Like the Honey Locust and Magnolia, Redbud and Hawthorn, May is in full bloom, and I live in two cities where the residents know how to celebrate the fairest month of them all! In Bath, the young and the old dance around the Maypole, spin hula hoops in the park, and sail through the streets looking for treasures at the annual city-wide yard sale. If you listen, you can hear people humming a happy tune while they stroll along Washington Street. In Chicago, May Day historically begins with a political rally like Occupy Chicago in 2012, or the Haymarket Affair in 1896, but by Cinco de Mayo the serious mood lightens and the block parties begin, especially in Pilsin, the largest Mexican-American community in Chi-town. Here, like Bath, you will find happy feet dancing, and all around town people will be enjoying "churros y chocolate" for breakfast, and tamales all day long. At the end of winter, May calls us out to play and reminds us to be thankful. This is the month to appreciate mothers, teachers and nurses. This is also the time to recognize the glory days of high school, salute graduating seniors, and celebrate the beauty of being seventeen at the high school prom. A formal dance in May is a lovely tradition, and every year it helps our high school seniors let go of childhood and say goodbye in the most romantic way possible!
Do you remember being seventeen? My mother remembered very clearly because Frank Sinatra reminded her every day on the radio: "When I was seventeen, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for small town girls and soft summer nights. We'd hide from the lights on the village green when I was seventeen. ..." I may not hear Frank Sinatra on the radio as often as my mother, but I too remember being seventeen because I am forever in high school. As a Spanish IV teacher at Fenwick High School, I teach scores of seventeen year old students every day, and I have spent almost thirty years thinking about the impact of high school on American society. Such thoughts can keep you awake at night and inspire you to write blogs in the wee hours of the morning! But in May, high school can literally be the happiest place on earth! If you are reading this, you probably read
A Tale of Two Cities in high school. (Everything changes and everything remains the same!) Well, I am about to tell you the tale of two proms. For parents, for teachers, and for chaperons, prom is the essence of nostalgia. Regardless of where you grew up, or what you do for a living, or how you spend your leisure time, high school is the great common denominator in America. Some psychologists and television pollsters might even suggest that we are obsessed with high school. The plain truth is our high school stories connect us, so let's talk about Bath and Chicago style prom!
In Bath, the City of Ships, the juniors of Morse High School hosted the Senior Reception at the Maine Maritime Museum on May 10, 2014. "Starry Skies, Summer Nights" was certainly a fitting name for this dreamy event. For the 142 students who attended, it wasn't raining on prom night! In fact, a parade of couples passed through Library Park on Washington Street to have pictures taken at the gazebo. There's a definite
Twilight connection here. On prom night, didn't Bella and Edward dance in a gazebo in Forks on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State? Embracing your first love in a gazebo is clearly a dream come true! And in Bella Swan fashion, Morse's prom certainly had some fire and ice moments: there was a fire call at the reception! It was only a small kitchen fire, but the fire department arrived and by chance created an unforgettable photo opportunity. One young man, dressed in a GQ tuxedo, found himself standing next to his dad, a fire fighter, dressed in full gear. The photo is priceless!
The cast of
Chicago Fire, a hit TV show that spotlights the valor of firefighters, did not make an appearance at Fenwick High School's prom on May 9, 2014, but like the Morse students, a good number of Fenwick students have moms and dads who are first responders, and that is a good thing because the music was electrifying! The venues in Chicago can be very expensive, so Fenwick's student council hosted the prom at the Eaglewood Resort and Spa in Itasca, a northwest suburb. It sounds relaxing, but everything is possible on prom night except relaxation! Have you seen the movie
21 Jump Street with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum playing undercover cops in a California high school? Well, there were more than a few white tuxedos at Fenwick's "Party at Gatsby's," and at least one over zealous football player had to sit in the time out chair for a few minutes! But truly, the 336 high school students who attended Fenwick's prom looked like movie stars, and there were lots of Kodak moments. For some reason, seventeen year old girls look older than seventeen year old boys. It's universally mystifying! I think it has something to do with make-up and push-ups (not the gymnasium kind). But pictures never lie, all high school seniors look royal in formal attire, and it's fun to watch Prince Charming spin his Princess around the dance floor. Okay, as a chaperon I must admit I didn't see a single waltz, but there was a lot of hand waving. Later, my students told me that when the dance floor is packed you just wave your arms to imitate dancing. (With a little help from our students, teachers can keep current!) The band, Santa, featured a female guitarist and vocalist in a short white dress who resembled Katy Perry. Needless to say, the very talented and attractive rock 'n' roll band kept the dance floor packed all night.
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| In Rome, a senior from Bath invited his girlfriend to prom! |
In order to connect a Senior Reception along the Kennebec River with a senior prom near Lake Michigan, all the stars have to align, and faculty and staff at two geographically separated high schools have to exchange a wave of emails. Thank heaven for Leslie Trundy and Amber McGowan, two generous guidance counselors at Morse High School who proved to be great communicators! For the past few weeks we have been chatting about high school farewells. Ironically, the seniors emotional goodbye to high school begins with an invitation to one last dance. In recent years, those invitations have become more and more creative. Amber McGowan's son, Aidan, is graduating this year from Morse, and Amber related to me the unforgettable story of how her son invited his girlfriend, Lynn, to their Senior Reception. No, he didn't fly her to the moon, but in April he did fly with her on a class trip to Italy, which is almost as spectacular, and while they were on their starlight tour of Rome, he escorted her to Trevi Fountain, purchased a single rose from a gypsy vendor, threw a coin over his shoulder, and asked her to go to the Senior Reception. This sounds like a scene from a Hollywood movie, or the sweet spot of a fairy tale! Can the story get any better? Oh, Chicago boys can be romantic, too. One of my students described the most romantic Fenwick invitation this spring. David's mother and little sister traveled to Orlando and video taped the Disney princesses urging Andrea to go to prom with him. After they returned home, David took the video over to a friend's house where Andrea was visiting, and while they watched the video, he presented Andrea with a crown and flowers, and then he asked: "Will you be my princess at prom?" I believe the giggles of Andrea and Lynn could be heard around the world when they said "Yes!"
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| Two handsome seniors and I. |
Seventeen was a very good year. Do you remember? How could we forget.
