I've been spending a lot of time inside the head of my 14 year old self, that summer of 1980. I don’t know why this period of my life has so occupied my thoughts lately, but it has. It’s something about turning 40 a few weeks ago I think. At any rate, I am going to keep writing about it for awhile...
So that magical summer ended and my life as a Freshman began. I felt so proud of myself for being in high school. The school was in the next town over, about 6 miles away, and I rode the bus to get there each morning. I had a really cool locker and changed classes every hour. And, there was a boy whose name was Jamie Thompson, a senior, who seemed to stop by my locker a lot.
Jamie was really handsome and played on the football team. His family lived in the country, near my town, and his sister, Desiree, was just a year older than me. I had known him my whole life. Jamie’s dad was a farmer, and his mom fixed people’s hair.
I remember when I was much younger, my mom had come home from having Jamie’s mom fix her hair, and she told me that she had just had the most amazing experience. Mrs. Thompson had a new hair brush that you could plug in to the wall and make it blow hot air. Instead of having her sit underneath a hair dryer, Mrs. Thompson brushed my mom’s hair dry. Mom said she had never felt anything so luxurious.
I was too young to date, so Jamie and I mostly hung out together by my locker before school started and over the lunch break. Homecoming was coming up and there was a big dance after the football game. This was to be my first official dance (other than the ones I went to on the tennis courts at 4-H camp), and I was nearly beside myself with excitement over the idea of going on an “almost real date” to the homecoming dance with Jamie.
A few weeks before homecoming he asked me. He asked in a normal way. Something like, “You know homecoming is coming up, and I thought we should do something together.” I nodded my head enthusiastically, relieved that he had made it official and I could start saying I had a date for the dance. But he didn’t stop there. Words kept coming out of his mouth. Strange words.
“You know my family goes to the such and such church.” (This was a church that was out in the country. I had been a few times with my cousins, who were regulars. It was less formal than the Methodist Church I attended. Instead of being formal, it was very, very intense. It was the sort of church where people raised their hands in the air while praying, and sometimes they started saying things in some sort of foreign language. Though I had never heard it said in so many words, I knew that a lot of people thought this church was kind of like a cult.)
“Yeah, I think I knew that,” I answered, not sure what this had to do with homecoming, but feeling a sort of uneasiness well up in the pit of my stomach.
“Well, we don’t believe in dancing, and so we can’t really go to the homecoming dance. I thought maybe you could come out to my house and we could just hang out there?”
I am sure there was a dead silence between us, but all I could hear was the roaring sound in my ears as my face turned beat red and the weight of what Jamie had just said began to sink in.
I’d been invited to homecoming by a boy I had a huge crush on. I had a date for homecoming. This was to be my first real dance. My first real date. Jamie was going to help win the football game, maybe even score a touchdown! I would cheer and holler from the bleachers, and high five my friends. And then I would go change into my outfit for the dance, and wait for Jamie to change out of his football uniform. And then we would hang out in the gym, listen to music, and drink punch and eat cookies and dance and laugh and joke around. And then when a slow song came on, we would slow dance together. And then he would take me home, and kiss me goodnight, and the whole evening was going to be perfect!
I realized Jamie was talking again. He was saying how his Mom was going to make us a special dinner and how he promised it would be fun. My eyes welled up with tears, but I forced them back down. I smiled at him reassuringly. Of course I would go with him I said. I didn’t care that much about some stupid dance anyway. He gave me a quick hug and then we had to get to our next class.
I walked around for the rest of the day in a daze, the ringing in my ears didn’t let up. I hated his stupid church. And I hated his stupid parents for making him believe that there was something sinful about going to a homecoming dance. I hated Jamie for acting like this was all just normal – and wholesome - for God sakes! And most of all, I hated myself for the fact that I was going along with it all.
The night of Homecoming, I sat in the bleachers and cheered the Tigers to victory. Jamie played really well, but I don’t remember if he scored a touchdown. My friends were all talking about the dance, and whose house they were going to to get ready after the game. I felt miserable.
Later, Jamie picked me up at a friend’s and drove me out to his house in the country. We had an awkward dinner with his parents and then we all sat around the table (his Mom & Dad, his sister Desiree, and me) and played a “bored” game. My parents had said I could stay out till 11:00 pm that night, but I think by 10:00 we’d already eaten and finished two rounds of the game, and his parents were ready to go to bed, so Jamie took me home.
It was the most disappointing night imaginable.
Not long after that Jamie lost his class ring while working in a field. He borrowed my Dad’s metal detector to try to find it, but with no luck. I had been expecting that any day he was going to ask me to go steady with him, which meant that I would put a whole bunch of tape around the underside of his ring to make it small enough so that I could wear it. The very coolest girls in school were all wearing their boyfriend’s rings, and I had hoped that I might be able to join their ranks.
But with no ring to wear, and no prospect of having a date for any of the dances, I soon lost interest in Jamie. And he with me.
I went to lots of dances over the next 3½ years and I have to admit that most of them were not that special. But I’ve always regretted missing that first homecoming. And to this day, if I could go back and do it over again, I would. I would tell Jamie Thompson, thanks but no thanks. He could enjoy his family dinner and his “bored” game without me. I would go to the dance, and dance barefooted with my friends. I would drink punch and eat cookies, and laugh and joke around. I might have missed out on the slow dances, but then again, maybe not. And I am sure the evening would have been perfect.
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