Jo Paoletti,
University Park, MD
From diary, when I was 16:
September 24, 1965
I had a great time at the dance tonight – no Vincent S.! Boy am I glad. It bothers me to see all the guys I used to hang around with in 7th and 8th grade now going off with other girls of –well– uncertain morals! I did dance, though. I danced with Brian, Marcia’s brother, he’s 2 years younger than me but OK, and Ronny B., a colored boy. I was nervous about dancing with him, but I did — 3 times.
My reflection, nearly 50 years later:
Ronny was one of two African American “exchange” students who came up to New Milford in the fall of 1965. Ralph, the other one, stayed the whole school year and had a great time — prom king, all kinds of yearbook superlatives. Ronny, quiet and bespectacled, had more trouble fitting in. He was in some of my classes, and we enjoyed taking about school and books. We danced three times that night — fast dances, like the Pony, which was one of my favorites. But when he asked me to slow dance, I told him I didn’t know how.
What I really didn’t know how to do, at 16, was do anything that my peers would have remotely frowned upon — like slow dancing with a “colored boy”. Sorry, Ronny. I really wanted to, but I was too chicken.
Oh and I have a feeling that was no “exchange” program, ’cause no one from my Connecticut school went to Alabama!
