Senior class of Wilmont High, prepare yourself for the most radical, bitchin’, totally awesome retro prom ever! After a unanimous vote, the theme of this year’s prom is—you guessed it—the 1908’s!
Now, we know that all of you requested a 1980’s-themed prom, but due to a small clerical mistake on the Prom Planning Committee’s minutes, and an irrecoverable $3,000 deposit towards turn-of-the-century accoutrements and barn rental, we are proceeding with our plan to party like it’s almost 1909 and time-traveling back to when Ronald Reagan was not yet born.
We can’t believe it’s been 102 years, either, so scrounge up all your ‘08 clothes you’ve banished to the back of your closet. Remember the craze for 20-inch corsets? Remember bicycle suits? Remember the Merry Widow hat? Dust off your Sears, Roebuck Catalog, gentlewomen and dandies, ‘cause you’re not getting in the door if you’re not “dressed to the oh-eights”!
Man, how much fun was it to cruise around the township’s boulevards in your Model T, stopping off at a phonograph parlor when the mood struck to listen to one of the era’s rockin’ tunes, such as “In My Merry Oldsmobile,” the Smithfield Barbershop Quartet’s rendition of “Kissing Bug Rag,” and “Alexander Graham Bell Places a Call on the Telephonic Device (featuring Thomas A. Watson)”? And the dance crazes… the Turkey Trot, the Grizzly Bear, and, oh yes, we are “bringing the schottische back”! Huzzah!
And who can forget Nick at Night—that is, going to the nickelodeon theaters in the evenings when you’d otherwise be cloaked in the stifling darkness of your vermin-infested tenement. Gag me with a choleric metal spoon!
Speaking of the cinema, you really “aught” to come in costume as one of your favorite silent film stars and characters we all remember from ‘08, such as wild-child Ethel Barrymore (someone tell her about the temperance movement!) or the Bicyclist from the smash-hit comedy "Man on Bicycle Rides With Reckless Alacrity Into a Milliner’s Shoppe."
For refreshment, we will ironically serve the much-reviled “new” Coke—the completely bogus Coca-Cola introduced in 1903 without cocaine.
Tickets are $100. (What do you think this is, Tsarist Russia?)
Get ready for a prom you, and your great-grandparents, will never forget. 1
1 PLEASE NOTE: In nostalgic honor of the 1908 Gentlemen’s Agreement outlawing Japanese immigration to the U.S., students David Nagano and Jane Chiba will not be permitted to attend, along with Jews and Irishmen.