IMG 14022802

E S S A Y

Garrison Keillor

The Mysteries of Prom Night

Spring prompts reflections on naturę, hormones and baseball caps

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SPRING IN MINNESOTA AND THE FIRST LAWN niowńng and first outdoor suppcr, and then it’s spring prom. White limos the size of trawlers float up to a hotel mar-quee and disgorge boys in black tuxes and girls in black or turquoise or tangerine or emerald, and they troop in through the revolving doors, prepared to exccutc a waltz and make smali talk if necessary. This morning tlie boys were traipsing around in droopy pants with the crotch belo w the knees and unlaced basketball shoes and baseball caps hirned backward, a costume that gives me tire creeps, especially the backward cap. It's painful to see young men grasping at boyishness, knowing that most young women prefer men to boys, but maybe a night in waltz land will help.

Parents used to worry about childrcn staying out late for spring prom, worry theywouldstart breeding, but 1*11 bet the kids in the limos are too smart to make babies. Much better to remain nubile for another 20 ycars, havc romances with various inap-propriate people, eam a bucket of money by hosting their own TV show or modeling underwear or e-trading, and live in a cool house and give awesome parties, and gct a real life somewhere around tire age of 35. They know tlie grief that children cause, having so recently caused it— tlie noise, the mess, the stink, the sports programs. Millions of intelligent. literate parents con-dernned to long afternoons watching children scuffle around on soccer fields, a deadly punishment that should be reserved for convicted felons. And as a parent, you are forced to come in con-tact wątli educators.

My wife and 1 found a wonderful nursery school in SL Paul for our two-year-old, and then tlie educator in charge informed us that the children are recjuired to ask permission of one another before hugging or toucliing. “We feel that the privacy of a childs body should be respected by other children," she said. She ineant it. 'Iliis is classic educator thinking: rigidity and humor-lessness pul forward as policy. But this is Minnesota, where Ap-propriate Behavior rides higli in the saddle and where you hcar yourself, a pilik person, rcfcrrcd to as "a person of noncolor,” and you open tlie morning paper and find 10,000 words about why we should all appreciate racial and etlinic diversity. It’s called civic journalism, and the tonę is so gummy and patronizing, you can easily see why Minnesota elected a Govemor who once eanied his living screeching and frothing and exchanging per-spiration witli other giant goombahs. He is Mr. None-of-the-

Above, a guy who doesn’t talk about apprcciating diversity or ap-propriate bchavior. He is a guy who may show up at the prom half-naked with bis face painted blue. Tliis is a sort of liberation.

I wish our kids were as free and easy as the Governor. There he is swaggering on TV and enjoying a late adolescence, and the kids I mcet seem cautious, fearful of making the wrong choice and of losing their place on the ladder and getting stuck among the slackers. Tlianks to his loony attitude toward high-er education (“If you’re smart enough to go to college, you’re smart enough to pay for it yourself”), tuition at our stałe col-leges will stay sky-high, meaning kids who graduate lcave with a debt load as big as a barn. This is the difference bełween my day and now. In my day, the G.I. Bill madę it patriolic to sup-port higher education, and tłiose of us who went to college in tlie 1960s were the beneficiaries: tuition was cheap. Now we launch kids into the world with a devalued B.A. from a declin-ing State college and $15,000 in debt and an additional $10,000 on four different credit cards.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t natural. Kids are not supposed to be in-debted to us, they’re supposed to gct loose of us. Thats why naturę created those powerful hormones that make them glare at us and siani doors. Naturę isn’t interested in privacy or diver-sity, only survival, and it wanLs children to escapc our clutches so that they can grow' up and rear their own children and con-tinue the species and come back in a few years and place us in assisted living.

1 see these boys in tuxes and starched white shirts, and I want to take them aside for sonie fatherly advice.

Boys, thefirst drink is a boon, thesecond is a gambie, the third is poor judgmeni, and then the ratę of descent gets steep. And another thing: don ’t gct all fluttery, high mindcd and patronizing just because people look different—that was your parents, thal’s not you. People are people. And still another thing: dont gei yourself in hock to attend a college that isn’l much good. It’s an education just to lcave home and go someplace where people don’t understand you and dont eoen want to.

And one morę thing: ad-vicc is no substitute for personal cxpcri-ence, unfortunately. ■

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TIME. MAY 15.2000