The night started like every great high school night, everyone’s outfits were too fancy for comfort, and the relentless optimism that tonight was going to be one to remember. The party bus arrived, shining like the overhyped promise it was. But as soon as the doors opened in the neighborhood next to Cheesman Park, Jolene our absolutely wonderful bus driver, made it crystal clear that fun was a privilege, not a right. A few warnings about keeping things “civilized” set the tone for the whole night, like we’d signed up for a middle school field trip instead of a night of reckless youth that we had imagined for weeks before.
Pulling up to the Forney Museum, there was an instant wave of anticipation. Classic cars gleamed under the dim lighting, the history soaked into every body line of the cars and embraced their chrome detail that covered 75% of the car. It was cool for about ten minutes. Once you’ve taken one lap around the place, you’ve seen everything, and it just becomes boring. The Museum workers were kind of staring at all of us to make sure we didn’t touch any of the cars, which added to the odd presence.
Once we stepped into the place, the lights seemed way too bright in some places and then really dim in other places. The music inside the venue was… uninspiring to say the least. And unlike our Junior year prom we could not go outside when the venue got hot outside. But once our groups made our rounds, marveling at old locomotives and pristine Cadillacs and Chevys, but the novelty wore off fast. After one lap, the realization hit that this is it. No secret rooms, no hidden wonders, the locomotives didn’t do anything for me, and they just seemed like they were just big metal behemoths, along with the faint smell of almost diesel, nostalgia, and echoes of what could’ve been a better prom pick.
But then the after party was so much better than the Prom.
Once the museum lights faded and the bus ride back was over (led by Captain Killjoy herself), the energy shifted. No more stiff formalities, no more small talk with chaperones, although it was nice to talk to Coach Martinez and Coach Bishop. 11 o’clock seemed like too much anyway. The after party with music we actually wanted, giving each other shit over whos a better pool player, and a chaotic mix of laughter, snacks, and moments that felt like they belonged in a comedy movie, like when Rocco opened up his bag to change into his beach fit and realized Jolene’s sweetness stole his socks after she looked through all of our bags…
And overall, it wasn’t the venue or the playlist or the museum that made the night. The most important was the people around us. The ones who knew how to turn a mid-tier event into a memory worth keeping in the end. All in all the Holy Family Newspaper class of 2025 gives this past years prom a
