186: Prom
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He was junior prom, David stated, ditch him, and he wasn't doing so great as he walked to get some cigarettes. He explained me that the prom was the combination of a three year campaign on his part to get him with a cool crowd, a mostly White crowd. He began when he arrived at link in park high school.

See, this is story between the a freshman I want, I like total nerd degree, so of what I see glamorous, beautiful girls. And like only dream I have having, all right, or just even like taking amount in a date and I even doing anything physical, was right. First, first genie problem, problem.

We can park most gorges. Groun's quote, has great prom. SHE says, yes. So well, guard down. I change life since sofa here.

I got into this crowd and stuff, and they just changed and changed my my speech, my dress stuff. I'm still the same person I changed. I'm just 我。

This is a popular crowd, is popular now. So I end up going right and SHE end now SHE is a history being like incredibly moody. She's w gorgeous.

Take her anywhere because I mean, if I go with her this year and SHE saw gorgeous than other other girls and say them and I just go them now, if he's good enough for her, he's definitely enough for me. My fine. That's going to boost my rebel lot of bit.

And I I do this. I want to something physical. I want to either is all around, all the meaning kiss or kiss, are feeling whatever, even more go the way or whatever.

But I wasn't counting, and that was really have fun. And that would be like a nice feature to IT to be a bonus. And that wasn't pushing anything.

Sure, not her. Her a legged best friend into a fight. And here I am alone with my rummy coke.

The problem, we don't make its going to the army in this country, we don't make them go to college, we don't make them get married. But if the still in school when they are eighteen, they clad with the impetuous fact that is the prom. If they go to school with a junior prom, they get IT twice.

And then to take this down, go not go, have some kind of experience, you have to try to climb to a new group of friends. Used to try to get the girl, just try to get through IT. The stakes are weirdly high for a one night then good luck.

As you get older, I think a lot of people tend to roll the rise of the idea of prom, because years later, this something about that, that just feels embarrassing, especially if you went the clothes and the corsage coining music. Just the whole thing I speak for myself, it's embarrassing to think how thrill I was to go out that night have the whole thing seemed bright with possibility to me and two out of us.

And so today we in the midst of promises, and right now we bring you four stories of the prom. Let us understand IT as adults, like one of our program today, tornado prom. What happens when the natural disaster strikes the same night as the unnatural disaster that is the prom? To see the dance for me again.

Francine pascal, the mental author of seven hundred book for teenagers and putting the sweet valley high books is plains. Why team stories always have to end at the prom factory. And with two things are certainly life, death and tuxes.

In this act, you can experience over the radio a complete typical prom. And, oh, just look at the time that only because you have an hour to find date. That for only one thing missing is the epic of prom genius is the place with the prom future is being born, the town of racing.

They have added one ingredient to the problem that takes to a whole new level of intensity, one magic ingredient. Find out what IT is. Stay with us for bb.

easy. chicago. It's this american life. Am I regress?

At one toronto prom and hissing in kansas years ago, a tornado hit on from night poisoning is a small town, about three thousand. Nobody the promise is heard. If I, nobody the prom t even knew what happened.

But when promise, over third of the town was destroyed, one of the man was dead and the same, you'll left to figure out what to think of. The whole thing was so many two and nado hitting around the country. Right now we are revisiting that story that happened in two thousand. One, back before every high school student was equipped the iphone.

On friday night night, the teenagers and poising ton drag main street, or they go to a party at someone's house, and the boy shoot baskets in the driveway, and the girls jump on the trampoline. Sometimes the parties are out in the country at ponds, IT ticks in the sticks. They tell me, since it's kansas, there's weird weather, high winds that make the power flicker on and off. They get a lot of tornado warnings, but they never thought one would actually touch down here. Poison ton just seem too boring to be visited by a natural disaster.

It's just like nothing than happens. And poisonings, unlike everyone says, I was like, all there, nothing doing, nothing happens here. So just like, why would a torn nado come here?

Prom actually feels grand and poising ton. The day of the dance, the girls drive down to great bend and get their hair done at main attractions. They all wear long gowns. They shot for them at the storm, in which at that won't sell, addressed by to anyone else in your town. The dresses are elaborate and like all prompt finery, extremely difficult to explain.

It's like black and it's fitted. But when you look at from other directions, it's silver and royal blue. Purple IT was shiny. There's like two straps to go the back in the cross. I hard to explain, like people asking me what I look like and I was so hard to explain to him because it's so unique.

All very long. Like tight. Not really. Many of them didn't have like a tight jars or like long. They were just like just one sheet, like I guess really you know bad dresses, but there is just like one club.

I think forms more of the female. You know, it's hard night. You know, most ladies are like, you want prom to be everything, you know. So I think they wanted that kind of be some a night they'll never forget some people got IT.

I mean, I went to through lots of prom magazines and just looking at themes and staff. And we had all the whole junior class vote on which when they wanted, and they came up to be lost in the moment. So this kind of ironic, we really worth lost what was happening. We didn't know what was going on. And so I mean, after IT, with its lost.

What happens when a prom means a tornado, when two events that often end in disaster collide? The data, both the problem and the toronto came to hoisin ton, everyone tells me, with ominous for shadowing, started out Sunny, but looked storme by dinner. IT was sprinkling by the time everyone parked their trucks outside the night of columbia, all on main street. They ducked, ran inside the prom.

Crowded with people taking pictures. I mean, like that a best well game, something like, how do I after a little bit.

this is Shawn. He's a junior. He video taped the prom partly so he could show his mom what he missed from here. He and his classmates tell the story.

IT took good meeting before people, you know, finally starting dance and .

itself every time. And I, you know, somebody other.

we got their late. So like as soon as that, we got like that right eight oclock. So soon as we got that, the dancer he started, we just started dancing.

We like an hour. So, you know, what about an hour? And then the light sort of flicking off, not like IT would didn't like flicker is like kind of went off. And then I came back on now, and people just was some people like my friend time and is kind of scared of the dark and so she's freaking out but some people just fun, you know so Normal blackout saying, you know.

there's just a lot of people screaming and just, yeah, I didn't like falls and stuff. I was too, and they get yelled at one time, and me that bear break out the cake and self like that and like to go back on. Everybody just kind of looked there and when on their way, you know anything.

The door kept open in and we knew we could hear that was really, we knew was getting windy outside. And someone has said that I started to rain and people would go out and look. And that was like rain was just coming in horriston tally.

IT was just blown down the street and we didn't think anything ever. I was just, oh, you know, we had to go out in this later. Didn't think IT was .

as bad as what I was.

They're playing I A survivor from destiny's child and that was like the next to last song before the lights black out.

Who who would know you know, I mean, who would thought that that song would be playing in one of the last time that that a torn ated right before IT rips .

through our town? You know. 同学 和 我 同唱。

Late when after the second time, everybody just can't stood around in everything waiting and get Young. Will I Carry up, turn lights back on, come on. The socks were standing around that problem. You know.

djs came out and they had like a long stick, and they're trying to get everyone to do like a limbo just to keep us entertained. And why the lights? Because they could have any music thing like that. So they had a line of limbo going through. And that was when our principal told us that we needed to go down stairs .

shortly after the lights on out the door of the nights plumbs then was was basically sucked open.

This is my gotten the principle of poison to high school.

At that point, I walked over and you could feel the the pain glass kind of vibrating a little bit, and it's subsided a little bit. I stepped outside. And as I stepped outside, an ambuLance was coming down the main street with the P. A. Saying, get in the basement.

S new. Here's a break.

We've got that lock in the thing.

We hangang IT out to get more beer and drugs out here. The wind is known and the rain is coming down hard.

Everybody got to.

你们 都 the matter。 Pull matters of your head.

Secure .

yourself as a serious, but I know.

I was just tape and you just came up and just started saying that stuff and but I talked to out SHE didn't SHE had nobody in others turned out he feels bad for even saying that stuff. So it's like, wow, she's run on the money.

This is the .

best ever.

ever the basement .

right here. Oh my god, here. I mean, when when I was looking at the camera was like pitch black, would like two flashlights in the distance. You can like, barely say someone smoking them .

here .

I can smell IT was dark .

and we haven't probably seen everybody. Mister norton said that we weren't allow to go, our principle said we weren't allow to go upstairs until the cops came and told us that everything was okay. And I asked him, I like, what are we down here? Because a hail, storm, thunderstorm, tornado, what's going on? He's like right now, everything would be speculation.

We will keep .

you here if I say turn you lose and.

I made the call that problem would be cancelled two hours later. I look back on that statement. So and but while that was a solid statement, that should let you know how to make that. And then when I can be a key bear that wanted to stay at prohack and IT, just goes to show how little we knew when we were four blocks away from the storm.

And so that's when, like people that would have cell phones, I started getting on those. And a lot of rumors were flying through. And people saying, I mean, I was like, okay, always someone pops up and says, jack, your house is gone or like, jack of your sister s. House is gone and like, and then I was like, all of these streets gone, all of six streets gone.

I was just like, don't jump to conclusions because you don't know what's the true and what's a lie and what's a rumor. These those rumors fine everywhere. That daily queen was gone and everybody that was in IT was dead. And I mean, that was where we are going to have breakfast at after after prom.

There's people crime because no one can. We can't leave. We don't know where our families are at. We didn't know how to get a hold of anybody.

IT was I don't even know if I can explain the feeling, just like so I was I was just so scared. I was, I was almost, you couldn't really even talk. All I could do was cry. I was, I thought I could do.

And I got ready try so much again.

But the sudden everybody just start walking up stage, you know and I was still dark, you know and was looking for my coke as I had taken that off and set along the chair and mean the souther guy loop pattern. We both had the same looking, uh but so we are looking at IT and he was like, that looks like mine and his girlfriend was like here that cheers I can tell by that one I was like, sure here.

I don't know how they can have you guy here, but you can have IT. So I kept IT and I was looking for IT. I couldn't find, I couldn't find IT.

And then I heard somebody on my name and I thought, that's my brother. No, what would he be doing about, you know, then he is like, real year ago, talk to mom. I figured she's overreacting.

SHE wants to talk to me, make sure i'm okay. And I I can kind of see you you know, there's a little bit of light coming from the door away where you can make out somebody y's figure. And I could kind of tell my mom, so I walked up to her, he started crying, and my sister was sent there crying. I just kind of was like, only know.

The last time I heard her son that worried and scared was when a my dad died. Now the last i've heard my mom sound that bed.

Kind of sad that I didn't believe in at first because I was like, tornadoes. You know what? tornado? There is no tornadoes.

We didn't know about any torn to anything there was because I didn't see IT. You know, I was right here. know. How could there be a torne that is known?

William's mom went outside. Everyone from prom was standing on the sidewalk. Main street looked fine. None of the building seem to have been touched. The are felt nice and cool. At first we've thought the cars were pok marked like from hail, but then he realized the storm had just covered them with little White flowers.

No one like actually came up and said, oh, that was a tornado. IT was was like, there's someone saying, like him, come are you come are you come here there's where because you're like kind of listening for your name if IT was coming up but I was like, I was just like that one row is straight like six and seven. I mean, that's like all the kids they were name enough that look on that tree. I wait a minute, you know, I did a head up there.

Oh, there was like, so many fire choice and so many cops ambuLance. Ces, I mean, they were just going to that north, just cut on north, that is her and earth. They are just went north, and they kind of like lid up the whole town when they went there. And then you look on other side towns like told dark as weird because I was like pitch black. Basically down there is kind of like if you drove north, you can fall like into a black hole or something.

We drove ahead for a while. I didn't believe what I saw. Houses that I used to know, you know like like the one house had like a big chunk ripped out of the top of the, you know like a tea rex walk after just took a bite out the time of the roof and staff fields. It's pretty amazing.

My cousin had is a separate car from my ants, so he took me as closely. He could get me to my house. And then I just got out and I ran to my house. I jump in power lines and tree limbs and everything in my promoter and flip bops. But I got there.

This is oline. SHE lived on six, three, right where the tornados IT.

My mom SHE had SHE cooked that supper that night. He had a crustal pitter like, ict was in on our table. IT was still fine after the toronto was still in like right there on the exact spot on the table.

IT had been touched on. The roof was completely off the kitchen. You could send in our kitchen, look up and you will be looking up at the sky.

That night, kids walked all over poising ton with flashlights, all the places they could think to go. The dairy y queen, the bowling ali, the grocery store, the football field were gone. IT wasn't just that something had finally happened in hoisin ton. Hoisin ton had become an entirely different town.

Did you in? I now ground zero, my houses in ground zero.

I arrived in poison in about two weeks after the tornadoes.

and elina took me on a tour. Everything is so can even tell anything ever.

Whole sections of the town were still perfect. There were people on purchase and shiny party balloons tied to male boxes. Then we crossed over.

A lot of the west side, had already been bulldoze. Now was just basements and house parts, someone's front steps or a kitchen cut away like a room in the dollhouse. And of course, this is kansas. The main street in town is a red brick road. Lots of people had spray painted their cars and houses and boded up windows with references to the wizard of oz.

Everybody like right stuff about dorthy and total on their houses. Like our house. We had all the windows board to shed and we had all kinds of things that we had like, we're coming for you total. And like, dear dorthy, I miss you. If somebody finds me, please pack me and send me to oklahoman love TOTO .

to the kids and .

hoisin ton IT started to seem like the tornado made choices. Why would IT knocked down a house, but not even break the glass on a framed photograph of bride mates and purple dresses?

All kinds of where the stuff has happened, like when they went in adam. And the only thing they found left in the room was a movie twister, I don't know. And some people found a prom glass and their cover, and is from one thousand nine sixty three.

And they didn't have any kids. There are an old couple. They don't have any kids that graduated that year, and they have no idea where I came from, but they found in their cover.

Some teenagers started to look for a logic and who was hit and who was spared. I'm told that the junior class got at the worst. And then it's a known fact. Theyve been drinks since the fourth grade. Addie, who lost her house, and brooke, who didn't tell me that add is bad luck and brook is good luck, that they joke about this all the time, that even at the moment the tornado destroyed hoisin ton brook was winning a prize at prom. We will took the whole thing a lot harder.

Seems like you know that we just can't get a break, that we just can't get lucky.

Wheel dad died several years ago, had a heart attack on his birthday, and unless far, the house will have lived instant. He was little got to expensive for his mother, and the family had to move out. The house was on the east side, and the toronto didn't touch IT. Even still.

when I drive by there, I look at the house, one hundred that would have been like if the tornadoes hit was still lived at that house. You know, and I, you know I wonder if, you know, if I still live there with the tornadoes have come that way and hit, is there, you know, because, you know, maybe he would say that because there somebody you know that was going after, you know and if I did live in that other house, you know that maybe of what, you know, the tornado probably would came out over on the inside, you know that I probably still what came to. And some of the house is just the way I believe.

I think IT was meant to teach me a lesson, you know, in a couple ways, like one way, or I start only be call if we added to a little in this town, you know, that have some exciting go on and that now it's like, oh, here have a tornado now do you feel about IT?

Only a felt like he calls the storm too right .

and night before the tornadoes, anadi were driving in a lafin to hang out some friends and as like, you know, it's like i've never seen a torto was like I really want to see and sometimes just like, you know, I really scary like i've seen a couple, you know but i've never actually like been in one I like I know it's like when that would be crazy, not really do happen.

They like twenty four hours almost exactly later, you know, the next night at one kts and takes out our houses. IT was pretty freaky. I was like, oh my god, I remember after the twenty eight or my god at home and I cry. I checked my mom and I just like, I swear I made this happen in like, no, I need to make that happen but I mean, it's pretty scary saying you'll never seen I really wanted see in the night before IT takes out my house.

I ask Shawn if he thinks the storm single people out.

I don't think so really, because if that was sure to came straight to my house, I want to find me a probe and then IT. And I have a bad luck all time. I mean, like two sisters, the first one, little one SHE said all I got a problem with and SHE dance me.

Her sister asked me the problem and she's like, I don't want so was like, I got rejected by sisters. So was like, so IT should have found me, and like, sucked me up by myself, just to be like, ha, ha, ha, you know and then hit my car and then hit my room, so just hit my whole houses with my room in my car. So I had scratched that bad luck idea with some people in was just a choice to fate that that have.

That was definitely the promise, all problems. I mean, IT was a horrible, horrible experience to go through, but IT was definitely problem of all problems. I mean.

it's like something that everything going to remember. Like some people, they look on, look back on problems, just a promise. Everybody knows what prom happen.

They know what's gonna en to prom. They know what promise, you know. But now we can say what happened on from night. It's a really big of IT.

Now, you know, I guess it's one that you'll never forget, really. I mean, think a problem right now, I think to do I mean, every bit is going to remember IT for that.

Usually the story of prom is one of disappointment. You're in the bathroom crying during the slow dance. Are you throw up at the hotel room party or you go home feeling silly for having been so excited about something so meaningless? The teenagers and poison ton got the kind of prom story everybody wants. They got a legend dry prom, the night that actually did change their lives.

I mean, it's like I went to prom, my software junior years, and IT was a dance. IT was a problem. IT was nice and was found to get all dressed up.

But IT was like a problem that taught a lesson, you know, wasn't just IT became our cars and clothes and worth so important in family and friends. And I taught a big lesson about humanity. I thinks everybody there, everybody, had had a new perspective of life, walking out of that prom.

I can work them like a whole different world and just have fun when actually, outside, as I totally opposite, people are in the basement, stuff falling down. Houses are gone now. People are actually losing stuff. And we're in prom steel dancing when the toronto heads and afterheat were still just, you know, just free of everything, just like still having a good time. It's like totally different when you walk outside, like you step out of the safe sound, you go to another world or reality hits.

Prom doesn't usually shop rony into the world so quickly. Suddenly a lot of kids and hoisin ton have to act like grown ups whiles going to college in the fall. But he sometimes thinks that would be Better to get a job at an oil rig, give the paychecks to his mother. A senior name's jack actually pulled his parents out of the rubble of their own home on chrome night. But everyone's looking forward to rebuilding, and they're getting used to the idea that anything can happen even in hoisin ton.

This is in is a producer on our show, her podcast series, the retrieval just got dominated for a pee. But if you haven't heard that, you can find IT whether you get your podcast since we first broadcasters story back in two thousand. One, will the teenager talk about how dominy felt I was family couldn't get a break.

His father died whose house was destroyed. He died that july in a car accident, just few months after prom and just weeks after our story was broadcast. Kind of a gram way to end this. But that's what happened.

Sometimes things go wrong, even at the senior o one got turned.

Just when shot, the SHE got Carried flow and come up. They've been juniors in high .

school since the year one thousand eighty two. So when they say, and this is a direct quote we have been dreaming about prominent for years, they mean IT that in a minute from chicago bbb radio when our program continues. This is american life for my my glass. If you're in a program, of course, we choose some theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme.

Today's program, as we had in the may and promise season, stories about the prom, we've arrived the active of our program, act two, save the last dance for me again, so pretty in pink and Carry and back to the future and the cause be kids buffet, and to many other movies and T, V. Shows the name, they all eventually end up at the prom. But why? Why the prom? Why is IT? So i'm the present for answers, we turned to francine pascal, who has written or invented the light lines for seven hundred books in the sweet valley high series, which, of course, is the adventures of elisabeth and Jessica wakefield twins and well, seemingly permanent high school juniors SHE specked to us from her home and friends.

Well, I have to tell you that the prom is probably the quintin al glory of high school. It's the moment that comes closest to the romantic vision of life. I think it's IT. It's repeated again only one other time and that would be marriage. I mean it's it's that important in in the high school life, in the teenager life, in that free life before adult.

That's interesting. So so as in a traditional uh drama where where you where you d want the characters to end up in marriage, if you're writing about teenagers.

all you've god is the problem. That's about IT. That's right. And out of the seven hundred books cell, I probably prom is mentioned didn't at least five hundred of them. But I would say there's probably a major goal in almost thirty thirty five.

You an thirty five or so books actually take place at the problem. There's an actual .

prom um yeah there is a prom as the plot goal or a very important part of the plot. I can give you just ideas of that uh there's I think in the second book um I did a plot about who is gonna the king and queen of the prom and there was you al rigging the election and IT I just to give you an idea uh puts on a getting a date for the prom, somebody who has no date for the prom, the wrong date for the prom. The wrong data turns out right for the prom and I know there was a prauge about this poor girl her brother had to take her I mean that permanent trauma and then there's the other thing that is no money to the prom press. Then this the one about you think he's going to ask you to ask someone else and every I mean, when you're when you're involved or as many plots as I am, you know they begin to fall into some categories and there are things like the bed plot.

the one point.

the beat wager, like a wager a bit plot or the pledge plot. Uh, where, uh, you this the boy asked the girl on a bet to go to the prom or the pledges he has to ask the least popular girl in the in the class to go to the prom and then SHE finds out and then he really wants to go with her, put his to like she's furious and that to takes a whole book to settle down.

IT seems like one of the common prom pts is that the prom forces a choice between potential dates, and often it'll be the good looking, unattainable. Boy or girl is one possibility, and the smart, funny, best friend is the other possibility.

Exactly, exactly abuse. That sort of thing is also perfect, because though these people are not going to be living for the rest of eyes and not legally married anything, but they do have to make that first important choice of the person they are going to spend that momentous evening with. see. And is, is, is almost a mini marriage kind of choice.

In book number one forty two, in the sweet valley series of a stray called the big night, you have not one, not two, not three, but four characters who end up switching their dates at the prom. And one girl tries to kill her date.

Oh that a that must been A A trailler uh courtney tries to push .

a tid off of the off of a boat rAiling into the into the water and IT was of IT is in a speed boat following .

yeah yes right yes what you know, that's just a variation on a theme. That's all you have to do something slightly different with them. H when you are a hundred people listening to you talk .

about this IT seems like what the prom uh does. And what IT gives you as a writer is that gives you a natural um arena where there can be a conflict over love and an outcome. And without the prime you'd have to invent some situation which would feel like IT has wait where .

the problem just has the weight exactly because the prom is is a natural IT comes filled with all kinds of emotion. Just the mention of the prom. You don't have to create something and build IT up and give IT terrible importance. You don't have to do any of those things.

Did you go to prime yourself?

I never went to my own prom. I was not interested. StrAngely enough, I I didn't like high school very much at all. It's funny that I ended up writing so much about IT.

And what did do you think of prom?

I really was not interested. I I felt that I was too sophisticated and mature for that sort of stuff, and I just didn't. I never, I never really participated beyond writing speeches for the political candidates and being on the newspaper. That's what I liked. But beyond that, I just didn't have an interest in that.

You never care to go to the promise. So you've now somehow faith has put in the situation where you ve had to .

be visited over thirty five times. Yes, it's my punishment, but it's it's different because I don't have to show up there.

The charming franc pescod, creator of sweet valley high.

It's warm time again in the hard land. I worked for my brain through the phone. Always open that I could be your date, but when I.

Factory death and taxes. So let's go to the prom, huh? You and me, back in one thousand nine hundred ninety four, when I was a reporter for rapiers, all things considered, that actually covered the senior prom, a tough high school in chicago.

And we thought we would play this story now because in contrast to the prompts in francy past sales books, this captures on tape, what the problem usually is here is this very old recording. All year long, the teachers see students who slow and gossip, students who were closing that teachers don't understand, students who need providing and discipline and constant surveilLance. And then on prominent, the students reappear, transformed, is in a dream. And the teachers wander around, remarking to each other, can you believe how well behave they are, how grown up they seem? My teacher, Jerry pad.

has help plan the problem for years, aren't they? I have the one, we've never have any .

trouble that just great kids.

These are, plus these are the seniors that have made IT come out Carry with.

The day George burke hadn't bother with the talks. They were a black shirt, skinny black tie, black pants, no jacket. They were having fun except for one small hitch.

You can tell that me, because he can.

Yeah.

maybe if they place the metal, he said you could slam dance.

This couple was having a different kind of problem.

We're going to agra falls tomorrow morning, but tonight we're just a party. My girlfriend telling me we're going to go to hotel.

a special place. I got a special hotel room somewhere.

and it's a surprise.

What do your parents say?

Well, my mom gave me that no mother daughter sex talk, but it's a little too late for that kind of in one ear out the other. But he was still very worried and SHE me to that was waste the money.

You know, your mother .

gave you a mother daughter sex time.

Yes, yes, saying something, maybe he might cause i'm leaving for college. okay. And since we've been together, this song is going to be very dramatic between us you to leave each other. So she's like all he's going to buy the moves and he is going to try to do sex x try to keep .

you here by it's too late on the dance for there .

was a certain amount of copying fields and kissing, but the sexual attention at the problem hit a kind of series zet. When the DJ told the boys to bring chairs down to the dance for, or girls receded in the chairs, and the other .

ceremony began.

Over one hundred teenage girls, presented by lakes with gardeners.

all mean, have to put your hands behind your back.

meaning, grab the garden with .

your teeth. All right, you want back this routine?

Is the kind of activity that separates the just friends prom dates, when the real date and dozens of just friends stood around the ages of .

the hall in various states of discomfort. Two, one.

Bring things against the slightly sweet size of their dates, grip multiple ward guards with their teeth and dragged them off the leg. It's a shocking and amazing site. But when I ask teachers about IT later, they all say, where have you been? You've been this for years.

homecoming.

Apparently things get even more expensive.

All right, okay, let's go to cheers. I will have a slow dance .

as evening wore on georgian colour. The couple that didn't dance did go out for a couple of slow numbers in the flour.

Later, when he was time to leave.

they picked up the prom favors and took some balloons from the centerpieces enjoin another couple, mark in Charlotte and mark fathers ford tempo. They searched for a radio station heavy.

的。

i like you.

nice.

Alright, no, man. that's.

Everybody pitched in a dollar for gas. Caro waved to people in other cars and inhaled the helium from a prom balloons.

Party, party, party burning. They argued about directions.

discuss who one owner writer is going out with these days. And finally, after nearly an hour, we ended up with a party, a pretty lively party, but mostly we stood around outside.

Where is my liquor? Where's my liquor? So repeated .

this about a twenty times nobody. I seem too interested in getting drunk. But finally, someone organized a look.

or N I to to .

sell me. If they don't sell to me, the cell is .

someone else. What do you want to?

T, V five give a ten.

One thing you forget when you're not a teenager is how much time teenager spent just standing around waiting, waiting to get to organised, waiting for everyone to show up, waiting for the person buying liquor to return. Percentage wise, this was the largest part of the evening. Invariably, during this time, someone starts to get on. Someone else is nerves for sharing. Od, and George, the feeling was mutual.

Show is, yes, man, he never shuts up. No, I should just keep on talking and talking so when you shut up and it's like the tonal voice he uses to, she's like the White to no voice, you know so I want to hear IT I don't put up when you first started gone a tft man. And I hated IT then, and I hate IT now. So something that spring and me down, you know.

Around one thirty, a decision was made to go to the beach chica downtown like mission an bees. And after much debate and four attempts to get a dozen people at the cars, we finally drove the belmont harbor and walked out to the big rocks on the water. Everyone started at the lake. The city lights made the clouds glow orange. In the distance, you can see some fog and the lights of the water pumping rates.

those pop in stations. Men, how do you like to work out there? You get to work out there for three days. three? Days ships you work and you get paid and you just hang around here and it's like role code yeah did you get in through .

the as for IT is so scary to be a boat like, you know.

it's so dark let some really space I really fill uneasy around. Open water is water, open water, man, it's space is free, me and city. Go.

mark then launches into a fairly dire speech, which coming from him is surprising. College, about a good student on football team, easy going .

and self fight. Because there's always cop. Somebody is always somebody. Hold the place there was going come to and ask you, especially on the age, then I really get on your back giving you is about you're not supposed you're supposed to .

off garet takes us we talk about this and that and then we look behind us and see the blue lights through the trees. No evening like this can be complete without a running with the police. They are perhaps a hundred yards away in the parking lot in their squad car.

What do you get?

Are they get the police? However, a few minutes put a ticket on one kids car and drive off. No big deal. Next step, naturally, is an online restaurant. By the time we hold the big plastic danny's menus in our hands, four in the morning, you really, I once salad.

they.

Got pleasantly from topic to topic. Fate had handed them a prom, and they knew they were supposed to stay out all night. And they kept wandering from place to place waiting for something to happen. Nothing much did, but nothing bad did either.

It's starting to get outside, get so much sleep all day. I can see the back in .

the car. George said that the best moment of the proms when he got to slow down with carla mark said IT was when he missed getting a ticket from those cops. Shatt said IT was when he looked around at all the people at the problem and realized that he no longer had to return to high school.

They know me.

Can I be your friend somebody? right? I don't. I thought that.

Like for only one thing missing. So every year for the past seventy years, on the third weekend in may, all the high schools and racing with concern, hold the prompts on the same night.

After all the proms evening, they gets them, all seven schools drive a parade out through town in convertibles and limos and anti cars, ice cream trucks and cmos to the post prom party, which in seam is actually bigger than the actual prom itself, hosted by the local rotary club that goes from eight, thirty nine until three. The next morning, people set up long chairs to watch this procession of cars. This parade IT is a huge, huge deal. And then i've got even bigger when they do tell what happen.

The good people of racing loved their prom, and they were always looking for ways to make IT Better. And so they added to IT of force even more powerful than the prom itself. They added live television coverage.

Last year.

Six thousand eyes were watching the right of passage seven school.

one great location, one night only. It's prom, prom like saturday .

to nine thirty P M. What will you be wearing?

It's it's a really, really incredible atmosphere in there with in eight thousand hours laser show, five to ten thousand hours with the balloons and flowers .

crag askins has been running the rotary clubs s post prom for the past couple of years. He was voted into the job by his fellow rotarians simply because he is twenty seven years old and by far the Youngest retaliation in racine. And he looks Young on prom night. He has to wear a special bad so the high school kids known not to ask him to dance.

There are screaming people, the red carpet um television crews um too talented, you know, like the the host and hosts that interview you when you walk to the door and just like john crawford that turn me on rivers.

joan rivers.

just like john rivers when you walk through what are you wearing beautiful doctor.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to a time Warner cable coverage of the two thousand one rotary post prom parade live from festival hall and reseed late front. My name is that .

when I was walking down the red carpet, I felt like I was, you feel like a celebrity.

Zak fish pain was a senior at horla I this year.

And there's fans, people of all ages know there's bleachers, packed bleachers, hundreds of people around the rival area and people screaming your name, taking pictures, holding their hands out. Every feels like the power is following me around with television cameras in your face.

what? What did you do before you got here? OK?

So you .

all ate together and then came down here.

There's people on the left the carpet interviewing and watching all these limits. Ines and friends coming in, everyone feels like a celebrity and everyone sees everyone else as a celebrity. Everybody is everybody's best friend .

and pose from.

You walk in and you see the strobe lights flashing, and the celebrity feeling is even multiply when you get there. And that feeling doesn't go away until I still have IT three weeks later, and I still feel like a celebrity watching IT all again on television. So the as long as you keep watching IT and everyone knows how big of a deal IT is, that really isn't downplayed.

Once you kind of lose that feeling, you think about proud, start talking IT about IT with again. And people wanted hear about IT people who didn't go and have been watching and have so many questions for you. Did you do this? Did you see this person? What kind of music do they play? You, you are the center of attention when prom is the topic. So you are what you maintain, that celebrity feeling.

Here's what IT looks like to the home viewer. Because this is low budget local cable programing. It's mostly just one camera shot.

Couples enter the festival hall, passing two by two in front of the camera, will hooing in high mommy straight into the camera, one after the next. And this goes on for four hours. In zag house, this footage has become a kind of video wallpaper.

While I was there interviewing him, a copy of the cable broadcast played the whole time in the living room. Sometimes a family member would drop out of the conversation to stare IT for a while now. Then zac mom .

Susan would call our attention to the screen. We have been so excited with that. We've watched .

jit numerous things. It's great. I mean.

we play IT back all the time. It's know we have two copies of audits and two tvs. And every time you watched, you see somebody different. And it's so much fun when you run into the parents and the .

kids .

in the city .

to say you're pink dress and your matching taxis just great and it's great.

If you ask the local television studios what's the biggest.

again, crack askins .

the Oscars super bowl prom, they would hands down and say prom, because it's the highest rated anything in town. And that's a good way to judge people's interests to what they are watching on T.

V. Prompts everywhere are all about hype. So it's no surprise that once you have a problem that's A T, V show, that the ratings would be hyped to.

two. The cable company's commercial says that sixty thousand eyes were watching the prom, but by that they actually mean thirty thousand viewers, two eyes per viewers. And really, even that number is just a guess for sure.

One person who was not watching the problem was caused and hip scape. I spoke with her job, a desmonds formal, where a taxi to rental store at the regency mall. IT is also safe to say that carston was the only person in the mall that night who was reading players fadder's for fun and .

reading IT a flight thing right in school. And IT was really wonderful. All and I wanted to keep reading IT, and else I can progress my greek.

You didn't go to prom?

No, no, I didn't. Prom is a beautiful illusion. People here indulge in the, in the thought that maybe they're not in the place that they are.

You seen is not a glamorous place. and. I mean, I know i'm part of IT.

If you're someone who hates the prom, there's no Better way to refuel your hatred than by working at a tuck shop, kristan says. Everyone at the store despises the prom, the worst part being when the kids bring their sweat suits back.

Sometimes I come up up like stuff ed into a little like grocery bag tied, really tied, and the entire to inspect the whole thing and pick up up very lightly. The boss here got hung fungus energy, their fernau. One time from building with some socks.

Do you get suit with like grass stands?

Oh, yeah. Rass q mud.

For people, let's say that promise there for people to feel special for once that lies, I don't know about that. I mean, find me one high school senior who really needs an ego boost. It's the time to be cocky and pride for. And I think it's kind of indulgent of that. And they say that they feel like a celebrity IT doesn't surprise me at all because they you know they do get they do get treated like celebrities even though they you know their personality might be less .

than beautiful.

And i'm certainly glad I didn't take part .

in IT to truly enjoy the racism prime. And maybe to enjoy any prime, you have to be the sort of person who enjoys the hype leading up to IT. Zx, certainly did. For basically his whole life.

I have been watching prime on television every, every spring, every, every may. And it's only natural middle school, as elementary school, grade school, high school all ages are watching this. So every year we watch IT.

And as a kid, I thought I was gonna come in a helicopter with a, with a yellow tuxedo. Actually, this year there was a kid in a yellow tuxedo. But no, hello, kitt.

There is, unfortunately. Watching IT on T. V.

I just I never realized how glorious this festivity really was until I actually was a part of IT. I mean, IT seems great. You'd look so forward with. And IT was even Better when I got there, because that was the real thing I was experiencing, that I was the realization in the fact that I was, I knew I was actually there and no longer looking forward to IT .

made IT that much Better.

Prom, after all, is just a dance, plus a whole lot of hype. Racing understands this so well that it's possible the'd created the greatest prome in the world. They've hyped IT to the point that when I asked a bunch of junior high school girls if they were looking forward to the prom, all of them looked at me as if I just asked them if they were, in fact, of the human species. Because they explained, by the time they reached senior year, who knows how they get could get.

When the door these days is an executive producer and editor at new york times audio since the story first year in two thousand and one, the promise grown from seven to nine area high schools. Special thanks to ovo incorporated and arts collective in new york. It's from them that we heard about the problem and we seen the metaphor about IT called world's best prom. They were very helpful.

Today was a rerun produced by study kind of myself without explain burg door and JoNathan gold, steam singer producer for today day show was july snider production, helping tod backman, pala Cathy and additional help on today's rerun from Michael comedic thrym to Sophia and ryan remi, especially to the in the Edwards made dukes, paul figured my medicine, Susanna Richard rosen berg, the city every seen when Young Kevin, paddy jack corners bruise drake and national public radio music up today from mr.

John connors, greg hill and match soup and Jason bitner he writing, performed the song tornado on the dance for a program, the danger laymen and the implications to the song for us as well. Our website, this american life, that org, you can listen one hundred. This american life is deleted public radio stations by P, R, X. The public radio exchange thanks as a programs go fund er and it's .

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