Where I grew up, the prom wasn’t that big of a deal. We just showed up, looked at each other for a few hours, and then went out and got drunk. Some guys wasted their lunch money renting limousines in hopes of improving their chances of getting laid, but it was pretty much your generic prom scenario.
Well, either the times have changed drastically in the last decade, or the Dewey (Okla.) High School Bulldogger Prom two weeks ago might as well have been the Academy Awards. With cameras in hand and flashes charged, onlookers began cramming themselves into a roped-off area in front of the community center a full hour before any prom-goers had finished their dessert, hoping to hold the best spot from which to witness and chronicle the event of the year.
My brother and his friends grew up in this town of 4,000, and were some of the first to show up — in a semi truck. Blaring the horn at around 8,000 decibels every time one of them exited the cabin, shutters clicked, people applauded, middle-aged women cooed and awed, flashing back to their own proms at the very same high school. Grandma and grandpa were there. All the cousins and all the cousins’ friends were there. Basically, anyone remotely associated with the Dewey High class of 1999-00 was standing around with a camera, shouting and fawning over these small-town kids as if they were movie stars, as if this were the most important night of their lives. Come to think of it, maybe it was. The point-and-shoot paparazzi was out in force, questing for an eternal snapshot of this magical evening which no one dare forget.
“Oh, look at Bub! He looks just like his daddy did in ’69!” Flash. Click. Gossip.
“Oooh. There’s that Debbie So-and-so. She gets around you know. She’s loose.” Whisper. Click.
“Hey it’s Zeb! Doesn’t he look handsome?!” Click. Swoon.
After my brother made his way past the crowd and into the dance with his date, the Semi That Sprung Him chugged into the sunset like the climax of a trucker’s wet dream. Directly behind it, a horse-drawn carriage commandeered by a guy in a top hat delivered a young couple to the pavement like two helpless colts drenched in the afterbirth of this spectacle. All this in the first five minutes.
Soon after, a 1930s-era roadster pulled up, out of which some youth dressed like Chicago mobsters crept out, shooting looks like they could have had submachine guns under their black, oversized coats.
Then the sirens blared as the ambulance careened around the corner with its lights flashing, and it crossed my mind that someone had already been shot or overdosed. The paramedic hurried around the back and let his daughter and her date get out of the back, to the howling delight of the crowd.
Engines revved, flames shot out of tailpipes, music blared, and flashes continued to burn as tricked-out cars and strange vehicles of all possible make pulled up one after the other and unloaded passengers.
After about an hour of standing around in sheer amazement, playing catch-up with distant step-cousins and listening to my dad badmouth the Dewey High baseball coach, my thoughts started to wander, and I realized the only fitting end to this freak show would be if a flying saucer came careening out of the sky and took me far, far away from this planet. –Taylor Holland
This article appears in May 14 • 1999 and May 14 • 1999 (Cover).