This morning, the regular Friday FirstNews Feature called Match-Up Mania! (I get paid by the alliterative phrase.) was at North Kansas City High School where they are celebrating Homecoming. That, naturally, led to an on-air discussion of high school dance experiences. Yes, it opened old wounds! I may not make it through the weekend due to the memories! Okay, that's a bit of an extreme reaction but my wife forces me to watch lots of Lifetime movies so I'm primed to take any little past event and pump it up until it can explain away just about every kind of poor behavior. Anyway, back to high school.

I was president of my Freshman class. I will pause, now, to allow you to comprehend the unlikelihood of that fact. Nobody else ran. Anyway, as president of the class, I was required to attend the Freshman-sponsored dance. I sat in the ticket booth and took the money as students filed in. Several threw softballs at me, on the assumption that it must be one of those carnival dunk tanks. After all were in the gym, I closed the window on the booth and read a book. Yes, I read a book. I had to stay to help with clean-up but there was no way I was going to dance. Or, more importantly, risk rejection in asking a girl to dance. I got most of my book read (turned out Sam I Am did like green eggs and ham!) and discovered that the then-new song Color My World got requested an awful lot.

That was Freshman year. I did not have anything to do with a high school dance, again, until Senior year...and that turned out to be a bad idea. I never cared about attending Homecoming or Prom. Those were Saturday nights. I had all the "romance" I needed from The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. I was such a big Ricardo Montalban fan, I actually had a leisure suit made out of rich, Corinthian leather and named my dog, Cordoba. Sometimes I would watch Austin City Limits on Saturday nights. I recall one Homecoming Saturday, the featured performer in Austin was Roy Orbison. Nothing better to lift one's spirits, than sad, heartfelt songs from a guy in dark glasses.

Now, about that Senior year dance deal, I wasn't going to attempt asking someone for Prom or Homecoming. That would've been ridiculous. Like a new parachuting student going directly from paying the initiation fee to leaping out of 747 across the Grand Canyon while spinning flaming batons and singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. No, I decided to ask a girl to a Valentine's Day Dance. This was a girl that had a good sense of humor and beautiful singing voice. She looked a little bit like Marie Osmond and, coincidentally, she was a little bit country. We had developed a comfortable brother/sister relationship. Well, that was her view. At that point, I didn't realize how difficult it was to take a sibling-like friendship and turn it into more of a boyfriend/girlfriend situation. Unless you were Caligula.

Well, I decided to do this right. I went across the street to our Bionic Avon Lady and purchased a little heart pendant. Wrapped it in the Sunday comics and, Monday morning, took it to school. I approached "Marie Osmond" in the hall and handed her the gift saying "Happy Valentine's Day!" She opened it, then and there, and said "Thank you so much, Joel! I am going to wear this to the dance this weekend. Dean asked me to go." So, there you have it. The necklace went to the dance. I didn't.

I'm not bitter. I don't wake up crying over it. Unless I've recently watched a movie with Tracey Gold or Melissa Gilbert in it. Then, I wake up crying anyway. I have put it all behind me...until a morning like this. Go ahead and have a fun Homecoming. I'll be at home listening to Roy Orbison and paging through the latest Avon catalog.