Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 8, 1990                   TAG: 9005080046
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUST SIT BACK AND IGNORE THE SIRENS

I have been through several of these, and I have survived.

The tic in my left eye, which started during our last prom night about six years ago, has almost disappeared.

The first thing to do to get ready for prom night is to try to talk your son or daughter into getting sick.

It never works, but it tends to take your mind off the general concept of prom night.

I used to start early in the week:

"Good Lord, child, you're flushed. You could be coming down with something frightful that could prove fatal if you go out and bounce around like they do at proms these days.

"I'll never forget the girl in my high school who went to the prom all flushed, despite her father's advice. She - well, er, um, it ain't a pretty story. And we didn't bounce around the way they do at proms these days."

You can also fake a fatal disease yourself, but this doen't work either. They figure they'll be back home in time for the funeral.

When you have tried every cheap trick to persuade the kids to stay home, just relax and wait until the night for the prom.

This is not going to be easy.

I remember the early part of the last prom night I went through.

I tried to be nonchalant and mow the grass, and suddenly our youngest daughter and her date came out into the side yard.

My daughter's mother and a neighbor woman started ordering the prom-bound couple around and taking pictures.

They posed them in front of various blossoming things and even shoved me into one of the pictures.

This picture shows me in a sweat-stained T-shirt and a cap that says "Knowing Mowing," standing beside a vaguely alarmed young lady in a lovely red gown.

I am thankful there were no video cameras there.

I assume they still take pictures of the couple. If so, I advise you to handle it better than I did. I ran into the woods and hid until all the camera persons were gone.

In the early morning hours, you will be scared half to death by the Night of the Sirens.

This will occur when the Spirit of Prom Night cuts on every siren in this end of the Great Valley of Virginia and you imagine this 19-car wreck.

I'm not kidding. You don't hear that many sirens on any other night of the year.

The thing to do, of course, is ignore them.

This will give you a tic in your left eye, but nobody ever said you ride free on Spaceship Earth, Buster.