By Donald H. Harrison

LA JOLLA, Calif.—  The senior prom came a bit late for Miriam Selvin, Leslie Sanders, and Max and Pat Friedheim—about 60 years late.  But no bother, just because people didn't have a senior prom when they were in high school, it doesn't mean they can't have a prom now that they are seniors—senior citizens, that is.

The Lawrence Family JCC held a dance Sunday afternoon enabling the senior citizens to experience many things they had missed as teenagers. Selvin was chosen prom queen, and Sanders her king, while the Friedheims were voted the "best dressed" of the affair held in the JCC's Garfield Theatre.  

The four-member Pastels band played the swing music that was popular in the 1940s, when many of the attendees went to school, and the eight-member Savoy Street Stompers demonstrated dances that might have been popular back when the seniors were teenagers.

The prom queen and king were among a group of three men and three women who were selected by applause after standing on stage and telling why they would like such honors

In her first interview as a royal, Selvin said that when she grew up in Brooklyn if her school had a prom, no one took much notice because "it was war time and there weren't many fellows around."  She never attended any prom until the one held on Sunday.  

Perhaps it was destined for Selvin to become a prom queen, having previously been a "cover girl" for the senior program of the JCC.  She explained: "They have a journal that they put out, with all the events, and I have been on the cover a couple of times. I was in the exercise group a number of years ago and the photographer was taking pictures of the pretty gym instructor. I kidded him: 'You only take pictures of the pretty ones?' And then he put the camera on me. And for three years after that, there were postcards going out, issued each January, with my picture on them, about joining the JCC."

Her "king" was chosen by the audience in a competition in which her husband, Manny, also participated. But Manny has confidence his and Miriam's relationship will be long lasting no matter who the audience matches with his wife.  After all, this coming Wednesday they will be celebrating their 53rd wedding anniversary.

Prom king Sanders said that he grew up in London, England, where high school proms were not a custom.  What do you do at the end of high school in England? he was asked.  "You go to work!" he responded.

Didn't it seem strange that someone from Britain had to come all the way to the former colonies to be named a king? Sanders was asked.   "Absolutely, and not only that, I don't want to dance with commoners now!" he responded with a laugh.

Max and Pat Friedheim competed in separate events to win honors as the "best-dressed man" and "best-dressed woman," and Max gave all the credit for his victory to Pat.  When it comes to his wardrobe, he explained, "my bride sets it up for me."  They have been married 28 years—the second marriage for each of them.  Pat, who wore her "dancing dress, "with a skirt cut to swing while she danced, was already a four-time grandmother while Max was just a father when they married.  Today, she is a five-times great-great grandmother.

Pat said she did not graduate from high school but instead went to work as a "Rosie the Riveter" during World War II, and therefore didn't go to a prom.  Max said his graduation from a New York City high school was in 1942, when America was in the midst of World War II, and "there was no prom—they just issued out the diplomas."

The couple loves to dance.  "I never had any lessons but during the USO dancing time in World War II, you could learn a lot and meet a lot of people," Pat said.

The oldest woman and the oldest man attending the JCC Senior Prom—Gertrude Stein, 94, and Maury Rapkin, 88—said that they both attended high school proms.  Stein said she had grown up in Lehr, North Dakota, a town she described as being so small that it did not even have a high school.  Notwithstanding that theirs was a Jewish family, which kept kosher, her parents sent her to an Episcopalian high school in St. Paul, Minn.  Her parents advised her to "eat everything the other girls eat.  The very first night we had dinner, I asked the girl next to me, what we had, and she said, 'oh those were pork chops.'"

Stein said she was valedictorian of her high school class, and that she recalls her prom of 1930 as having been a "very formal affair.  We had a receiving line, where you had to introduce your escort to your teachers and to your parents.  We had a wonderful orchestra and we danced.  And this young man whom I invited, he gave me a necklace that I wanted to wear tonight but it didn't go with my dress. But I kept it because it was so precious."  The necklace did go beautifully with her prom dress, which she recalled as being a pink georgette.

She recalled that at that prom, she had a dance card.  "In fact, I gave my dance card about a month ago to my granddaughter who was visiting here from Florida.  She had never heard of a dance card,  where you would exchange dances."

Was her date her future husband? "No," she laughed, "but it was my high school love."

In fact, her future husband took her to a college prom at the University of Minnesota, where he studied for a medical degree and she obtained a degree in medical technology.  "I designed the dress I wore—a pale green dress—and I went straight from the dressmaker's house to the prom," she recalled

"I had a wonderful time because my husband was the president of the medical fraternity, Phil Delta Epsilon, so I got a lot of attention."  She still remembers them waltzing, her favorite dance.

How does the JCC Senior Prom stack up against the others?  "Well," she replied I think it is a wonderful thing. It is delightful to see so many active seniors doing all kinds of dances. And they don't sit back and say I am getting old. They are active, and, frankly, I used to go dancing regularly until my eyes started to get bad.  I moved here in 1991 and up until then I used to go dancing twice a week."

Rapkin, the oldest man at the dance, is, even now, a twice-a-week dancer, enjoying not only the dances at the JCC—which was emceed last night by Senior Activities Director Melanie Rubin—but also those held at such diverse locations as Viejas Indian Casino, North Park, Balboa Park, La Mesa and Chula Vista.

He said he recognized two of the Pastel band members— keyboardist Hal Jellison and saxophonist Bob Hinkle—from other dances he had attended,  but said he couldn't be certain whether he had heard pianist Barbara Mosley and trumpeter Riz Brittan before.  

His own senior prom came in 1941 when he was graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  His date was "a woman in a family my sister had married into—really a nice person, comely looking—but I didn't feel I was ready to get married."   He said the dance was a rather tame affair, for which he dressed in a rented tuxedo, she wore a formal gown, and "I gave her a corsage.... To tell you how tame it was, there was no alcohol, just soft drinks.  There was just ballroom dancing, no lindies, no charlestons..." At the time, that might have been a relief for Rapkin because "I had just learned to dance."

At the Sunday afternoon senior prom, dance teacher Meeshi Sumayao of the YMCA Firehouse in La Jolla Village demonstrated a Charleston Rueda and a Lindy for the enthusiastic and nostalgic crowd.  Joining him on stage were Julia Farrell, Brooke Sanders, Judy Cunningham, Jannette Kutchins, Dan Redig, Brian Remer and Sean McNiven, most of them his dance students.

Not only did the seniors have a chance to put their dancing shoes on, but several of them won donated dinners-for-two at various local restaurants during "opportunity drawings."   Usually, it's a dinner date before the prom, but this works too!.