It’s that time of year again when high school kids are heading to junior prom or senior ball. That involves big money for a dress, shoes, purse, hair, and nails if you’re female and a tux, tie, cummerbund, shoes and shirt if you’re a male. At least that’s the way it was when I was in high school oh, so many years ago.
When I saw on Facebook that the Concord Library was going to have a pop-up prom shop (since I subscribe to the city of Concord page for their Music and Market summer series of live bands on Thursday evenings in the park), I decided to gather up as many prom things as I could and take them to their library.
I shared the post on my page and offered to pick up dresses from people at their homes. One friend walked over her four dresses, two from her daughter and two from our chorus, another had me collect dresses and tuxes here in town, and another ex-chorus person had me go to Martinez for her dress. Plus, I had two dresses worn by my oldest daughter twenty years ago. Those dresses are now considered vintage. I also had a few in my own closet that I won’t wear again.
By the time I got to the library I had 18 pieces to donate, including four tuxes. There was already a growing pile behind the counter. As I gave the librarian the dresses, a friend of mine appeared. She volunteers there and told the librarian that I write books with Spanish for kids.
The librarian asked me to come do a story time. Concord has lots of Spanish-speaking kids. I said I would. Never mind that I haven’t done a school visit since before the pandemic or that I’m now a Medicare senior and COVID is still making the rounds. She gave me her card, so the proverbial ball is in my court.
I asked the friend if she’s going dancing this weekend at the winery which is starting back up its live music Saturdays and Sundays. The weather forecast looks good, with highs in the 70s and no rain. Today was super windy, but hopefully it will be gone by Saturday.
Come to think of it, I probably have a bunch more stuff I could have donated. I chickened out on the beaded dresses from the 80s when I saw the big pile. One of the dresses had a broken zipper, anyway. They are heavy, and the library didn’t even have a clothes rack. Everything was in a big pile on top of a desk. This is the first year for the pop-up shop, so there are some bugs to work out. I have a clothes rack from my shop! I should donate it.
The Bay Area has a lot of wealthy communities butting up against poorer communities. I love this idea of sharing the dresses that have been in our closets for way too long. I even washed my daughter’s big Cinderella dress with the underlay of netting to make it fuller. I always loved that dress and remember driving a carload of noisy girls over the old Bay Bridge to go to the outlet store in South San Francisco where I purchased it for her.
If nothing else, I got some memories today of prom seasons gone by.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 