Happy Valentine's Day, Bubba

I've had some interesting experiences in my day. It's not really that surprising that I have a bit of a dark side. Here's a vintage one that never seems to lose its shock-value.

When I was an 18 year-old freshman at BYU (this is '81-'82), one of my dorm floormates was taking a Psych class. The professor asked the girls to recruit other female students to attend a dance at the Utah State Prison with the convicted sex offenders in an effort to "provide them with positve social interactions." Go ahead--take time to reread that line and we'll go on. Ready? So of course, we were all horrified, disgusted, and no-way-in-hell-will-you-ever-get-me-to-do-that(ed). But she was so desperate to get extra credit or something that she would not let it rest. Finally, we decided (as only stupid 18 year-old BYU girls could do) that there was safety in numbers and we would do this, with the assurance that there were guards everywhere and we would be perfectly safe. I know that the picture I had in my head was of a well-lit open room, a couple of songs, then we could go home. Never assume that the penal system thinks the same way you do.

Somewhere around 20 of us (there was a shockingly low average IQ that year, I think) drove in through the gates, and they closed tight behind us. There were armed guards watching us from the towers as we drove around the side to an entrance in a dark parking lot. Wouldn't you think that lighting is one thing prisons wouldn't scrimp on? We all wanted to turn back at that point, but instead we walked up the steps and through the door.

Okay, growing up in the military we had places called "Teen Clubs", which were supposed to be places where kids could dance, play pool, and stay out of trouble. What our Teen Club really was was a place where kids could make out, smoke pot, and meet up before sneaking off to get drunk. This had the same feel. The room was dim with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling. I kid you not. And there surrounding the perimeter were the scariest looking group of men you can imagine. Then the door shut behind us and we were stuck for the night. We were told that if we tried to leave we would be shot. Maybe that was a sick joke, but I certainly believed it. There were non-prisoners there, but I'm pretty sure they were just a bunch of therapists. I thought there was a chance I could beat them up, let alone what a 300 pound convicted felon could do if he were so inclined.

At the time I was a little bitty thing, about 125 pounds of nothing. So when Bubba, which was actually his name, pointed at me from across the room and said "I wants to dance wid choo!" at the top of his lungs, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. So I became Bubba's "date" for the evening. Nothing like being held close by a large, sweating, scary man who had already done things my teenage brain couldn't even imagine. Bubba turned out to be quite the Fred Astaire, at least in his mind. He flipped me all over that room. At one point I ended up on the floor, but he had me back on my feet in no time. He had eyes for no one but me. What a lucky girl.

This seriously lasted for about two hours. Like it was a real date! We finally got to leave and I shook all the way home. Then I took a hot shower. Then another one. Not everyone felt that way, though. Some of the other girls danced with inmates that looked like any other normal guy. They were so charmed they gave them their real names and phone numbers. Did you know that prisoners can call the dorms collect? They can.

Apparently, we were not the first group of girls to do this. I believe that BYU participated in this for several semesters, if not years. Eventually, it was determined that these "evenings" really weren't all that helpful in reducing the recidivism rate of the offenders, and it was discontinued.

Ya think? Eventually the dreams slowed and I no longer screamed in my sleep. I'm kind of kidding about that, but kind of not. But shame on that BYU professor. I doubt he would have ever asked his own daughters to do that. Fortunately, Elvira is much smarter than her mother and would (hopefully) never do such a stupid thing.

So when I post my dark little ditties on the playlist, just know that much darker ones are playing in my head.