The High School Prom Bid Ticket(James brown) The High School Prom Bid Ticket

Looking back on our lives lived, we have stories we like to tell. Most are boring and with filtered memory make us appear well.

Then there are stories we wish afterwards we didn’t tell. More interesting, revealing our stupidity they’re told after too many drinks or to outdo another’s tale of their stupidity’s yore.

I’m not talking about these.

I’m talking about the memories stuffed in the bottom of the subconscious well, the recollection niche too painful to tell yourself.

Her name was Judy. She’d transferred from another school as a sophomore to Santa Clara High. Knowing none, she was free of the baggage of prior grade and intermediate school cliques of Santa Clara, a small town back then.

While a junior, I had transferred as a sophomore too, but knew some from my neighborhood and those from Saint Clare’s who went directly to Santa Clara High School. Instead, I’d been accepted to Bellarmine, a prestigious Catholic college prep school, hated it and transferred to Santa Clara High as a sophomore.

By my junior year I’d been accepted into the correct male school clique due to taking wood shop, playing football and my 53 Chevy convertible. I remained on the outer edge of select n, an uncertain entity also taking, “the go to college” designated classes.

My biggest insecurity, however, was not clique status. It was girls. I had two brothers, but no sisters and the closest female cousin was 3,000 miles distant.

Interest in girls had begun to flare in my last years at Saint Clare’s but it was preliminary exploration of a mysterious gender. Bellarmine was an all-boy school.

Santa Clara High School was a new world. Not only were half the students girls, most dressed to be noticed with wonderful changes of attire to match the seasons. A few overtly dressed to sexually impress, up to the limits of the school's permitted decor police who measured skirt hem distances from knees for those testing the line.

Many were pretty, some beautiful and all interesting. Up close they smelled wonderful. The problem was, I didn’t know what they were. They were unknown entities, mysteries but something desperately wanted.

Saint Clare’s grade school had confused me of what female was. There were the beatified saints and at the top the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Madonna, beautiful piety on a pedestal. By eighth grade, however, raging hormones had confused this feminine idol. A shift occurred to interest in Mary Magdalen, the harlot for wanton impure thoughts.

I’d always suffered from male character flaw, pride. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I assumed I was superior to others, not just the obvious weaker but to everyone. While wanting to charge the female line, therefore, I was terrified of rebuke. I wanted only the best feminine quality, something between the Madonna and Mary Magdalen.

There are important event’s one must face traveling through life that must be faced. In High School one is the Junior Prom. To remain even on the outer edge of the in clique, I needed to attend the Junior Prom. It required a formal date with one of those wonderful, good-looking, sweet-smelling girls. She needed to be respectfully pretty, not like a cheerleader or song girl, those reserved for the football stars, but “respectable”.

There was Judy. She was under the good-looking girl radar, a sleeper unnoticed by the male competition. She wasn’t pretty, she was beautiful. Dark Irish, she had long black hair and watery blue eyes which her clear, unblemished white skin set in contrast. About 5 foot five, dark curls caressed the nape of her neck.

She wasn’t in any of my classes, a corridor passerby that required my stopping and asking for a phone number, which was willing given. I called her from the car lot office I worked at in the evenings. There, I camouflaged car blemishes to avoid purchaser notice as instructed by the lot’s owner. I even got caught by him when he unexpectedly returned one evening, with my feet on his desk, acting the big shot as I attempted clever conversation with Judy.

Building up courage, sniffing out potential response to avoid a rejection, on the third call I asked her to go to the prom with me. She said YES!

Going to the prom was a big expense for both of us. I purchased the $32 bid ticket admission, ($300 in today’s money), bought her a corsage, rented a tux and with a couple of friends made reservations at the Hawaiian Gardens Restaurant, the big time for high school prom goers. My 53 Chevy convertible required through cleaning and waxing, even some hidden blemishes removed at the car lot. My expense and hassles were nothing compared to her gown, shoes and hair expenses and hassles.

The big Friday night came. Bathed, shaved, and tux attired, I got my wallet, checked to see there was $100 in $20, got my car keys and opened my top dresser drawer, the one I threw important stuff into.

The prom bid ticket was not there.

I looked in another drawer, then another, by the time I finished searching the bedroom looked like a whirlwind had hit. It had. Next came the car. I didn’t climb under it but came close to doing it. Every crevasse, under seat, storage space was visited, time and again , but to no avail. Eventually it was time to pick up Judy, late or not at all. I didn’t have the bid ticket, so it was without it.

Judy opened the door. The parents insisted on pictures. I bluffed my way forward, mind racing with hopeful lies to myself. The big one, the final one was we’d simply be let in.

I mean, how would go to the prom if they hadn’t bought the bid? Insanity, no one would. Perhaps they didn’t even ask for a bid at the door.

Other hopes did spring to mind.

Yes! It must be in my school locker! That’s it, I forgot to bring it home.

There were eight of us seated at the Hawaiian Gardens table. It was a warm Fall evening and Hawaiian Gardens kept a semi outdoor decor as if really in Hawaii. The four couples were in a jovial mood. Two of the males were friends of mine since second grade, a relaxing evening except for me. I knew something ugly was coming, something only me could be so stupid to let happen, to not have a prom bid ticket at the prom door.

Increasing my agony was Judy. At the dinner table she had a touch of mirth, bending her beauty a little from the center point of the Madonna image to a touch of wanton Mary Magdalen, the perfect blend of femininity.

With the desert plates removed, the checks paid, we scrambled out to the evening and got in our cars, back when the door was always opened first for the girl. Inside, Judy scooted over and unlocked the driver’s door for me. Parked near the school auditorium, we walked to the doors fate, she unconcerned, me doomed.

At the entrance, peeking inside, the auditorium was beautifully decorated, documentation the hefty bid ticket price money was aptly spent. The band’s music played clear. The Home Economics teacher guarding entrance, one I knew nothing about, asked for my prom bid ticket. What could I say? I couldn’t say stolen, I had no suspect. I could reply,

“I lost it.”

This is where minor things determine one’s fate. I don’t know the actual odds, but I’d guess half of the persons in that position would look us over and say,

“Bring it next time!”, Or “See me Monday!” At least say, “Then you must still pay the bid price!” which I had money to cover. But fate betrayed me.

The Home Economics teacher was too unsure of her position in the school hierarchy to make a decision, an unprecedented one. She simply replied,

“Wait, until I get those in line in and then I’ll see if there is something we can do.”

So, it started, we stood by the door as the others trooped in, the girls all dressed in beautiful gowns with corsages while Judy sat on a folding chair brought out for her, uncertain but embarrassed of what fate had dealt her.

Eventually the vice principal showed up. He was a good man, but things had escalated, making his decision more formal. He inquired in detail where my prom bid could have been mislaid. The only two options I could think of were my football locker or school corridor locker.

So the quest began, the long walk to the football field and locker room, desperate search through stinky sweating football attire then the opening of the school and the march to my corridor locker and it disembowelment.

After shifting through the last of my English papers sanity returned to to the vice principal.

“Jim, there’s a beautiful girl out there all dressed up waiting to dance.
Go dance with her!”

The prom was a little more than half over. Everyone in school now knew who Judy was. The boys had discovered a hidden gem.

The prom over, we drove home in silence. What was there to say? I walked her to the door, The porch light was on. I wanted to kiss her, wanted to do more, say more but simply said,

“I’m sorry.”

And walked away.

I never called her again, veered to another path if she was coming down the corridor, shut the experience out of my mind, buried it all deep into a memory well and sealed the top.

Judy’s beauty had been discovered, and soon she had a steady boyfriend, one she married on graduation. They are still married 63 years later and have a nice family.

I’ve gone to my 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-year high school reunions. Judy has always been the most beautiful woman there, matched only by my wife. She always comes to my table and kisses me, in front of her husband and wife, for the missed kiss under her porch light of the prom night.

She'd told my wife; I’d lost the high school prom bid ticket. My wife replied,

“That sounds like him alright!”

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