Strapless Gowns At An Eighth Grade Dance???????? Not In MY Day, Girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 Darlings, remember that moving moment, in "The Bells Of St. Mary's," when Joan Carroll,. as Patsy, turns in her eighth grade graduation to gown to Sister Benedict (Ingrid Bergman), because she has failed her final exams, when we, the audience know, she did it deliberately, because she wants to stay on at St. Mary's so much???????  If you do, you know that Joan/Patsy is found out, graduates and gets to wear the gown, which is pretty much what all the girls in her class are wearing--long, frilly, somewhat sophisticated, but with sleeves and puffs, so that they look like budding young ladies rather than Joan Rivers Tramps wannabes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                   Well, I guess the parents of Readington, New Jersey, want to raise their daughters to be tramps!!!!!!!!!  Because they are arguing for strapless gowns at an eighth grade dance, which, I am sorry, is just too young to be displaying all that flesh. And I am not so much worried about the eighth grade boys!  I am more worried about the covert, potentially abusive, male teacher chaperones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        First, this isn't "Carrie," darlings; those girls were high school seniors!!!!!!!  And, readers, I did not go strapless until I was well into my college years!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was a good girl, I was!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                         Why does everyone want to look like a slut today?  What is wrong with being fresh, and natural, and young?  Let me tell those girls--you only get one chance at it, and it goes faster than you think!  Don't be in such of a hurry to grow up. or you might find yourselves saddled with kids and in divorce court, by the time you are 30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                              So much can be done with gowns that have straps, sleeves, or other accessories.  And it is high time young girls learned the fine art of accessorizing!!!!!!!!!  What better time teach them???????????????????

                                                Much against what I think, I am sure the strapless gowns will prevail.  In which case I have no choice but to say, to the parents,   "You asked for it!," and to wish those girls enter the dance hall, with Joan Rivers at the door, calling out--

                                                         "You miserable TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAMPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"