I\u2019m not sure who had more fun: My daughter going to her first school dance, or me, getting to go along to drop her off at the school dance. I needed her special permission just to be allowed in the car. I had to keep a low profile. I wasn\u2019t allowed to drive. Like a dog, I was required to sit in the back seat. I couldn\u2019t smile. I couldn\u2019t say corny, obnoxious or sappy things. And I wasn\u2019t allowed to cry, laugh or pontificate. <\/p>\n
Any of these things would get me kicked to the curb, or worse! Shoot, I nearly got slugged when I came home from work and said to my daughter \u2014\u00a0her hair neatly brushed to one side and wearing a wonderful, flowing summer dress \u2014\u00a0\u201cBoy, you\u2019re the most beautiful girl in the world.\u201d I dodged the swing and jumped over the sofa to safety. <\/p>\n
But the short drop-off was still awesome. I pressed my nose up against the window, trying to catch a glimpse of something \u2014\u00a0anything! \u2014\u00a0as she walked into the school. \u201cStay away from boys!\u201d I wanted to scream, but the child lock was set and the window wouldn\u2019t roll down. (Darn kid had thought of everything!)<\/p>\n
How it reminded me of my younger days, and my first elementary school dances. <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember that we had too many. Maybe because I spent most of my years at an all-boys Catholic school in Tampa, which was directly across the street \u2014 and two barbed wire fences away \u2014 from the all-girls Catholic school.
\n<\/p>\n
There, the young ladies were taught that we were two rungs below flea- and tick-ridden howler monkeys \u2014\u00a0not that far from the truth. The girls pretty much kept to themselves at any dances we had, watching us carefully \u2026 tempted to use the tranquilizer darts their parents had given them. <\/p>\n
Not that we wanted to talk to girls, or God-forbid \u2014\u00a0and clearly, he did forbid! \u2014\u00a0dance with them. We wouldn\u2019t have known what to do. Certainly, not me. And I had been to cotillion \u2014\u00a0a fancy French word that means \u201csteps on pretty girl\u2019s toes while waltzing like a one-legged zombie.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mostly we stood around, smiling awkwardly, wondering why they despised us so much. Why they were so pretty, and we looked like a garbage truck emptied onto the gym floor. Why they had no interest in talking to us. And why someone had brought a frog to a school dance, but hadn\u2019t thought to freak out the girls with it yet. Now, that would change their minds about us!<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember ever dancing with a girl. Or talking to one. But I do remember at the end of the night, lines of cars with dads in the back seats \u2014 their noses pressed up to the windows. I always wondered why they were there. What they were doing. And how I would never be like that, not in a million years. Man, does a million years go by fast!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m not sure who had more fun: My daughter going to her first school dance, or me, getting to go along to drop her off at the school dance. I needed her special permission just to be allowed in the car. I had to keep a low profile. I wasn\u2019t allowed to drive. Like a dog, I was required to sit in the back seat. I couldn\u2019t smile. I couldn\u2019t say corny, obnoxious or sappy things. And I wasn\u2019t allowed to cry, laugh or pontificate. Any of these things would get me kicked to the curb, or worse! Shoot, I nearly got slugged when I came home from work and said to my daughter \u2014\u00a0her hair neatly brushed to one side and wearing a wonderful, flowing summer dress \u2014\u00a0\u201cBoy, you\u2019re the most beautiful girl in the world.\u201d I dodged the swing and jumped over the sofa to safety. But the short drop-off was still awesome. I pressed my nose up against the window, trying to catch a glimpse of something \u2014\u00a0anything! \u2014\u00a0as she walked into the school. \u201cStay away from boys!\u201d I wanted to scream, but the child lock was set and the window wouldn\u2019t roll down. (Darn kid had thought of everything!) How it reminded me of my younger days, and my first elementary school dances. I don\u2019t remember that we had too many. Maybe because I spent most of my years at an all-boys Catholic school in Tampa, which was directly across the street \u2014 and two barbed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571,562,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-nutshells","category-childhood","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}