy walked up and said, "Wanna dance?"  After doing the required "looking around because you can't possibly be talking to me thing" I determined that he WAS talking to me and got up.  He said his name was Frank, he was a freshman there and I told him I was a senior at Acalanes in Lafayette.  Then we did the frug or the boogaloo or whatever we were doing back then--I remember it involved alot of waving arms and head bobbing and legs kicking this way and that.  If ever there was proof white people can't dance, just reference the 60's.

After the dance we exchanged phone numbers and--I AM NOT LYING SO HELP ME GOD--he actually called me the following week and asked me out!  We saw a movie, had some ice cream, and then he drove me home.  As I was starting to get out of the car, he leaned over and tried to kiss me!  Aaacckk!  Fish lips!  Virginity alert!!!  I ran in the house and slammed the door, nearly giving my father a heart attack as the door I slammed went through his office.  A few goddammit Christines later, I explained what had just happened and he calmed down, secure in the fact that his oldest daughter would live to see another virginal day.

Needless to say, I didn't hear from Frank again.  Well, until I decided I wanted to attend my senior ball and since I didn't know any better I actually listened to my mother when she said, "Why don't you call that nice boy Frank and ask him if he'd take you?"  Would you believe he said OK?  Maybe the fact that my father had agreed to foot the entire evening's expenses had something to do with it, or maybe he just didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night. 

Can you believe it?  I still have not only the photo of Frank and I heading out for the evening but the prom program, as well!  The prom committee went to alot of trouble wrapping blue satin around little pieces of cardboard and paper and then attaching a green tassel.

I don't recall what we did in Sausalito after the ball but I do know I remained a virgin until several years later.  I mean, hell, the guy might have been a virgin, too--back then it wasn't all that uncommon.  Whatever.  A month later, my family packed up and moved to Birmingham, AL so I'll never  know if anything would have come of this. 

I'm glad nothing did, because many years later I truly found the man of my dreams, my Mikey.

Footnote:  In a comment she made on my post about RuPaul's Drag Race (yay, Sonique is moving on to Episode 4), Miz Chicken surmised that I might actually BE a drag queen in a tattooed body.  From the looks of my hairdo in the above prom picture, she just might be right. 

Naw . . . no self-respecting drag queen would EVER wear an orchid wrist corsage.