April 16, 2001
DOWN HOME:
He could've been an anonymous chauffeur
___Sometimes, kids just don't want their parents around.
___Like at the prom, for example.
___Grownups don't have to think about proms very much until their children start thinking about proms.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___Until this spring, I hadn't thought about a prom in more than 25 years (I could've said "more than a quarter century," but that would be freaky), since I was in high school.
___But this spring, Lindsay and her mother, Joanna, started thinking--and talking--about Lewisville High School's junior-senior prom.
___That got me to thinking about the prom, too. Only I didn't think about the same stuff they did.
___They thought--and talked, at length --about prom dresses, prom hair-dos, prom shoes, prom jewelry, prom makeup and probably some other prom stuff I can't imagine and they don't bother to tell me, a mere dad, about.
___I thought about ... I know what you think I thought about--prom dates.
___No. Well, actually, I would've thought about prom boys a great deal, except that most kids go to proms in groups instead of in dating couples. Groups are good.
___But what I thought about--my wife and daughters would say I obsessed about--was prom transportation.
___See, these kids were going to travel from Lewisville, up near Denton, all the way down to the Apparel Mart, near downtown Dallas. By themselves. On Stemmons Freeway. That's kinda like Texas Motor Speedway without grandstands and RVs parked everywhere.
___All this thinking caused me to view limousines in a new light. I used to think parents who helped their kids rent limousines engaged in wretched excess. Well, we priced limousines ($120 an hour, 6-hour minimum, 20 percent tip), and I still think of it as wretched excess. But I understand why a dad would take out a second mortgage to send Missy to the prom. It's not about style. It's about safety.
___I just plain didn't want a bunch of prom-giddy kids driving on strange and dangerous roads late at night.
___So, I came up with the perfect solution: I would rent a big black Cadillac, wear a dark suit, drive the Caddy for Lindsay and her friends. And (this is the most important part) I would act like I never saw them before in my life.
___Every dad who thinks this sounds reasonable say, "Amen." Thought so.
___But hard as it is to believe, kids-- and their mamas, Benedictine Arnolds, one and all--don't think this is reasonable. They think it's intrusive, over-protective and, worst of all, corny.
___Inevitably, I trusted Lindsay and their friends and waved as they drove off in a motorcade of three cars. And while they had a ball at the prom, I got caught up on my prayer life.
___I have it on good authority that God hears the prayers of nervous, over-protective daddies--with or without big black Cadillacs.
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