Now when I was in high school if the kids decided they wanted to do a vintage Hollywood theme, we would carefully cut out shapes from cardboard and decorate the gym with the nicest forms of plastic and corrugated backdrops we could find. I remember lovingly attaching streamers to the ceiling with double stick tape and prayed that it held until after the event. Today is quite different. When the kids say they want a vintage Hollywood prom, we book the Roosevelt Hotel and peek around corners looking for the ghost of Marilyn Monroe. My heavens how times have changed!!
When I was in high school, your date arrived at the door with a corsage that he wasn’t quite sure how to attach with your parents standing over him… the smart fellas invested in the kind with elastic that slipped carefully over your wrist. Now these were nice until you tried to dance and then you showered the floor with petals all around you. Last night I didn’t notice a flower attached to a single girl.
When I went shopping for a dress for prom, all the retailers had plenty of poofy chiffon dresses and the bigger your hoop slip the better… trying to sit down with one of these gowns took skills. I thought I was pushing the envelope when I purchased one with rhinestones over the shoulder and a handkerchief bottom. Today, the girls dropped probably no less than $500 bucks to wear plunging necklines and glitz that seems right at home in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre. A couple of them could have even made that ghost of Marilyn Monroe blush.
Our “kids” didn’t wash Dad’s new car, but rented Hummer limo and party busses so they could bring along 40+ of their closest friends. They pulled up to the entrance with lights flashing, videos playing and the music blaring from these small apartments on wheels so loud than I could feel my heart pound in my throat!
I don’t remember ever being “searched” before prom, but we actually hired a company to search our students before they enter the dance. Even then, we were forced to call parents to pick up kids who were either drinking or popping pills BEFORE the prom. And… lest I forget the girl drama that occurred because someone broke someone’s heart and didn’t invite them to the prom. (That part, I am afraid has not changed in decades)
Typically the school “avoids”booking hotels for our proms, because too many well-meaning parents actually rent rooms for their children to party with their friends. Heaven only knows what actually happens in these rooms.
After calling parents of "high" students, breaking up girl fights, and praying that children are not conceived in the middle of the “mosh pit” on the dance floor, we announced the king and queen and attempted to send the babies off in their expensive rides around midnight.
Now this would be wonderful, if all those limos actually picked up the kids when they were supposed to… but oh no, they double and triple book themselves and every year we are stuck at the venue until 1 am … this year 2 am with kids who were waiting on their cars.
This time my boss and I looked at each other and said “Nevermore” will we patronize this venue. He was on one street corner; I was a block down on another, with every weirdo and derelict in Hollyweird. I commented that “Ethel” and I worked that corner well… only I didn’t get paid! I was like a mother hen huddling my chicks into a safe area. Seems the Roosevelt Hotel is home to one of Hollywood’s hottest clubs and about the time our kids were going home… it was just getting fired up. Lesson Learned!
We finally got home around 2:30 am and I was so wired I couldn’t sleep… my feet were swollen, I had stood on the street corner with “Ethel” so long my arms were numb with the chill of the evening and the stench of the club goers cigarette smoke was still in my hair.
At that moment I sighed and realized that my job was over, I could only imagine how many parents were losing sleep waiting for their child to come home from the time of their lives. Hopefully our kids made some lasting memories that when they send their own kids off in rockets to blast to the moon for their prom, they can look back a reminisce of their own special evening… hopefully I will be dead by then!
