When I was in elementary school, I had learned that on Groundhog Day, if the groundhog saw its shadow, we were in for six more weeks of winter. I was much older before I learned that six more weeks of winter was bad news. We routinely still had some snow on the ground on April 1.
But this April was warming up nicely, and it was decided by our class sponsor, Mr. Salling, that our 7th grade class would have our very first dance. Now, bear in mind, what we called a dance then is very different than a middle school dance now. This was our chance to dance with a partner of the opposite sex, something many of us dreamed about and just as many feared. I was both.
My dad was excited by the prospect of me going to my first dance. He considered himself quite the lady’s man, and his three marriages by age 34 seemed to confirm that. He told me exactly what to do. He said that most of the boys would be too “chicken shit” (his words) to ask anyone to dance, and if I acted boldly and simply went up to ask someone, she would probably say yes, because so many boys would be lined up on the opposite wall, afraid to go over. He made sure I had my appearance and hygiene correct. My clothes were clean, I had showered and washed my hair, and had applied a generous amount of deodorant. We’d had conversations about that before. I was ready.
When we got to the dance, we self-organized into our usual cliques. I was with the jocks who’d played basketball together in the winter. We had sloppy joes to eat, prepared by Mrs. Salling, who taught elementary school and was our advisor’s wife. I had eaten a moderate (for me) two sloppy joes and a handful of potato chips. I didn’t want to look like a pig, after all. But at the end of the eating portion of the evening, there was a lot of sloppy joe mix left. Mr. Salling bellowed out, “Stacey! McClain! Get over here!”
Dan Stacey and I had resolved our differences earlier in the year and no longer hated each other. It turns out that when he took pictures of me in my underwear in the locker room, there wasn’t even film in the camera. And our reputations as big eaters had certainly preceded us, and Mr. Salling didn’t want to let the food go to waste. So, he organized an eating contest between Dan and me. I told him I didn’t want to participate. I was already nervous enough about asking someone to dance as it was. But he wouldn’t hear of it, and he goaded me into the competition. And one thing I had at age 13 was a competitive streak, because I was constantly trying to prove myself to gain the respect of my peers.
We began eating. One each. Two each, Three. Four. Five. Ten. We didn’t even start slowing down until we had each eaten 12 Sloppy Joes apiece. The thirteenth went down slowly, and Dan had just finished his 14th. My buddies were cheering me on, and about three-fourths of the way through my 14th Sloppy Joe, I puked. I mean, it all came up. I managed to avoid getting any on my clothes, but it was all over my plate and the tables we used in the home ec room. A collective “EEEWWWWW” erupted from everyone. And yes, there had been girls watching, too; the ones I was supposed to ask to dance. Without thinking, I put the last quarter of my Sloppy Joe and my mouth and swallowed it whole. After all, my stomach was empty now. That made the next reactions of grossed-out girls even worse.
I was mortified. I don’t think there’s a description of the level of embarrassment that quite captures how I felt at that moment. I just knew I was never going to find a dance partner, not just that night, but maybe ever. How was I going to go home and face my dad? I felt like such a failure.
I couldn’t brush my teeth, but I rinsed my mouth out and bummed a piece of gum (or two) from one of my friends. When the dance started, Mr. Salling encouraged me to go ask a girl to dance, but I just meekly shook my head and stayed where I was. I was afraid of rejection, the same kind of rejection I had felt from my mom’s husband when I had tried to be a son to him. I couldn’t take it if the same thing happened to me in my new school.
About a half hour into the dance, I just decided to go home. I lived a 10-minute walk away from the school, and I didn’t want to call for a ride. I would walk home in the dark. Just as I got up to leave, a pretty little blonde girl named Jenny Harris asked me to dance. I looked skeptical. “Are you sure?” I asked. She smiled at me and nodded yes, and she took my hand and led me out to the dance floor, also known as the high school gym. It was a slow dance, and in those days in seventh grade, that meant putting your arms around each other and swaying back and forth, maybe even going in the occasional circle. As we rocked back and forth, I almost cried because I was so grateful to Jenny for having pity on me. And it felt like a colossal weight had been lifted from my shoulders. After the song ended, I thanked her, and she just smiled and nodded again.
I would discover much later that Jenny was in fact Mr. Salling’s pet and spy. She was a friend of the family, and she babysat their new son. Mr. Salling had seen what I was going through and said in his gruff tone, “Harris! Go dance with McClain.” And she had obliged him.
“Jenny,” or Jen as she goes by now, is still my friend to this day, 45 years later, and I always respected Mr. Salling because of this kindness. I related this story at his memorial a few years ago with Jen at my side, and I don’t think there was a single dry eye in the house, including mine. That’s the kind of teacher he was. That’s the kind of man he was. And having these types of people in my life at that age, both Jen and Mr. Salling, made all the difference in the world.
