Sharing Memories: My First Sadie Hawkins Day Dance

       Thank you to Lorine McGinnis Schulze over at Olive Tree Genealogy,  for her ongoing series about Sharing Memories.  She has been posting a topic every Sunday since December 8, 2009, which gives me lots of food for thought and writing. In addition, the only rule is to share one's memories for whomever, but no rules about what, when or how often to write.  My kind of series,  since I dinna seem to do to well under hard and fast rules. Lorine's current topic of Sadie Hawkins Day Dances is just too good to pass up.

My First Sadie Hawkins Day Dance

      I remember my first Sadie Hawkins Day Dance --  a junior high school dance.   Everyone seemed to be excited about the dance and the girls were all a twitter about who to ask, who had been asked, and who was left to ask.  It was a small country school, so we all knew the answers to these important questions.  I was a just a seventh grader and too shy to ask a guy to a dance.  Besides,  I was much happier playing softball and riding my horse than this  "girlie"stuff" - or so I told myself.  Even so,   I went  to the dance.  My mother French-braided my hair from the nape of my neck up to two short braid that crossed the top of  my head, almost like a coronet tied with pink ribbons. The  new pink flowered dress that mother made had a flared skirt and I thought I looked beautiful.

     My parents dropped me off at the school gymnasium with the instructions that I would be at the gym door at  10 o'clock.  Quick kisses and a mumbled "yes, yes", and I darted in to the school, sure that my current heart throb would be there.  He might have been, but I hung back at the edges -- just too shy to say "hi" or anything.  The eighth and ninth graders seemed so much older than me -- they were having FUN.  Not many of the seventh graders were there, except those who were close friends with the older kids.   My stomach clenched with an unfamiliar fear, my eyes glued on the big clock hung on the wall across from the grandstands.  When the hands showed it was almost 10 o'clock.  I slid out into the night air and waited for the familiar roar of the  Oldsmobile 98, signalling my dad's arrival.

"Did you have a good time, honey?" asked my dad as I opened the door and climbed into the comforting familiar front seat.

"Oh  yes, Daddy,  I had a wonderful time.  Could we go for a Coke before we go home?"

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 © Joan Hill, Roots'n'Leaves Publications