Funny Guy Friday... Memories of proms and state titles...

     Funny Guy Friday is written each week by my husband Mark. So, I married a funny guy...
     Quite a nostalgic week for me.
     I was transported back to my senior year of high school... and two big events that had more to do with each other than you might guess. One was my playing on a State Championship Baseball team and the other was my senior prom.
     The trip down memory lane started on Saturday, when I had the pleasure of seeing my stunningly beautiful daughter off to the senior prom. Believe it or not, I loved her date and I hope that they continue to see each other for the rest of their lives. In fact, I would not even care if they moved in with one another and lived together some day.
     Okay, full disclosure... she went with two of her girlfriends... sans boys. This would have never happened back when I was in high school.
     Today's proms are different in a lot of ways.
     One disturbing trend is the promposal. Apparently, boys go to great lengths to ask girls to the prom these days. For instance, one young man showed up at a girl's home carrying two tennis balls, two baseballs, two footballs, and two basketballs... and a sign that read that he finally "had the ba--s to ask you to Prom." Some kid in Baltimore bought a thirty second TV ad to ask a girl. Another yo-yo dressed up like a Pokeman character and brought out the school cheerleaders to ask a girl during lunch in the school cafeteria.
     Nitwits... all of them... just plain nitwits.
     Why would they go to such lengths? What happened to the days of yore when you just called a girl... hung up... called her again... hung up again... threw up... called her yet again... and finally muttered something like you wouldn't want to... you know... go to... uh... the... uh... prom with me... would you? Oh... this is... uh Mark... uh Palumbo... that's P a l u m b o.... I'm in your math class. 
     Actually, I can't quite recall how I asked my date to the prom.
     We had been dating for a few months, so I am guessing it was just assumed that we would go together. I can assure you that I did not rent out a mariachi band and do the Mexican prom dance.  My guess is that I called her one night and said... we're going to the prom, right? 
     Funny thing is that she and I almost never made it past the first month of our "budding relationship."
     We had been dating for a few weeks before my first baseball game that season, and I went hitless in four plate appearances. On the bus drive home, I decided that the reason for my failure was the girlfriend... too much time with her. Clearly, it could not have been my fault... she had to go. I never got a hold of her that night to deliver the bad news, and the next day I went 5 for 5. She got a reprieve!
     Had I reached her that night, I probably would have missed my senior prom.
     The day after Gracie's prom on Saturday, we headed to Aberdeen to watch my nephew coach the Archbishop Spalding High School baseball team to a State Championship win Sunday evening. As I watched the team celebrate its victory, I flashed back to the day when I was a slick fielding, scrappy hitting (scrappy is a good word for a dink and dunk hitter that had no power) second baseman for your 1981 Maryland State Champion Bowie Bulldog baseball team. It was quite a year... we went undefeated, and four of us were named to the Washington Post and Washington Star All Met teams.
     I was captain of the team, dating the Mayor's daughter, and needless to say, I was kind of a big deal!
     Apparently, not that big of a deal. This is where the baseball and the prom collided. Our team was practicing the day before the big dance. We had planned to go to dinner in Baltimore with another couple before heading off to the prom. Halfway through practice, my assistant coach called me into the dugout, sat me down and told me that my date and I were no longer going to Baltimore for dinner. I assured him that we were... that we had made plans... had reservations and everything.      
     Plans change 'Lumbo... your mother-in-law called me, and she thinks Baltimore is too far away for you to drive! 
     Get out of here.
     Nope, you are going to dinner in Annapolis.
     Wait, wait, wait... who is my mother-in-law?
     Your date's mother. The Mayor's Missus.
     Oh! Do we have reservations in Annapolis?
     Sure do... all taken care of! 
     Thanks... I guess! 
     And with that, we went to Annapolis for dinner.
     I remember thinking that I knew so much at that time.
     It is funny now to think how little I did know. But what a great time in a kid's life. I am sure that Grace will always remember Saturday's prom at Ravens Stadium... and those kids that won that championship game on Sunday will always remember winning the championship at Ripken Stadium.
     Come to think of it, Spalding's prom was the night before their championship game. I wonder if my nephew changed anyone's dinner plans. I can attest that if he did... it would make for a great story that those kids will remember for the rest of their lives!