Last night was homecoming in Jal, and all the Hoopla with the Queen and other associated activities brought back memories of our first homecomings. As I have pointed out before: we came up with a band, and that called for majorettes and cheerleaders. Before you could turn around we had a football team and after a very short time someone decided we ought to have a homecoming. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, no longer than we had been in business, very few of our grads had even left town. But anyway, it was decided that we needed a homecoming. I don't believe that you could have gathered up a group of people that knew less about homecomings. We were all young and enthused, and we were not going to let a little thing like lack of knowledge hold us back.

We got our group together and pooled our knowledge and finances. They were about equal, so we decided to go for it. It wasn't all that much trouble to get the school to go along, as they needed a little color in their operation. The first homecoming was pretty much a learning experience; but it was successful enough to excite our interest in holding another one. This time it was going to be the New, Improved, and Enhanced Version......and it was.

The next year was our pride and glory. We arranged for an Exes football game; and the school allowed us to keep the gate. With a kitty like that to operate on, we were ready.We set up a banquet, one cocktail party, and a couple of tea and cookie stops, all culminating in a fine dance at the gym with "Store Boughtin' Music." Now that was the general schedule, and we almost stayed on course.

The adventures started at the cocktail party. One fellow had a bit of a headstart. With all that false courage, he made a romantic proposition to one of the older girls there, and she slapped him. Now, this wasn't just your average playful slap. If he had been wearing "Reebok's" she would have blowed-out both his heels. It panned out all right, as she hadn't had a proposition like that in years and it gave her ego a little lift. As for the guy, it let the world know that he was still in there pitching and a force to be reckoned with.

The cocktail party was being held in the home of our treasurer, who at that time was one of our more responsible members. We were selling tickets to the banquet , the dance, and anything else that people would buy; so we accumulated a pretty good pot of money. Our treasurer said he would go hide it. That seemed logical at the time and we all scattered out to change into more appropriate wear for the banquet.

The banquet went off as well as that type of banquet ever does; but then we came to the business end of it. Just before they called for the Secretary's report (Me) the treasurer leaned over and said, "Morris, I hid the money but I can't remember where."
I stood up and assured everyone that it was a financial success, that all the bills had been paid, and that we would go on for years. They thought that was great.
J.L. led us in all four stanzas of the school song, and it was off to the ballgame.

All of the homecoming program had run off in good shape. Incidentally, the treasurer, after a pot of black coffee and some little gems of wisdom from his wife, found the money bag. My financial report had been pretty accurate. However, it was now time for the ballgame. Back then we didn't have off-the-cuff weather forcasts, so the cold front that came in during the banquet was a complete surprise.....also a Blue Northern.
As we bundled up to watch the game, we were as prepared as a bunch of Boy Scouts.
Sitting in the grandstand with very little movement (except to have another sip of Granny's recipe) we were in pretty good shape.

The problems didn't show up until the game was over and we trouped over to the gym for the dance. When we went into that warm building and shook our bodies up to the beat of a lively tune or two....that's when the problems showed up. Now, I wasn't "swacked." I just had to act that way so the rest of them wouldn't feel out of place; but I will say that this was the only time that I was ever referred to as "Twinkle Toes." The only public reference that I ran into was from J.L. He got in touch with me and appointed me 'head bouncer' to take care of a few of the fellows that had got a little boistrous at the dance. I thought at the time, "that J.L. is going to be one sneaky character to deal with in the future."

We had a couple more homecomings of this nature, but public opinion stopped the Exes ballgame; and that forced a change in format. In all likelihood this was just a passing thing at the time, and changes were taking place in all areas of our society. A lot of people didn't understand my outlook. You see, I knew all these changes were going to take place.....and I wanted to enjoy as much of it as I could before they made it illegal.