Chivalry Lacking Among Prom Knights

I’d like to make a suggestion to the sociologists and psychologists who have been bombarding us in recent weeks with reminders to talk to our children about peer pressure, violence and guns.

Drop a hint in there sometime about manners. It could make all the other lectures unnecessary.

During the last month one high school or another has held its senior prom on Saturday nights at the Ventura Theater.

I know this because my cluttered desk looks out on the company’s tree-lined parking lot across the street from the theater’s main entrance.

Between afternoon deadlines and my last call to the coroner’s office around 8 p.m., I gaze from my newsroom bubble at people walking by. Sometimes I look up at the sky and try and guess the temperature outside.

For the last few Saturdays, I’ve found myself watching prom-goers.

What I saw, for the most part, was kids having fun. The dresses ranged from traditional long gowns in silver and black to body-hugging, thigh-high numbers in come-get-me red. There were a few floor-length sequined gowns that scooped obscenely low in back.

Some boys wore tuxes, some wore tail coats. Some accented their suits with bright white sneakers. Others donned black fedoras and violet cummerbunds.

The ugliness wasn’t in the outfits, but in a lack of etiquette.

I saw maybe 100 couples pull in and out of my company’s parking spaces and the public spaces that line Chestnut Street.

In all, I saw four boys open a car door for their dates.

It seemed natural for three of them. Each boy unlocked the passenger door and waited until his date was comfortably seated before closing the door and walking around to the driver’s side to get in.

One boy did it because he happened to be in the general area of the passenger door.

He was a tall, dark-haired lad driving a sleek new convertible sports car. After posing for a picture with his date, he walked to the driver’s door, opened it and flipped a switch inside. He then went to the passenger side and stood poised, watching to see if the ragtop retracted properly.

Afterward, he unlocked and opened the passenger door but left her to close it.

As the couples made the short walk from the parking spaces to the theater, I espied only one boy who offered his arm to his date.

Two boys took off their jackets one windy night to cover the bare shoulders of their girlfriends. It wasn’t just the boys. I saw several girls talking on cell phones while their dates were left shuffling their feet and waiting for the girls to hang up.

Over and over, the guys walked several paces in front of their dates, as if the young women were children, or servants. One girl gripped her French twist as she clickety-clacked in 3-inch heels to catch up to her date.

I often wondered what dinner must have been like on these once-in-a-lifetime dates.

At the restaurant, did he pull out her chair when they were being seated and remember to stand when she left for the ladies’ room?

I’m no Miss Manners, and some have even accused me of being, well, a bit blunt at times. But when I was growing up, my parents displayed a level of respect for each other that rubbed off on me. Two years’ worth of etiquette classes with my older brother also helped. I learned posture, how to accept a dance politely and how to say no without crushing an ego.

The niceties were growing out of favor even then, but prom night was the one night of the year when we tried to act like adults.

Over the years, I’ve changed. Being a crime reporter has made me gritty in some areas of my personality and softer in others.

I curse more, but I’m kinder to small children and animals.

One thing has remained steady, though, and that’s when I’m on a date I try to show a little class.

My prom night more than a decade ago was special, and not because we rented a big limo and partied all night at the Beverly Hills Hotel. My boyfriend and I sat on the floor in my parents’ living room and ate Chinese food with chopsticks by candlelight.

I scooped fried rice and sizzling pork onto our plates and he waited until I served both of us before he started eating.

When we went to the carport to leave, he opened the passenger door on his beat-up gray Chevy, which had a sticky shifter and a temperamental clutch that made most rides a bit jerky. I liked it. I told him his old beater had character.

On the way to the prom, he asked what kind of music I’d like to hear. I picked his favorite tape by Led Zeppelin.

When we arrived at the dance, he opened my door and offered his hand while I stood. Then we walked arm-in-arm into the prom. I told him he looked handsome.

I don’t remember all those little details just because it was a great date. I remember them because those were qualities I liked most about my high school sweetheart. And ones I still appreciate.

Good manners aren’t just to make parents stop nagging. They allow us to be social creatures. Or rather, we are social creatures who invented manners to keep from acting like sea lions, ocelots and every other predator, who’d as soon eat their neighbor as lie down with him. A handshake, a smile, a door opened politely, these things keep us in good humor, and therefore a little more civilized.

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Holly J. Wolcott can be reached by e-mail at holly.wolcott@latimes.com.