Prom Dress Perpetrator - A “Sonny’s Story”

In 1957, my bride to be was a first year school teacher in Beaufort. Being a single female, she was required to stay at the Teacherage, a dorm type large home run by the district. Back in the day, a single female of good reputation did not rent an apartment alone. That was a time when having teachers of sterling background was important. The Teacherage is now a bed and breakfast called the Two Suns Inn on Bay Street. (She could have stayed with her family if they lived here.)

Two Suns Inn, Bay Street, Beaufort, South Carolina

Since I was finishing school, she worked the year before we married. One holiday, all of the teachers and the housemother left for the weekend, so she would be alone in that huge house. I offered to ask my grandmother, who ran a boarding house in town, to let her stay there, but she refused.

So after a date at the local drive-in movie, I was to drop her off at the dark building. She didn’t refuse my offer to check the house out before leaving. So I made the rounds, checking doors and windows and closets.

I got to one closet and the hackles raised on my neck. I went into combat mode thinking with all senses on alert. I grabbed the doorknob with my left hand, had my right fist balled up if needed and pulled the door open very quickly.

Something suddenly flew out the door and landed on my face and chest. I heard a crackling noise and instinctively started pounded it with both fists. Short one-two punches as hard as I could. Then the perpetrator fell away onto the floor.

My bride showed up as I was still panting and asked, “What was all that noise?” I explained that when I opened the door, IT suddenly flew out and I started hitting IT.

We both looked at IT on the floor. IT was a girl’s pink hoop style formal prom dress with a tattered paper cover. She laughed first and then I did. Apparently when I opened the door quickly, the air rushed in and blew the dress off the hanger into my face.

We decided to keep it a secret. I could see the headline in the then weekly Beaufort Gazette,

“LOCAL MAN UNINJURED AFTER BEING ATTACKED BY GIRL’S PROM DRESS.”

She found another paper cover and we checked the dress for damage and there was none, not even one torn seam.

You know, they just don’t make prom dresses that strong anymore.