Montgomery Ward Nostalgia Night

As requested, here are more pictures of Friday night's ward party.  You've met the happy couple above.  Now enjoy the rest of the scenery!

I took this one Friday morning while we were setting up.  Table centerpieces were mix tapes, vinyls, Nintendo games, joysticks and machines, vintage pop bottles, vintage candy, and a variety of old photos.  In case you are wondering what vintage candy is, it includes things such as Moon Pies, Charms, Ring Pops, Neccos, Black Jack Gum, etc.

Here is one of the gym walls, in the process of decoration.  The table has a Sycamore High athletic schedule from 1996-1997, as well as Katie Strike's Eastonia yearbook from 1973 and Jon's Highlanders from the early '90s.  I think all the clothes are actually from ward members; I don't think our decorating chief spent too much time at Goodwill.  Rob says he actually should have had a letter jacket, since by some odd circumstance Chess and Academic Quiz Team qualified as sports.  Someone at our table responded, "I don't think it can be a sport if you don't sweat."  Rob says there is plenty to sweat about in Chess and Quiz Team championships.  My friend Beth brought her Senior Prom dress, which she made - ruffles, tulle, poofiness...

At the check-in table, Monica had a Rolodex with everyone's names in it.  We picked our cards and safety-pinned them on.  Then we took a Senior Superlatives voting ballot:  Best Dressed (tonight), Best Sense of Humor, Most Contagious Laugh, Sweetest Spirit, Cutest Couple, Best Hair, Most Outspoken, Most Likely to be a Celebrity, Most Likely to be an Olympic Champion, Most Likely to Become President.  Winners were announced after Jeopardy (more on that to come).  Rob tied for Guy's Best Sense of Humor, told a good lawyer joke, and came off the winner.  I tied for Girl's Most Contagious Laugh, but in the "heads down thumbs up" runoff I lost to my friend Ally.  After trying to stage a sit-in in protest to the judge's ruling in Jeopardy, Tony Strike won Most Outspoken.  He did not, however, win Most Likely to Become President.

 Dinner!  Served by lunch ladies in a kitchen buffet on school lunch plates, with cartons of milk.  And the cartons of milk are genuine school cartons - Monica got them from her elementary school.  The hairnets are my favorite, as are the slopped mashed potatoes.  Because real lunch ladies slop the food on your plate.  Note the Nintendo gun on the table, and think back to how good we were at Duck Hunt...

Beth (aka "I made my own prom dress") was in charge of the food, so the meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans with citrus zest were delicious.  The orange jello with mandarin oranges, served on a lettuce leaf, was as good as such a thing can be.  Once we got our plates, we entered the gym and looked at the long rows of lunch tables and wondered nervously who we should go sit by.

Jon's Tevas with socks.  Rob's Converse and authentic high school sweatshirt.  

Left:  The chambray shirt girls.  Julie Proudfoot (aka "The British Princess") with the blousy look, open buttons, and slouchy belt.  Katie Strike with the hand embroidered version (she made a matching one for her boyfriend) and bell-bottoms.  

Right:  Beth, with lace socks, lace shirt, black leggings, lots of bangles and droopy necklaces, red Converse, and a hat.  She was chatting with me as she was shopping Friday afternoon, trying to finish her outfit.

B: What I need are a pair of Converse high tops, but I don't have time to go to Goodwill again.
Me: Um, Beth, they're back.  Where are you right now?
B:  They're back?  You've seen them in stores?
Me: I've bought them in stores.
B:  I'm right by DSW.  I'm going in. [few minutes pause...] Here they are in every color!  And KEDS!? Are Keds back in, too?
Me: Yes.
B:  If I buy some I won't wear them again
Me:  Yes you will.

She bought red, and as it turns out lace socks are also back at DSW, so that was convenient.

Here is the happy couple at the end of the night, against the columns and stars.  In between our school lunch and our Prom picture, we had a game of Jeopardy.  Nancy Harward had made up a whole board of questions, in categories such as Dance Dance Revolution, Bad Hair Days, Say What?, and What's Hot.  Bad Hair Days for 600 was a photo of me with a side pony and the go-to hair accessory of the 1980s.  What is a scrunchie.  Dance Dance Revolution for 800 featured a 30 second video clip of the YW leaders doing a dance popularized by Marcia Griffiths in her hit song.  What is the electric slide.  (Although there was a protest about this, because the actual name of the song is Electric Boogie.  Nancy agreed to allow both answers, and the madding crowds quieted).  You get the idea.

As we were admiring the Prom columns and star-drop with our friends Andy and Naomi, it came up that Andy's prom date was our friend Melissa - also in the ward.  This was obviously common knowledge to Rob and others of that high school era, but was totally news to every one else.  I floated the idea of having Andy and Melissa take a picture together by the Prom backdrop, but he vetoed that.  Oh that we had known that factoid when Monica was putting out a demand for high school pictures!  The Andy-Melissa prom picture really should have been in the slideshow of ward members circa age 18 that was on repeat in the front of the gym.  Of course, having your prom date show up 15 years later in your ward is probably not all that uncommon on the East Bench.  But here in Middle America it's a little more momentous.

Now we've put away our senior class rings and Rob's returned his high school sweatshirt to the basement.  But I'm keeping my chambray shirt and flower jeans and Converse handy, as well as that blue eye shadow.  It's ALL back...