Sweetheart Queen

All the chatter about the dance died away overnight around here and I almost forgot to post my own high school pictures. But what's another few days when the photos are 30+ years old?

Most of my closest friends in high school were not the type to go to a formal school dance. Many of my friends, in fact, were kids I knew from my neighborhood and they went to the "other" high school. My boyfriend would never have gone to a prom; he didn't even wear a shirt under his graduation gown. I'm surprised he actually graduated. As a group, we were more likely to cut school and go swimming up in a nearby canyon. Drinking on the weekends, drugs, cigarettes, driving around - these were our recreational activities, not wearing pastel dresses and tight shoes.

But it was important to me to be friends with all kinds of people. I really liked the jocks and the geeks. The kids in my French class were funny and the drama and band students were creative and spontaneous. I knew everybody in the school and said hi or smiled to almost everyone I passed in the hall.

I didn't go along with all of the rebellious behavior of my partying friends. Both of my parents smoked and I thought it was disgusting. I kept my grades up because it seemed like it might be important later on and it didn't really require much effort. I had plenty of time outside of school for fun.

I was surprised my senior year to be elected Sweetheart Queen for the Valentine's Day dance. It never occurred to me to turn it down. It was so kind of the other students to select me. My boyfriend wouldn't go with me so I went with one of our friends, John Marsh. His face was bandaged because he had been out the night before with a carful of our drunk friends and they had smashed into a tree. Nobody was seriously hurt.

I sewed my dress for the dance. I was making a statement by doing something unexpected fashion wise and I really was grateful not to have to worry about spaghetti straps and a strapless bra. It was my one and only fancy dance in high school. For the weekend of the senior prom, I went to a friend's lakeside cabin where I rowed a boat and hung out with two other dateless girls. They were kind of sad about it but I thought it was a fabulous place to be. I have really been more of a loons and moonlight type of person all along.