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Seniors have a gala time at the prom Photo by Andrew Mariman Dancers reminisce about times past and take advantage of the present By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune A feisty batch of seniors kicked off the prom season a little early Sunday. Elegant women in long dresses whirled around the dance floor with dapper men in evening clothes while the band played tunes from the 1940s and '50s. Friends reminisced about a time when the senior prom meant a chance to pretend you were grown up. Nobody had to pretend anymore. This was a "senior" prom. Nobody checked ID at the door, but nearly everyone in the crowd had long since gotten over worrying about turning 50. "This brings back a lot of memories of that first prom," said Barbara Farmer of Medford. "I was going with a Marine at the time. He went off to Korea." "It was 1950. This was the music," Farmer said as the band played a Glen Miller tune. "It's not something you forget. I wore my first long dress. It was really something. My girlfriend and I each had a Marine." Many of the revelers seemed grateful to be long past the awkwardness they remembered from their high-school dances. "I think this is better," said Farmer's beau, Bob Ward of Grants Pass. "I was too bashful then." More than 100 seniors danced the afternoon away at Medford's Red Lion Inn ballroom, which was transformed into an "Enchanted Garden" without a single balloon or strand of crepe paper. Local merchants provided dozes of potted plants and antiques to give the cavernous room a festive flair. "People really went out of their way to help us," said Lora Vaccher, of the Senior Services division at Providence Medford Medical Center. Providence Senior Services made the arrangements for the big dance and invited Rogue Valley seniors to share the fun. Most came out on a glorious spring afternoon to have a chance to dress up and dance. One Medford couple, Clayton Lewis and Dolores Watson, have been dancing since her minister introduced them a while back. "I was doing (the minister's) taxes," Lewis recalled with a twinkle in his 86-year-old eyes. "He said, 'I know a lady you should meet.'" "We met at the senior center," Watson said. "I told him I worked down there, and if he wanted to, he could come down for lunch." "She's a good dancer, so I don't have any problems," said Lewis. "And he's got a smooth swing," she said. They didn't have proms when Lewis went to school, but he remembered a dance on a Washington state ferry. "We danced from Seattle to Bremerton and back," he said. Jeanne Long of Ashland came "stag." "I love this music," said Long, 71. "I decided just because I didn't have anyone to go with didn't mean I couldn't enjoy myself." "You just go and hang out and maybe you'll meet somebody." For some of the dancers, World War II got in the way of their last big high school fling. Bill Smallback of Medford left school at 16 in 1943 and went to sea with the Merchant Marine. His wife, Diane, who married him a few years later, missed hers too. "It would have been something grand to have gone to back then," Diane Smallback said, "but we've really enjoyed this one." The large crowd means the prom will likely become an annual event, said Karen Bartalini, of Providence Senior Services. "I think I'd have a riot on my hands if we didn't," she said. Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.