Sadie Hawkins Dance

Changing the norms at a junior high dance opened up the terrifying aspects of adolescent social interactions.

Cartoon by Al Capp/ Journal Sentinel files.

A bit of history first:

"The date for Sadie Hawkins Day most commonly reported is November 13, two days before the first appearance in the comics*. The date has on occasion been confused for February 29 (Leap Day), the date for Bachelor's Day according to the original Irish tradition of women being allowed to propose marriage." *Al Capp's "Lil Abner"

One thing I've always marveled at about Mormon society is the fierce need to pair off everyone at an early age. Maybe it's because Brigham Young supposedly said, "Single people are a menace to society." With 29 official wives and dozens more women sheltered by his considerable wealth, the man certainly practiced what he preached on that issue.

We were discouraged from dating until sixteen, but any girl not married by twenty-one became an object of pity and scorn. When my marriage-hungry friend reached that dreaded age, she received a call from our bishop to serve a mission. She was royally pissed! However, it was more of a request than a command. Why hinder the girl's prospects by sending her away for 1.5 years?

To direct us toward matrimony, our junior high school held a dance each month: September/back to school, October/Halloween, November/Thanksgiving, etc. Logically, March would be St. Patrick's, except for Leap Year. Usually, there wasn't much call for a Sadie Hawkins Dance. It wasn't really an observed holiday, but actually a lampoon inspired by Al Capp's cartoon strip, "Lil Abner." Sadie's father needed to get his ugly daughter hitched and out of his hair. So, he held an annual race requiring Sadie to chase all the bachelors in the valley until she finally caught one. It became a major event for several years. Poor Sadie!

Maybe someone thought it would be a novelty to replace St. Pat's with Sadie's effort to find a man. Whatever the reason, we girls had to ask somebody to the dance and experience the terrifying humiliation of being rejected usually suffered by the boys. All the square and ethnic folk dancing in grade school didn't prepare us to be thrust into boy-girl dances and gang showers at thirteen. Now, we faced another push toward adulthood.

There were girls already ensconced in puppy-love relationships with adolescent boys whose acne was hardly noticeable. These studly examples of manhood developed earlier than the average 14-year-old boy.

Most of us girls dressed in saddle shoes and A-line skirts, our budding beasts barely lifting our Poor Boy tees. We hid pesky pimples under some waxy cosmetic and carried combs to tame our flip or pageboy hairdos. I was never without my rat-tail comb. Luckily, I had few pimples; only one between my brows, like a third eye.

I "dated" a boy named Rex for three months; that is, he asked me to three dances before he disappeared and ultimately married his high school sweetheart. We rarely acknowledged each other between classes. Don't worry, I wasn't heartbroken, but it was fun to be asked. He probably had to dry-clean his jacket after my sweaty palm left a stain on his shoulder.

Besides, most of us attended the dances stag as they were always held in the gym during the afternoons. Girls gravitated to one side and boys on the other with a few writhing couples in-between.

As expected, all the puppy-lovers had no problem asking their guys. It was a given. At first, I figured my friends and I would continue to cluster in the corner of the gym, watching everybody else hanging on to each other to the dusky strains of Johnnie Mathis. I mean, what kind of dancing could you do to Johnny Mathis? Not even enough energy to charge into a good waltz.

Finally, some parent attended a dance and complained about how close all those bodies clung to each other. From then on, some wretched teacher had to stick a six-inch ruler between couples to make sure they weren't getting all frothy on the dance floor.

This was the era of the English Invasion. The Beatles were in vogue as were other rebellious groups replacing the erotically swaying hips of Elvis Presley. Garage bands emerged to cover the music of these groups. Most kids in Utah took music lessons of some sort, piano, violin, or the horns required for marching bands. Picking up a guitar proved to be a no-brainer.

At last, someone in the school administration hired a teenaged quartet consisting of three guitarists and a drummer, just like the Beatles. After all, if you don't want kids copulating on the dance floor, why play music made to spark that activity? We all wanted to twist, frug, and mash potatoes to the rebellious jungle tempos that, truth be told, also sparked that activity.

For some crazed reason, I girded up my loins, took fresh courage, and asked one of my classmates to go to the dance. Fred Kelsey sat next to me in algebra. He was too polite to mock or insult me. Instead, the stunned look on his face revealed how repugnant the idea was to him. My invitation absolutely paralyzed him.

"That's okay, Fred. Just thought I'd ask." Now I know how it feels to be a boy.

He breathed again. I asked a couple of other guys with similar results. It was back to Plan A: cluster in the corner with my clique of lost girls. All of us were so far down the food chain we didn't even rate as Wannabees to a Queen Bee. Predictably, none of us had a dance partner.

Once the garage band struck the first chords, the drumbeat sucked me in, literally. I weaned from my posse and stood so close to the drummer, I was almost part of the kit. The symbols barely missed grazing my chest. The pounding beat thrummed through my core. And the drummer didn't seem unnerved by this goofy, four-eyed chick swaying next to his snare drum.

Suddenly, a hand wrapped around my arm and pulled me away. Ray Paramore, an equally goofy, four-eyed kid, started a conversational friendship with me a few weeks earlier. Why it never dawned on me to ask him in the first place I will never know. Our silly phone marathons didn't seem that serious. We weren't "going steady" or anything like that.

He spun me around his lanky body before breaking away to hurl himself across the floor, inventing new dance steps as he careened around me. I twisted and mashed potatoes as if I were still five years old, dancing to Elvis records in the living room. We looked like a binary star as we performed our wild, detached tango.

The kids all gathered in a circle, cheering and clapping. Suddenly, Ray performed a spectacular leap, ala Baryshnikov. The crowd's  roared several decibels. We became the Sadie Hawkins Dance King and Queen, two bespectacled dweebs bursting from our invisibility. Something had shifted in the Universe, at least for me.

We got our fifteen minutes of fame in the halls the next day. Soshes waved and said hi to me, which meant nothing in the grand scheme. It was just for a day, but it was better than the "Girls' Day" soaking in the restroom my friends and I got later that spring.  That's another story I will write about some time.

Meanwhile, it did teach me a lesson. It's scary being a boy asking someone for a date. And it doesn't get any better as we enter adulthood.

While waiting in line for a concert at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, CA, Jeff and I witnessed a 1970s version of man meets woman. A fairly good-looking guy comes up to a young woman and asks her for the time, pointing at his wrist. She blew up and splattered her feminist rage all over him. Perhaps he should have used the popular line of that era, "What's your sign?" instead of pointing to a non-existent watch. Maybe he was indeed hitting on her. So what?

I realize man-woman relationships are gnarly. In the 1975s, Judith Rossner wrote a best-seller entitled Looking for Mr. Goodbar. At that same time, Theodore Bundy was making quite a name for himself killing over two-dozen women across the country. I get it. Meeting possible mates is a crap shoot. Now that we are liberated from traditional gender roles and proper introductions through friends and family, it seems the prime directive is all about getting laid. Am I wrong on this or have I been taking Bill Maher's sarcasm too seriously?

It's hard work getting to know each other. Who has the time these days? The signals get mixed and conversation starters have moved beyond awkward. The woman at the Catalyst went over the top. Likewise, gentlemen, just because there's a woman standing there, waiting for an elevator or bus, doesn't mean you're entitled to rape her. I realize the sexual imperative is strong, but damn! She's not standing there waiting for YOU! Have modern humans totally thrown out preliminaries? Is it now more about "let's cut to the chase and get it done?"

From what I gather from various sources, even a simple smile or making eye contact while in passing is tantamount to rape. I really do hope I've overblown that assessment. I'm no longer part of the dating scene, so please, dear reader, inform me of the realities of how people breach the walls of human interaction.

Is there any way we can remove the barriers that create the fear and loathing we've developed? I'd like to read your comments please. Let's sit down and have a chat.

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