With prom season underway, readers share memories of theirs, both good and bad

Those dangerous clouds of hair spray billowing out of homes around the area can mean only one thing: It's prom season.

I recently asked readers to share memories of their proms -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Where would you file this one?

When Daryl Newhouse was at Bethesda's Churchill High in the 1970s, her English teacher, Mr. Lombardi, was determined to make sure everyone went to the prom. To that end, a month before the dance, he wrote the names of all the boys in his class on one side of the blackboard and all the girls on the other side. Then he told students to cross their names off as they obtained dates. The inference was clear: Whoever was left on the board would go with each other.

Having broken up with her boyfriend that spring, Daryl resigned herself to being set up by the English teacher. The statuesque teen's biggest worry? That she would end up with someone shorter than she. As the days ticked by and names were crossed off, there was only one boy left on the board taller than Daryl: Steve, a "greaser" type who drove an Olds 442.

Wrote Daryl: "I think that we actually agreed with each other to go to the prom together around the same point in time that Lombardi was about to make his picks, because I remember us both walking in to class late, taking turns crossing out our names quite dramatically, and taking our seats. I think there was applause."

I think that would be grounds for a lawsuit today, although perhaps Alison Smith of Alexandria could have used that sort of intervention. By the time she was a senior at her high school in South Carolina, she had persuaded the cutest boy in the class to date her. "We had our plans all set for prom, including matching corsages, a banana-clip hairpiece for me and a ruffled tuxedo for him," Alison wrote.

Everything was great until the senior cruise. Concerned about the propriety of the event -- swimsuited teens on a boat! -- Alison's parents wouldn't let her go. When her boyfriend came back from the cruise, he announced that he had fallen in love with another girl. It "wouldn't be fair," he explained, if he kept to his plan to go to the prom with Alison.

"I was crushed," Alison wrote. "Who cares about fairness when there is aqua taffeta involved?"

Fortunately, her best friend stepped in. Over sausage biscuits and sweet tea at Hardee's, (South Carolina, remember?) he asked whether he could take Alison to the prom. "I could have kissed him!"

It would be a nice ending if the couple had continued dating and ended up getting married, but it could never be: Her date's name was Robbie Callison. No way she was going to end up Alison Callison.

Alexandria's Audrey Scruggs did marry her prom date, despite a less-than-auspicious big night out. It was 1946 and the prom was held in the Eastern High School gym. Audrey's boyfriend, Bill, picked her up in a borrowed car. They had almost made it to the school when they were stopped by a police officer. Bill had forgotten to turn on the car lights and did not completely stop at a stop sign. The officer ordered them to follow him to the police station.

"There I stood in my white, formal, strapless dress with tears running down my face," Audrey wrote. "I think the officer felt sorry for me and said 'I'll only charge you for one offense -- $15.' We went to the dance, but when it was over everyone went to the Hot Shoppe but us. Since our money went to pay the fine, we just went back to my house. We really weren't much in the mood to eat anyhow. It was a prom I'll never forget, but not for the right reasons."