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It’s spring 2021. It’s Friday at dusk. Gaggles of curious teenagers are gathering for an unfamiliar event designed to salvage a high school year that hardly was and pump an unaccustomed feeling into their final weeks as juniors and seniors — joy.
Call it prom-ish.
In the early weekends of California’s phased reopening, teenagers, school leaders and perhaps most of all, parents, have seized on a sliver of an opportunity to try to make up for 14 months of missed dances, homecomings, sports award ceremonies and winter formals by mobilizing eleventh-hour proms like none before them.
Depending on the school, parking lots replaced fancy indoor venues. Promposals, the highly orchestrated ask for a date, were tame. The DJ’s music blast tended to waft into oblivion outdoors, which seemed OK because attempts at socially distanced dancing was a bit awkward. Attendees snacked on cotton candy and meatballs on skewers rather than partake in sit-down dinners. And the milestone event — typically subject to a year of planning and committee meetings — came together in a flash, a live curtain call to grateful students after nearly three semesters of COVID-19 isolation.