Have you ever sat and watched and prayed for somebody to get injured? Did you catch your breath when he was tackled from behind and then carried off the gridiron on a stretcher?  Did you then feel a bit annoyed when he appeared not to have any serious injury - no broken legs or anything like that which might prevent him from having a part in the rest of your night?  I did. 

Fall in American High Schools means football season.  Sports are entered into with great enthusiasm by almost everyone in the community.  The Friday and Saturday  night football games, especially if they are played between local rival schools, command thousands of spectators (and in a town of 20,000 inhabitants that's saying quite a lot). All would be shouting their heads off to support their favourite team, whether or not they understood the first thing about football. It would inevitably be a cold night, because in the fall in North Dakota, the temperature drops below freezing each night from late September onwards.  

But the highlight of football season is the homecoming game.  Although originally homecoming probably was introduced for alumni to come back and nostalge over their high school days, in reality it was only the current students who had much to do with it.  The centre of the activity was always the football game, with the marching band performing fancy manoeuvres at half time. After the game there would be a dance. The main football players would escort the chosen Queen and her court to the dance. The girls wore long formals and long sleeved gloves, and during the football game, the local fur shop allowed the five of them to borrow mink coats to wear over their fancy dresses. (I remember we turned ours inside out when it started to rain. I expect the mink could have coped with rain, but somehow it seemed less worrying to have the drops on the silk lining.) On Saturday afternoon of Homecoming Day, the high school band would march through the town and the chosen girls in their second best formals would sit on a float and receive the acclaim and envy of the rest of the town.

It was a real surprise to everyone when I was chosen.  I was not a popular girl in high school and at 17 was probably one of the few girls around who had never had a real date. I was tall and skinny and wore glasses, and my only real friends were 3 other girls equally un-popular. We called ourselves the Boresome Foursome. But I was there on the float - and there in my fur coat and long blue formal - and dreading the dance to come, because I knew my football hero partner was going to be taking me to the dance, and I knew it would be an absolute disaster. I could count on the fingers of one hand the times I had danced with a boy in the 4 years of high school. I was going to be a big blue wallflower.

Our team won the game easily - 28 to 6, and afterwards the Queen and we attendants were carried back in convertibles to the high school for the dance.  Only the students were allowed at the dance which was held in the gym, and had been decorated in streamers of blue and white (school colours) for the occasion.  We redid our makeup and then waited in a nearby classroom for our chosen escorts for the evening, the top football players.  Mary, the Queen was matched up with Andy, the team captain; Marcia, the glamorous one, was with Joe, one of the halfbacks; Vicky, the baton twirler, had Chuck, a quarterback; Judy, the athlete had George, another quarterback. My partner's name was Jim, and he was tall, muscular, quite good looking and he played fullback. But I didn't like him.  To be honest I didn't really know him. We had been in the same high school for 4 years, and there were only 100 people in the year group, but I don't think I had had any classes with him.  He had never spoken to me, or shown any interest in me, and the feeling was mutual. Of all the boys on the football team, he was the one I least wanted to dance with.

 

We lined up and marched into the hall, and everyone cheered.  Then we posed for pictures and finally the dance began.  The first record chosen was Johnny Mathis, singing Wonderful, Wonderful - one of my favourites, but somehow inappropriate to how I was feeling at that moment.

 

Despite my prayers, Jim was perfectly able to walk and dance and he did his duty.
"Shall we dance?" he said.
"I guess that's the idea."
Silence for several minutes.
"Good game," I offered.
"Thanks," he replied.
"I saw you got hurt."
"I just had the wind knocked out of me. Nothing much."
"Oh, that's good," I lied.
Finally the record finished, and he left me and went off to spend the rest of the night with his girlfriend, Jeannie (short, blond, cute, dumb).  I stood there on my own praying (not that it had done me much good so far) that someone would come and ask me to dance. I considered spending the rest of the night in the toilets.

 

Have you ever sat in a decorated fancy hall in a beautiful long dress, with white gloves (which were rather damp by now because I had used them to wipe the sweat from under my arms) and thought that you were going to have to be a very obvious wallflower for at least 2 more hours? 

 

But my worst fears didn't happen.  I was asked to dance every dance by boys I knew very well. Mostly younger than me, they were my pals and buddies. I got to know them through the choir and band - as I accompanied both. And somehow I could relate to younger boys and felt comfortable with them while I was just totally inhibited when trying to talk to boys my own age.  But first Ronnie (French horn player) asked me, and then Mel (trumpet), and then Steve (another French horn) and then John (a saxophone player) and then Bill, Paul, Jerry, and Frank, and so on. It was in the end a wonderful night. I found out later that my girlfriends (now become the Gleesome Threesome) and gone around and suggested to various boys that they should ask me to dance. I don't think any money changed hands, but I didn't care how it came about, only that I danced, and that the illusion of popularity hung about me on that very special night.