Anyone Tampering With This Machine

’Twas a billowy evening in early May, and the frecklecheek of spring was upon the land. Beset by the fires of the season I put on the dog and escorted my love to the senior prom.

Never mind that she was 20 and I was 21 — Andrea sang in the band engaged for the prom, I went along just to see what had become of the grand old institution in these days of revolution and suchlike.

I never attended a prom when I was in high school. 1 considered myself a beatnik and my main extracurricular activities were beating it down to the store for a bottle of lemon extract and a quart of 7-Up, reading William Burroughs and learning to swallow cans of nutmeg. I finally took Andy to her senior prom after I had graduated but my main memory of the event was being entertained by the running Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf squabble of the couple we doubled with. But TODAY, I reasoned, there would be some significant change in the character of the institution, because kids today are different and all that prom/game/school spirit jazz is passe!

Which shows how much I knew.