Photo by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes the keeper is not asking for an election recount but the fact that he remembers the event after all this time means that it has taken up valuable memory space that could have been more judiciously used, perhaps to remember the dance steps his mother tried in vain to teach him.
It was 1948 and the junior class of Barron High School was voting to choose its prom king. There were two nominees—Eddie Schmidt, the school’s athletic hero, and the keeper. In the voting which seemed to pit city kids against country kids, Eddie won by one vote, with friends immediately pointing out to the keeper that if he had voted for himself he would have won the election and been the prom king.
The keeper does not have a sterling prom record. The previous year his sophomore date Shirley Barton came down with the mumps, and the keeper, at his mother’s suggestion, delivered a box of candy to her in place of a corsage.
Other than Roger Locke up in Michigan the keeper knows of no other survivors from those class of ’49 proms, but he remembers many of them with great fondness whether they voted for him or not and next time he gets up out of the recliner he might ask Phyllis to practice the two-step with him since prom time is just around the corner and he wants her vote.
