Dee-Doh, Heather, and I at the Winter Formal

Strictly speaking, this did not happen at a prom, so I can't put it there; but it's one of those war stories from the wild side of life.

My friend Dee-Doh, with whom we have a long-term Platonic relationship and fishing partnership, told Heather and I of his dilemma: he had pledged at a fraternity at LSU that was one of the more socially promient ones, and he was perceived by many of the active members as 'the pledge most likely to wash out." This saddened us, as Dee-Doh was a real good guy but had, shall we say, some strong nerd tendencies. (Girls that don't appreciate nerds just don't know where it's at, ya know . . . .) Anyway, Dee-Doh was a good guy if you take the trouble to know him. He occasionally trouble shoots our computers, by the way.

The occasion that he had his strongest fear regarding was the fraternity's Winter Formal. Now this was a first-class affair, and all members were to show up with as spectacular a date as possible, dress in a suit or other conventional clothing, and really put on the ol' dog, if you know what I mean. To boot it was to consign oneself to outward bound track status: getting the twin black balls and eternal banishment from the halls of sophistication and influence. (Pardon my irony.)

The problem is, he was a lowly LSU freshman, and had a prob in getting someone to go with him. (He did not present a formidable appearance.) What to do?

Well, fortunately, this occasion was in New Orleans. That made things possible, despite our curfews. We both volunteered to go with him: decked out or tarted up or however you might call it. Ahh, we went the route: borrowing our older sisters' most daring fashions (with technical augmentation), drop-dead shoes, done-up hair, as sophisticated at our 17-year-old selves could pull it off. Let me put it this way, both of us tried to leave our houses with Dee-Doh before parental scrutiny happened to compel us to moderation. Actually, Mom understood the situation and employed her makeup and costume skills to further the farce. I went as his exotic French girlfriend, using my Cajun French to a limited degree to seem real.

She did say, "Don't let Maw-Maw see you looking like that!"

And, of course, the first thing not to do is to call him "Dee-Doh."

The moment of our entrance at the House was memorable. Each of us, on either side of Dee-Doh, clinging to his arm like he was a movie star. Heather was truly spectacular: a lite Acadian version of Laetitia Casta, sure to turn heads. I went along as the spare. Furthermore, we hung on him consistently for the evening, gazing fondly at him with cow eyes and sighed. His frat brothers didn't know what to make of us! Or him, for that matter! They had no idea that the three of us were cosmically pulling their legs!

The word got around, so we heard, that Dee-Doh had two girl friends from New Orleans and they habitually partied together. The word was out that they were sophisticated heiresses who attend Loyola or Eurotrash sophisticates, or who-knows-what. It was kinda nice to be one of those 'mystery ladies.' In fact we had not yet walked across the h.s. stage and were thus not yet, in today's terminology, 'rising college freshmen.'

That kind of amazes me. Peoples' perceptions change with time; in this case, in our favors. Imagine us pulling this off.

By the way, Dee-Doh was eventually initiated as an active, with no black balls.

And, apparently months later, he had no problems with the blue variety, either.