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May, 17, 2007:
The Grand March
By Frank Parrish
It’s prom season. This begins in February and ends around 2 pm on
the day following the prom.
I remember when the prom was an actual dance. Two people would
borrow their parent’s good clothes and go over to the high school gym
and stand around from 8 until 11 pm. Sometimes the girl would
dance with a girlfriend. Sometimes the boy would stand around
with another person while his girlfriend danced with another
girlfriend. There was usually a band with a name like Billy and
the Boppers. They usually weren’t very good. That’s why
they were called Billy and the the Boppers though. Nobody danced
much because they were wearing their parent’s good clothes. They
didn’t want to sweat in them. Besides, the clothes didn’t fit and
they didn’t want anything to fall down.
During the last dance everybody danced because it was the last
dance. People had to get up early and go to work at the drugstore
or the hardware store, or do chores, and they didn’t know when they
would see one another again. They always saw one another the next
night, but somehow it all made sense.
The other night I went to something called the grand march. This
is where, just before the prom, the boy and the girl get together with
all of their friends and walk past all of the adults who remember when
they walked in front of other adults, long, long ago.
Girls weren’t wearing their mother’s dresses any more and guys weren’t
wearing old, black suits. They were dressed in the finest gowns
and tuxedos money could buy or rent. There were incredible colors
and designs. Hundreds of cameras were catching the moment,
capturing in time, what for many, is a photograph etched only in our
memories. Misty-eyed moms and dads were watching their daughters
and sons, remembering when they walked this way once before.
Perhaps remembering hopes and dreams, and how they would soon take
their place on life’s larger stage. And now the circle continues
to spiral upward, endlessly. Parents watching children, who will
one day, watch children…
And so it is life. And it is community. And it is Norman
Rockwell and all of the other silly stereotypes. And it is
wonderful.
I was thinking as I watched my own daughter walk past, how something as
simple as this could be so important. I think it’s because it is
a form of transition and a celebration. The elegant gowns,
tuxedos, beautiful hair, and radiant smiles were whispering a coming of
age into adulthood. But mixed in with these whisperings were a
few happy shouts of some Mohawk haircuts, some tennis shoes beneath the
gowns, and at least one pair of red-orange flames on the tips of a pair
of dress shoes. Indeed, there was a transition to the grown-up world,
but not without the last few jubilant kicks of the springtime
foal. And it was all witnessed by those who had passed this way
once before. We were adding our “amens” and our “way to go’s” to
our future as they passed by in front of us.
Whether or not we ever reach our starry-eyed dreams, we could applaud
and affirm the next bunch of starry-eyed dreamers. What we may be
able to pass along to these sneakered and gowned adults on the verge,
isn’t clear. But we can, with certainty, pass along the hope that
one day they can make their dreams come true as they walk through life.
And that is worth celebrating.
And that is the grand march.
Questions
or comments
Email Frank at:
fparrish@zoominternet.net
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