Junior High Prom 1958

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I think growing up in the 1950s with the birth of Rock and Roll and the school proms and such was a special time for all teenagers of that era. What a fantastic time we had learning the ways of the world.

 

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Junior High Prom 1958

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An incident with a fence (see previous blog “The Fence”) and a very poor teacher in the 6th grade turned me from an extrovert to an introvert so I was very shy in the eighth grade when the Phillips Junior High Prom came around in 1958. I decided to go but I didn’t have the guts to ask a girl for a date after being humiliated so badly by that teacher in front of the whole class in the sixth grade. So I decided to go stag as did about 40% of the boys in the class. The prom was held in the elementary school gymnasium.

 

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That song by Marty Robbins called “A White Sports Coat And a Pink Carnation” was popular then so 90% of the guys wore that combination to the prom. I wasn’t driving yet so my Mom dropped me off. They had a big bowl of punch and a table of snacks so I helped myself being careful not to soil my white sports coat. After filling up on stuff, I joined about 20 other boys on the stag side of the room in long row of male “wall flowers” watching the other couples dancing.

 

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I was very uncomfortable in the sport coat and tie and did a lot of squirming a around in my chair. On the other side of the room all the kids were coupled up going on and off the dance floor. One girl came over and asked me to dance and I stumbled around for the whole dance and I walked her back to her seat and thanked her. She lied and said I was a good dancer.

 

 

That’s me way back in the back with the white sports coat on.

 

 

The music they played in those days was fantastic including Elvis Presley,The Platters, Buddy Holly. Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, The Crests, The Five Satins, The Flamingos, and on and on. It was fun just sitting and listening to the music. I still love all that music today. What an era we grew up in.

 

 

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The Junior High Prom was a bit of a let down to me. It was certainly not a very memorable event in my life. It did, however, mean I was going into high school soon and this made me very happy. I walked home after the Prom and tomorrow was just another day.

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Here’s some tunes of the time:

 

 

 

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Thanks for reading Junior High Prom 1958,
Bill