Memoirs of a Tracy Kid
Many things were different at the old Central Tracy High School back in the middle of the last century, but one high school tradition has stood the test of time at the now-TMB high school, and that is the Junior/ Senior prom held annually in early May.
Now as then, the Prom was hosted by the Junior class to honor the Senior class. My first prom was as a junior in 1966. For some of us shy students who weren’t active in the “in-crowd” dating scene, this was our first real date.
Prior to my first prom, I had gone to various school dances but always without a date. There, I would meet up with my fellow classmates who got up enough courage to attend the dance. Usually this involved groups of boys and girls going together to the dance as it was much easier doing this as a group than going by yourself.
My two good friends, Randy Vogel and Dick Drackley, and I rode together to these dances in Dick’s old 1948 Ford Coupe with a flathead V8, 3 speed trans and a 2 speed Columbia rear end (what a car!) At the dance we would take turns asking different girls for a dance or two and then give someone else a chance to dance with those girls.
For the prom, you had to actually get up enough courage to ask a girl out on a real proper date.
And not just any date! The prom was, and still is, a formal event requiring boys to dress up in suits and the girls to wear a nice dress. During my junior year, our class spent the weeks leading up to the prom planning a theme and decorating the old high school gym to match the grand theme which was “An Enchanted Forest.” The week before the prom, my fellow classmates and I used copious amounts of rolled crepe paper to create a lower ceiling over the dance floor in the gym. We created a castle from which the band performed and all the prom goers entered the gym over a drawbridge we built.
We transformed the gym with beautiful trees, a wandering brook, and a wishing well. We also set up a serving line for the food and drinks and decorated the stage where the evening’s entertainment took place during the intermission.
But before you went to the prom, you first had to ask a girl to the prom. Now I know these days it’s considered proper for the girls to ask boys for a date to the prom, but back in my era, the boys always initiated the request. It was safer to ask the girl in person, especially if they were farm girls. If you’re wondering why that was, you need to understand the state of telecommunications at the time. Most farm homes were still using party lines, and some farms were still using the old-fashioned crank phones.
With party lines, you could always count on people who shared your line to be listening to your call for hearing the latest gossip. That was not the best situation for a shy guy asking a girl out for a date. So, unless you were asking a “townie” girl without a party line for a date, you definitely avoided using a phone for such an “intimate” conversation!
After securing a date, the next thing you needed to do was to get measured for a tuxedo at Howard Enderson’s clothing store. Not everyone rented a tux, but most boys did. You also needed to pre-order a corsage, usually an Orchid, at the Greenwood Nursery & Flower Shop. The last step was making sure you washed your dad’s car in the afternoon before the prom.
My date for my first prom was Elizabeth Galstad Erdmann, and driving my dad’s spiffed up Pontiac, I picked her up on her family farm east of Tracy. I was dressed up in a white tuxedo and she was wearing a beautiful dress that, as I recall, she made herself.
Beth looked gorgeous and we had a wonderful evening dancing to the tunes of the “Vikings of Augustana” band. For the program midway through the evening, Steve Knott emceed and a group of boys did a skit titled the “Seven Dwarfs minus Three.” The program ended with the traditional reading of the senior class prophecy by Maynard Almjeld and Doug Johnson.
When the prom ended, the after-prom party started at the Tracy Country Club. This party was hosted by the promgoers’ parents and went on into the wee hours of the morning. All the prom attendees were invited, and most of us joined the party because it included snacks and soft drinks and there was a juke box for music. Some attendees made it an all-night extravaganza which ended with breakfast at the Red Rooster! Neither Beth nor I had that much stamina and as I recall, I took her home around 3 a.m. I’m sure her parents were still awake waiting for our return.
Since the after-dinner prom was a nonalcoholic event, it was supported by parents as a way to avoid accidents involving afterprom students who consumed too much alcohol. These after-prom parties apparently ceased sometime in the early 1970s. Their importance was demonstrated clearly at my younger brother’s prom in 1975 when many of the students attended an alcohol infused afterprom party at a cabin on Lake Shetek. Sometime during the party, three students left in a boat which capsized, and two of the students sadly drowned, which resulted in a very somber high school graduation ceremony a few weeks later.
A year later in 1967, I attended my second and last prom as a Senior. On this occasion I teamed up with my two high school buddies and we did a triple date together in my dad’s Pontiac Bonneville.
My date was D’Ann Booth Anderson, Randy Vogels date was his steady girlfriend Annette Goss Almjeld, and Dick Drackley rounded out the three Musketeers with his date, Mary Guimond Olson. The girls all met at Annette Goss’s house where Randy, Dick and I all met our dates. As I recall, we all walked to the High School which was only a block away and enjoyed a wonderful evening of dancing and other entertainment at our “Land of Oz” themed prom. After the prom all six of us hopped into my dad’s Pontiac and headed out to the Tracy Country Club for the after-prom party which went on into the wee hours of the night. It was only a few short weeks later when we all said goodbye to each other at our high school graduation.
Next month: High school graduation
