Romance by the Falls
With the arrival of prom season, I recall that in the spring of 1980, my parents pressured me to find a date for my senior prom. And I did. She was a lovely, warm person who had no idea what she was getting herself into. The dance itself is a blur. I don't remember the theme, but it might as well have been "Girls! Girls! Girls!" My private boys' school classmates were in their element, thrilled, for once, to engage with the opposite sex up close. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” was the slow-dance song of that era. Hearing its opening chords still makes me panic. After the formal part of the evening concluded, the pressure mounted on me to go somewhere with my date and, well, you know, make out. Smooch. Neck. In some sense, to become romantic and achieve adolescent intimacy. Avoidant, I remember driving around a lot with my date in my red Chevy Blazer. Our first stop was the parking lot of a country club located catty-corner from University School. The scene of th...
