SOBER GRADUATION.

Graduation in most places is already past. My daughter Virginia was a volunteer parent for sober graduation this year.  Pinball machines,  pool tables, all manner of games and fun plus the traditional dancing and all night visiting, signing year books, eating gobs and gobs of good food, picture taking…good stuff. Her own High School graduation was sober by choice, at a private party, but Bret Harte did not have sober graduation-then. It put me in mind of my own pretty amazing High School Graduation Party.

My date arrived, and picked me up. I was all decked out in a  blue, sparkly formal. Our party was an all night affair ending with a morning breakfast. I had a pretty dress to change into if we decided to attend the breakfast.

A neighborhood couple I babysat for, had two sisters move in with them mid year. One sister, Jane, was my age and I introduced her around school. She was graduating as well and had a date. We decided to go in separate cars to the dance. I knew her date, Gary, but he had never met my date, Frank.

During the course of the evening I found out Frank wasn’t much for dancing. He would slip outside and have a drink. I could smell it on him. I kept dancing.  About midnight, he just disappeared. Jane, who had been having  a good time, dancing and flirting was also imbibing and she passed out in Gary’s car. He was looking for her and I was looking for Frank. What to do? Together we decided to bring Jane home. I knew her Uncle would be mad, so we carried her into my house. I  put her in my bed and stood her almost identical blue formal in the corner of my room. I changed clothes and went back to the gymnasium for more dancing and breakfast with Gary.

We ate breakfast and a group of kids decided to go to Lake Merritt in Oakland and ride the paddle boats and we decided to go. I didn’t call my parents. I’d be home about the time the breakfast after party was expected to be over.

It was quite a shock when I arrived home about noon and my parents did a double take. Jane was still passed-out in my bed and her Uncle and sister were frantically calling my parents (and Gary’s) to see if I knew where they were?  They kept telling them I was home and still asleep in bed.

With school’s end,  Jane was shipped back to her family in Kansas, and I ended up with Gary as a steady boyfriend that summer.

As the quote goes:  “All’s well that ends well.”