What is the fascination with the affair known as the High School Homecoming? It is true what they say, when you have children it allows you to live your childhood out all over again. This is a great experience but being the parent of a teenager can bring back those not so distant memories which often times can be unfavorable ones. During my adolescent years I was swimming in feelings of inadequacy and awkwardness, the experience of going to a dance and actually dancing or partaking in the festivity known as the homecoming game would be something that I’d liken a close second to death. All I knew about homecoming is that it was an open invite for past students to return to their Alma matter. There was a king and queen involved who was usually the prettiest girl in school alongside the star athlete, and there was a lot of fuss to be had for finding the perfect dress and the floats while ostentatious were downright humorous. Reliving my teenage years through my 15 year old I am once again flung into the life and times of a sophomore in high school. But this time it is different, this time I am watching from the sidelines empathetic and in admiration of those bygone years. Notepad in hand I set out to witness the upcoming week in its entire carnival splendor. Fall is upon us as the teenage angst has began to brew in anticipation for the big game and the weeklong celebration that drives kids here in America crazy and had the whole town center covered in confetti, that which is homecoming Fountain Hills 2011.
I got to thinking after the third mad dash to the dollar store in a week for cheap noisemakers and fairy wings that second only to Halloween Homecoming sure has a way with stimulating the economy in the month of October. Not only is there the ever present need to have to find the perfect dress and the perfect pair of slacks, but the question as to what you do aside from the dance. Is their dinner involved? Apparently there is much like prom. Is a limousine in order? To some of the girls in the freshman class it was a no brainer and the limos were in abundance. Were their corsages or boutonnieres involved? Absolutely not, who knew. Not even the kind you wear on your wrist, no flowers, anywhere. Boy how times have changed. I took a center seat on the homecoming festivities and set about to not only volunteer for spirit week rallies and at the school but decided that for the first time ever I would be attending the homecoming football game and be present at the dance, if just for a little while, before my son and his friends noticed and I felt bad about potentially embarrassing him. I set out to experience the whole package to better understand what the hype was all about and to perhaps find that lost piece of teenage wasteland I’d let go of long ago. Before the grand finale known as the game was to occur followed closely by the dance, the week-long celebration began with what they term spirit week. Spirit week is essentially dressing up to a different theme every day to show pride in your school. It pretty much is anything goes and the sky is the limit as I soon found out on just how far these kids will go. The first day was what they called a looking cool day or clique day. Back in my time that would surely mean a turned up collar, bangs sprayed high and lots of blue eyeliner but looking cool proved to be a day where kids emerged as a blast from the past, a throwback to an era which feels worlds away from modern times, the 1950’s. It was like watching the movie Grease all over again; I think I had Grease songs running through my head the better part of the day as a matter of fact. Thanks to the ability to find almost any costume you can imagine online anymore many of the girls became Pink Ladies, pink satin jacket, poodle skirt, and all. The guys became the greasers, black leather jackets, white t-shirts, slicked back hair and skinny jeans. Hey skinny jeans were popular in the 1950’s too, who knew. John Travolta sadly was nowhere to be found. There was a lot of bravado building up throughout the day and I have to say it was nice for a change to see teenage boys with their shirts tucked in, a rarity nowadays; this is just something you do not see much of anymore. There is a lot of pride in this small town and throughout the week it was as though the teenagers had a free pass to become something other than what they normally are, to become an elaborate animated version of themselves. Nothing exemplifies this better than the next spirit day on the list fantasy day. Fantasy day can mean a lot of things and when I first heard this I hadn’t a clue what the dress code would entail but after running to and fro to the Goodwill, the Dollar Store and to Target to find the perfect skirt for my son I soon found out and took every opportunity to snap blackmail pictures all the while. It looked as if all the guys followed suit, from class to class there was a parade of neon fairies, it was like Narnia had gone psychedelic. Hair was sprayed the perfect shade of pink, football players donned tights and glitter and there were tutus and fuzzy ears everywhere you looked and no one was made fun of because of it. As a matter of fact given that all these guys were dressed like girls it was hard to tell who was who. There were the few that decided upon a wizard costume in place of the hose with Vans look but overall it was cross dressing at its finest. The girls had no particular theme but rather chose Playboy bunny costumes and dressed in their dads white business shirts complete with a loose tie and knee high socks giving off a modern day impression of the famous Rebecca Demornay in Risky Business. To my amazement being this was the week of anything goes they were all able to coexist in class throughout the day dressed in fairyland excess. The next few days that would follow would be color coded with each class choosing a particular color, there was the freshman all in red, the sophomores sporting a bright yellow, juniors in purple ala Barney the big round dinosaur and seniors who would prove to be the big hit in Green which spread beyond clothing to include green hair and face paint. St. Patrick’s Day in October. During the tail end of this spirit week the Fountain Hills Falcons had their first celebration and you would think that the whole town shut down and everyone was in attendance.
The Homecoming Parade takes place in the center of town in what is considered the downtown area. Like many small towns the downtown area is nothing like what you see in big cities and often involves a main street or drag lined with businesses and restaurants keyed to attract visitors and locals alike. Typically you will find kitschy shops and it is a place where decorations abound to commemorate the seasons and Fountain Hills is no different. The Avenue of the Fountains runs directly across the main attraction in town, the Fountain, located at Fountain Park it used to be the worlds largest and was the center point from which the town was built around. In closing off the surrounding streets this proved to be a great place for people to gather and in the crown you found students, teachers, parents and people from all ages anticipating the spectacle that was about to begin. The kids waited along the roadside in anticipation for candy and eagerly danced as the Fountain Hills Falcons marching band started their path to the anxious onlookers. Watching the local marching band play gives you a real home town feeling whether you live in a big city or a small time there is something about it that just grounds you and gives you a sense of place. As they belted out various tunes such as When the Saints Come Marching In and The Star Spangled Banner there were older students spinning batons in all their blue and silver glory along with a group of girls who looked as though they ranged between five and ten years of age shaking their pom poms and dancing down the road. Some of them looked sleepy and some of them were excited but either way it was a long walk for some and those little legs looked like they might give out at anytime adding a little character to the whole show. What followed was an elaborate display of homemade floats. When I say homemade it was not like I remember them to be where someone donates a trailer and some makeshift cardboard and paint are used to create something that leaves you wondering what the hell that was? No in this day and time there appears to be a great deal of money ,time, and effort put into this huge display of Falcon pride with each class getting a chance to show their talent and skill in its best form, or rather their parents, it is hard to tell. The floats were built in the back of small semi truck beds or as in one case a large rig with a huge trailer. Beyond the cardboard and paint there were banners and music and lights and dancing, it was quite the show. One float would take you to the tropics with a Hawaiian theme while the other was a scene right out of Nightmare Before Christmas complete with spiders, costumes and the beloved Jack. The senior float proved to be a big hit as the Varsity football team would have their place riding on it and if you have ever visited a small town or live in one you’d know that the high school football team is all the rage. People get crazy here over about high school football. It is ingrained in the popular culture of America. It is serious business and not something to be taken lightly. Every float handed or rather threw large amount of candy into the crown as the children ran back and forth as though they were hungry dogs in a mad race to see who could gather the most. To a child a parade isn’t about the fancy cars rolling down or the fire departments tooting their horn so much as it is about the candy and with Halloween fast approaching there was plenty of good stuff. Tootsie roll pops and Twix bars seemed to be the popular favorite. Speaking of fancy cars there were plenty of them as the members of AMVETS and Kiwanis clubs along with our local politicians rode and waved to the less than thrilled onlookers who were were waiting for the real fun to begin. That being the end of the road where there would be a stage awaiting the arrival of those Varsity football players. Around the stage the cheerleaders danced and flung around singing the song of Falcon Power as the crowd clapped and hollered the team took the stage and everyone gathered in a circle around them. Last names were yelled out as the townspeople cheered loudly in an effort to build momentum for what was about to occur in less than twenty four hours, the big game.
Let me first say I am not a fan of football that is not to say that football isn’t watched in my house. With 4 boys here it controls our Sundays and Monday nights for the better part of fall and winter, I have grown accustomed to this mind you but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. I was apprehensive about going to the homecoming game at first. After all I don’t think I even went to one of my own high school football games. But in order to get the full experience I found it necessary and even though I promised my 15 year old son I wouldn’t sit by him and his friends I’d like to think that him just knowing that I went was a good thing. The kids were all jazzed up still from the goings on that occurred earlier in the day. The Pep rally as it has come to be known here in America hasn’t changed much since I was in high school, well minus the Salt and Peppa music and the reminder as to why I would not dance if my life depended on it. There were football players dressed up in their respective colors pretending to be cheerleaders, there were cheerleaders who were trying to get a rise out of the crowd which was compromised of those students who actually think the pep rally is fun and those students who are glad to just have gotten out of class for the afternoon and cracked jokes at the expense of them. Nevertheless it created energy and you could feel it in the air as it spilled over into the night as the bleachers began to fill. One student actually complained that the pep rally wasn’t as fun as it was in recent years being that there was no disc jockey. This was something new, we never had disc jockeys. I began to wonder if they would have one at the dance.
The football field is located kitty-corner to Fountain Hills High School and proudly boasts home of the Falcons. This epicenter of Falcon Pride can be found in a most unassuming neighborhood and something tells me the neighbors more than likely aren’t making any noise complaints. After the opposing team and their egos arrived on the field there was a sense that all hell was about to break loose coupled with the smell of freshly popped popcorn in the air. The feeling of competition weighed heavy on these players and you could tell this wasn’t a show, this wasn’t a spectacle, this was a game and one in which they intended on winning. After a brief appearance by the home coming king and queen along with their undergraduate wannabes it was time to play ball. That being said the homecoming queen does appear to still be the prettiest and most popular girl, and the king had the kind of toothy grin and sense of entitlement that only a star athlete can possess. We were playing Estrella Foothills High and the adapted motto found everywhere from posters to banners to t-shirts was “Attack the Pack”. It must be rough to be the away team on homecoming night. But attack them we did. The crowd was wild. There was a lot of cheering and hot dogs and yelling over the band. The cheerleaders did their best to keep everyone’s spirits up, but we were doing great. The Falcon spirit was high intensity and I was just glad that I could be there to witness the vibe first hand. The team took a take no prisoners approach and the end result was an astounding win by thirty points. There is a reason why high school football tends to be so popular in cities and towns throughout America and that is that it generates a sense of camaraderie and defeat, it turns up the volume on this thing called life. This is a good thing as there is nothing that can quite compare to the feeling of being a winner and for these boys having the whole town cheer them on to victory made them proud. They would not let us down.
The icing on the cake in this week long series of events was the homecoming dance. The theme for this year would be “A Night in Times Square”. When you are out on the town in New York you dress up and for the homecoming dance the kids would be dressed to the nines. Limousines began to drop off groups of giddy girls excited for what the night may hold. The boys waited anxiously in groups perhaps wondering if slow dancing is required and if they’d be brave enough to ask someone to dance alongside the makeshift neon signs of Times Square. Then there were the couples who arrived hand in hand among the parade of parents cars that lined the parking lot. I put thought into what it would be like if I had a girl going to homecoming instead of my son, I could only imagine what must go into picking the dress that was just right for the big affair. Just getting my son ready would prove to be quite the task which involved a haircut more expensive than my own and slacks that had to be tailored just so. I wasn’t privy to what happened behind closed doors, no one wants their parent hanging around at the high school dance, we just aren’t welcome. Two hours before the dance was to begin the girl that my son had asked to go with him told him she would be going with friends. As my heart sank in hearing this news I suddenly felt like not much has changed. Those teenage years are still filled with broken hearts, feelings of awkwardness, apprehension and hope. And for a tiny slice of your life you get together with everyone else regardless of their status in school and celebrate something that is traditional, that reinforces the feeling of being a part of something and is special to the community and to the school. You make memories that you’ll carry with you for the rest of your life, good and bad. Based upon the fact I picked my son up with another young lady I am thinking they were pretty good.
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