Some social phenomena are difficult to explain. One that has eluded my comprehension is the unique decision of some Jewish parents to give their daughters an elaborate celebration known as a Sweet Sixteen Party. From what I can tell no such celebrations exist today, at least not in the parts of southern California with which I am familiar nor back in southeastern Wisconsin where I grew up and attended them during my tenure at John Marshall Junior Senior High School.
Certain special ceremonial celebrations honoring a teenage daughter continue today that did exist during my teenage years. One such celebration is the debutante ball given by wealthy, usually southern, aristocrats when their daughters turn sixteen to signify their entry into high society. Another such celebration occurs among many Spanish families from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and parts of Central and South American. When the daughter of these families reaches her fifteenth birthday she receives a baptismal blessing from the priest followed by an extravagant party where she wears an ornate dress, exchanges flat shoes for high heels, and dances a long dance with her father.
As far as I can tell unless the Jewish family happens to be a part of modern southern wealth, or as in my nieces case have some Spanish heritage leaving open the question of whether the priest or rabbi will give the blessing, odds are young Jewish girls turning sixteen may be sweet but will probably miss out on the party. Such, as noted previously, was not the case when I was growing up in Milwaukee.
Now if Peggy had a Sweet Sixteen Party it was most likely held in our basement, and having the good sense she was born with she did not invite her nearly fourteen and eleven year old brothers. My best recollection of the Sweet Sixteen Parties I attended is they were held in either hotel ballrooms or more likely in pavilions in municipal parks.
Another common practice was to have only half of the attendees be invited guests. Each of the guests was supposed to bring a date. While it was all right to bring an invited guest as a date, and it did not limit the volume of presents piled on the gift table since anyone receiving an invitation was expected to bring one, the crowd was proportionally larger if the date had not been invited.
Although I do not recall whose party it was I am quite certain I was the one invited when I went with Jeanette to a warm spring or early summer evening party at the Blatz Pavilion in Lincoln Park. We had a number of mutual friends, but I am not sure if we ever talked before I made the bold move of asking her to this party and she did the unexpected and accepted.
We danced and visited with the other guests before taking a stroll along the walkway past the lagoon and along the creek that feeds into the river. She was short with black hair, dark skin and perfect lips accented by the light colored lipstick that seemed to glisten under the park lights.
Even though the conversation was light and friendly, and the night air was filled with romance there never seemed to be the right moment to make a move. Later, it would bother me that despite my experience at camp my ability to detect the opportune time for making such a move still needed further development.
Days and weeks went by and whenever anyone asked if I had fun on my date with Jeanette and if I was thinking of asking her out again I would deftly mention our little walk and say I intended to give her a call. But, I never did.
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