Prom Night

Saturday night was Prom night for the county's high school junior class. Yes, there's only one high school in the county. Though there are about 290 square miles, the population is only a little over ten thousand. Our granddaughter, normally tending toward tom-boy, was a beautiful young lady for the evening with her hair done up, wearing a full length gown, jewelry, make-up and being coached on how to walk like a lady by her aunt.

Most of us get to play-pretend on a few such occasions in our lives. A time when we step outside our normal lifestyles for a short period of time and appear to be something other than our usual persona. She waited for her date to offer his hand to help her from the car then walked with her hand on his arm amidst the smiling onlookers and flashing cameras into Prom Night.

Later she sat up telling us all about her evening. She danced every dance and enjoyed it all. In the telling she dropped a bit of information as if it were of no import. She'd seen a mentally handicapped young man just standing over to the side most of the evening watching the festivities. She went over to him and asked him to dance with her, and they danced. Such an action might not be considered politically correct by the "In crowd" of the school, but her grandpa couldn't be more proud of her than I am for that one simple act of compassion.

Of course there's no way to tell how important that was to the young man. He might have preferred to just stand and watch, but on the other hand it could be his fondest memory of the school years "She was beautiful and she danced with me."

Today she was in jeans and sneakers running the weed-eater. Quite a young lady we have there.