A small ringlet of sweat meandered from the posterior aspect of my neck to the pool beginning to form in the small of my back. My once crisp white oxford dress shirt was pockmarked with translucent water marks like butter on wax paper and my “manly-man” deodorant was now as fresh smelling as a twelve day old bass. The 4 o’clock sun seemed to leap towards the earth increasing its intensity making me a believer in global warming, at least in my segment of the universe. No, I wasn’t in sub Saharan Africa or a beachfront in Jamaica, I was standing in line to save a seat at the Social Spring Formal.
For those of you either new to the area or just now crawling out from under your rock, Social is a fascinating study in adolescent herd behavior that oozes forth from the primordial southern small town gestalt and takes hormone ravaged teens and creates mannered, gentile belles and beaus. In other words, its a cash cow that thrives on peer pressure and moms desires for little Johnny and little Sally to not be social misfits. Begun in a more gallant age, Social attempts to harness World-of-Warcraft playing, acne aversive boys and teach them the importance of proper escort position and which fork to use and help girls to realize that exposed belly buttons and halter tops are are “hooker-chic”. And they do a surprisingly good job at it!. Imagine the difficulty in taking a video game obsessed man-child fresh from blowing up an online demon Ork and putting him in tails and gloves and have him utter such phrases as “So nice to meet you” and “May I have this dance?” This is about as natural to these kids as telling the truth is to a congressman, but the Social instructors somehow pull it off year after year.
The Spring formal is a particularly interesting affair as it is the culmination of a years worth of cajoling, gum extrusion, scolding for excessive talking, and mortgaging the house to pay for a Social dress. As the father of two daughters who have pranced and paraded around the Civic Center floor for Spring Formal, I can say that the money I have invested in ball gowns is equal to the gross national product of Grenada. However, my girls never looked more beautiful (thank God they look like their mother). As I watched the immeasurably infinite Grand March, (thousands upon thousands of kids streaming in the auditorium that, when assembled, looked like a collection of extras from Gone With The Wind) I fantasized about owning my own dress shop and capturing this market each Spring. The thousands upon thousands of dollars spent on fabric and flowers no doubt does more for the local economy than a government bailout and I am told there is a fortune to be made in dress consignments. The amount of money generated by this one event must make Bernie Madoff jealous; however, I am warmed to know I am providing the college tuition for some seamstresses' kid year after year. Nevertheless, sitting at the Civic Center counting bodies reinforced that the CSRA is probably the shag and fox trot capital of the Southeast, and that alone is worth dipping into the 401-K for.
When I rant about Social, my wife is fond of reminding me that I am only jealous because I didn’t have such a privileged upbringing. Raised in east Tennessee, we were more concerned about stocking the outhouse than which fork to use with the salad. In my home town, a divorce and a tornado were very similar in that someone was bound to lose a doublewide trailer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish my backwoods hillbilly genes to be passed on to my sophisticated daughters, but I guess I feel I turned out okay in spite of not knowing the intricate choreography of Amos Moses. She maintains that Knoxville probably had a Social or its equivalent and that I was too busy climbing the nerd ladder to notice, but I insist that no such group existed in Rocky Top. Can you imagine a hundred of Knoxville’s finest Cotillion debutants decked out in bright orange dresses to match their dates overalls. My wife grew up in Macon, Georgia where Social was as intrinsic to the culture as Little Richard, and she reveled in the experience. To this day whenever she hears “I Love Beach Music” she spits out her gum and hurriedly forms a line. Those of you who did Social understand that reference, and those of you who didn’t...well you are probably way to unsophisticated to understand it anyway. Do I feel socially inferior and manners handicapped from not doing Dance Club and Cotillion? Not really, but I will admit that today on the dance floor I look like a severely spastic John Travolta trying to keep the beat as only a lily-white boy can. There is no doubt in my mind that had I been subjected to Social as a teen I would today have the panache of a Fred Astaire, the moves of a Gene Kelly, and the looks of a Homer Simpson.
When it comes down to it, with all the costs, hours of watching and waiting, more costs, and additional watching, Social, I have decided, is a pretty good thing. It is the only place where potential delinquents (and we all know how close we are) can be shown that manners, politeness, and respect do matter. It is a place to check attitudes at the door or suffer the wrath of instructors who are hired by the marines to tech drill sergeants. It is a place where kids from virtually every school in the area can come together in peaceful camaraderie with the common purpose of seeing how hot the guys and girls are at every other school but yours. It is about showing each other respect, and anything that promotes that can’t be all bad...expensive, but not all bad!
For those of you either new to the area or just now crawling out from under your rock, Social is a fascinating study in adolescent herd behavior that oozes forth from the primordial southern small town gestalt and takes hormone ravaged teens and creates mannered, gentile belles and beaus. In other words, its a cash cow that thrives on peer pressure and moms desires for little Johnny and little Sally to not be social misfits. Begun in a more gallant age, Social attempts to harness World-of-Warcraft playing, acne aversive boys and teach them the importance of proper escort position and which fork to use and help girls to realize that exposed belly buttons and halter tops are are “hooker-chic”. And they do a surprisingly good job at it!. Imagine the difficulty in taking a video game obsessed man-child fresh from blowing up an online demon Ork and putting him in tails and gloves and have him utter such phrases as “So nice to meet you” and “May I have this dance?” This is about as natural to these kids as telling the truth is to a congressman, but the Social instructors somehow pull it off year after year.
The Spring formal is a particularly interesting affair as it is the culmination of a years worth of cajoling, gum extrusion, scolding for excessive talking, and mortgaging the house to pay for a Social dress. As the father of two daughters who have pranced and paraded around the Civic Center floor for Spring Formal, I can say that the money I have invested in ball gowns is equal to the gross national product of Grenada. However, my girls never looked more beautiful (thank God they look like their mother). As I watched the immeasurably infinite Grand March, (thousands upon thousands of kids streaming in the auditorium that, when assembled, looked like a collection of extras from Gone With The Wind) I fantasized about owning my own dress shop and capturing this market each Spring. The thousands upon thousands of dollars spent on fabric and flowers no doubt does more for the local economy than a government bailout and I am told there is a fortune to be made in dress consignments. The amount of money generated by this one event must make Bernie Madoff jealous; however, I am warmed to know I am providing the college tuition for some seamstresses' kid year after year. Nevertheless, sitting at the Civic Center counting bodies reinforced that the CSRA is probably the shag and fox trot capital of the Southeast, and that alone is worth dipping into the 401-K for.
When I rant about Social, my wife is fond of reminding me that I am only jealous because I didn’t have such a privileged upbringing. Raised in east Tennessee, we were more concerned about stocking the outhouse than which fork to use with the salad. In my home town, a divorce and a tornado were very similar in that someone was bound to lose a doublewide trailer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish my backwoods hillbilly genes to be passed on to my sophisticated daughters, but I guess I feel I turned out okay in spite of not knowing the intricate choreography of Amos Moses. She maintains that Knoxville probably had a Social or its equivalent and that I was too busy climbing the nerd ladder to notice, but I insist that no such group existed in Rocky Top. Can you imagine a hundred of Knoxville’s finest Cotillion debutants decked out in bright orange dresses to match their dates overalls. My wife grew up in Macon, Georgia where Social was as intrinsic to the culture as Little Richard, and she reveled in the experience. To this day whenever she hears “I Love Beach Music” she spits out her gum and hurriedly forms a line. Those of you who did Social understand that reference, and those of you who didn’t...well you are probably way to unsophisticated to understand it anyway. Do I feel socially inferior and manners handicapped from not doing Dance Club and Cotillion? Not really, but I will admit that today on the dance floor I look like a severely spastic John Travolta trying to keep the beat as only a lily-white boy can. There is no doubt in my mind that had I been subjected to Social as a teen I would today have the panache of a Fred Astaire, the moves of a Gene Kelly, and the looks of a Homer Simpson.
When it comes down to it, with all the costs, hours of watching and waiting, more costs, and additional watching, Social, I have decided, is a pretty good thing. It is the only place where potential delinquents (and we all know how close we are) can be shown that manners, politeness, and respect do matter. It is a place to check attitudes at the door or suffer the wrath of instructors who are hired by the marines to tech drill sergeants. It is a place where kids from virtually every school in the area can come together in peaceful camaraderie with the common purpose of seeing how hot the guys and girls are at every other school but yours. It is about showing each other respect, and anything that promotes that can’t be all bad...expensive, but not all bad!
