FLASH AND FLASHBACK

It was Homecoming week at my old high school. Pictures of the candidates splashed the front page. Now they have Homecoming Kings. Which I, old-fashioned as I am, will never get used to. Even though our son was crowned Morp King when he was in school. Morp or Prom backwards was a take off on Prom only it was more of a laid back dance, kinda like a sock hop and there was no Morp Queen.

But besides our kids' Homecoming experiences, and by the way, Homecoming is always an experience from whom will I go with to the post Homecoming activities. As I started to say, I'm going back to my Homecoming days when cameras like that on the left were probably in vogue. No puff of smoke and photographer under an umbrella or miniature curtain though. C'mon.

Not long ago I penned about being a naive first grader. Also a naive first year in high schooler, too. Even though I ran around with a lot of seniors when I first started high school, I really didn't know what Homecoming was. I honestly thought it was when the football team came home from playing a few road games. I don't think I even knew about a dance or a queen. I'm serious, unfortunately.

Not that I would have asked a girl to the dance. I had taken one to a dance in seventh grade and it didn't work out too well. Besides, the only girl I liked at the start of my frosh year, Pat Seltzer, just dated older guys.

And I got no help from my freshmen friends who must not have wanted to go either because I didn't hear them talk about it. Nor any of my neighbors who were juniors and sophomores. Same with my senior buds.

By the time our kids were in high school, everyone talked about whom they were going to ask, where they were going to eat, who was taking their pictures. And this happened just after school started. Lots of times by dance time, new relationships had formed, old ones had soured, couples that were doubling had scuffled. I'm telling you, Homecoming was a mess.

I think I was better off not knowing. But, you know, I might have liked it better if they had had a King back then. I just might have looked pretty spiffy in a crown.

By the way, Happy Perfect Day--10/10/10. That doesn't happen often. Just like this month which has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays. I think you have to wait nearly 300 years for that to happen again.