Frederick, Freddie Or Fred And A Beautiful Corsage Elita Sohmer Clayman

I went to a prom in about 1951 when I was seventeen with a boy named Frederick. They called him Freddie all his young life and when I went out with him, he called himself Fred. He was a very nice young man and he invited me to his high school senior prom downtown at a big hotel. I knew no one except him and I wore a gorgeous champagne colored (tan) chiffon and net dress. He sent me a corsage and it was delivered and Mom, who knew her flowers really quite well, could not figure out what they were. They were a gorgeous collection of flowers, all tan colored with like a deep purple or wine colored inside piece. It was surrounded by a tan net border and a tan ribbon. It was the prettiest flower I had ever seen. I called the florist and he told me they were called Cymbidium Orchids. Wow, I was impressed; this must have cost in those days at least twenty dollars. When we got there, all the girl dates were given a gold (not real gold) necklace charm on a gold chain and it was an all-boys school so the dates were girls of course. It had the school emblem on the charm and I was so impressed with the whole event.

I had only been out with him once, it was a casual relationship, his aunt was married to my uncle and we were not related. That is how I knew him.  My dad’s brother was married to his dad’s sister. We had fun and maybe saw each other once or twice after that. He was a year older and went away to engineering school a distance away from Baltimore. I must add that I had the most beautiful corsage of any girl there that evening. I pressed the flowers in a book until they flattened and kept the dried ones for many years in a plastic bag.

I was straightening out my jewelry drawer recently and lo and behold, there was this charm, no chain and I had put it away all these sixty-one years ago and it wound up in an old box in my drawer. It was a bit tarnished but still cute. I remember how I told my girlfriends that Fred and I were going steady and they were all envious I had a nice boyfriend like him who had given me a lovely corsage and a necklace and charm with his school emblem on it. I wore it every day to school and even though, I barely saw him anymore because he was a college boy; I pretended he was something he was not to me.

It is interesting and I thought I would look him up on the Internet and I found his name and sadly, he passed away when he was only sixty years old which was about 1993. If I had found him, I would have emailed him and told him how I remembered the wonderful prom, the beautiful charm and chain and most of all the prettiest corsage I ever had- the Cymbidium Orchids.

Remembering nice times from our past is a great pastime. I remember wearing the same dress from that prom to another prom/dance with another young man Will. I did not like him too much, but when young, we young ladies would go on a date to be ‘seen.’  There was an unwritten law in the area, if you were not seen at a diner called Hilltop or another one called The Old Court Inn, on a Saturday night with a date, you had been dateless that weekend and that was not ‘good’ for your reputation. The movie Diner presented by Barry Levinson, the famous director was based on the Hilltop Diner where he hung out too. The rule then, was after you were seen there with your date and he dropped you off home, the guys would return to the diner and have another round of food to talk and chat about how they made out (most of them lied) with their dates that night. So lying was the rule of the game between young men and young ladies in the late forties and early fifties.

It was innocent lying, no one got hurt other than your ego, if you did not have a date that Saturday evening. You could lie and say your boyfriend was a college boy from out of town and he came in to see you and you stayed at your home or went to a neighborhood movie and who could see who in a dark movie?

When I was twenty-three and going out, my boyfriend Jerry who is my husband of fifty-two years, one weekend I told him I was busy and could not see him. I wanted to make him jealous. He called the next day and asked where the guy had taken me on that date. I quickly thought and remembered the name of a restaurant called The Marling House downtown. I had never been there but had walked by it many times when Mom and I went shopping in that neighborhood where all the dress stores were located.

He asked how the food was and I said nice. Many years later, when we were already married, he said you know you lied about the Marling House because he told a friend of his that I had not gone out with him and went with a boy who took me to a fancy dinner there. The friend told him that the Marling House had closed up four weeks earlier. So he knew I lied and we laughed because we were already married quite a few years by then. I told him I wanted to make him jealous and so I made up this restaurant date and since it was a fancy one, jackets required for all males, cloths, linen napkins and stuck-up waiters, I thought it would impress him that this other fellow was spending lots of money on me.

Funny what we do to impress people and lots of them are strangers and not really involved in our lives.

Freddy was a fine fellow and I wish I had thought of it many years ago; I would have found his email and reacquainted the two of us and would have told him how much fun, I had with him those few times and that I impressed my girlfriends by saying he was my main boyfriend. I also would say whenever I see an orchid, regardless of the color, purple, pink, white or tan, I think of that lovely, expensive one whose new name became a part of my teenage years.

I have had many corsages and flowers over the years, for my own wedding, for my son’s wedding, for my daughter’s wedding, for my son’s Bar Mitzvah party and my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah party and yet this Cymbidium Orchid sent and given to a seventeen year old, remains sparkling in my mind all these sixty-one years later.

Sometimes little things impress us and remain in our memories as shining examples of the younger years, that were simple times in our life, but they were also glorious times and happenings.

So to Frederick, Fred and even Freddie or Freddy, I thank you for a nice reason to think fondly of you so many years later. A Cymbidium Orchid reminds me of that nice Saturday night way back when you were eighteen and I was almost seventeen and we had a fun night. As the kids say now days, it was cool and really quite cool. I am sorry we never met again as married adults and we could have laughed about things together with our spouses and related even more stories of those bygone and more innocent days of our lives. What nice days they were and I thank you for that especially precious night.