Old Boys and Flappers Flood the Joint at the CBCC Prom

"In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars..."

Prom time arrived again this past weekend for the Hungry Bunch teen support group at the Children's Blood and Cancer Center (CBCC) at Dell Children's Hospital in Austin, TX. It's a big night for these teens: They battled or are battling forms of cancer or blood disorders, and may not be healthy enough to attend their own school proms. Last year, old sport, they had a Hawaiian theme, but this year, not so fast:

This year, it was the Roaring 20's.

Also known as the jazz age, the roaring 20's introduced America to mass culture; to radio and to affordable automobiles; to dances like the Charleston, the flea hop, the cake walk; to the flapper and the gangster and the impossible dreams of Jay Gatsby. For the first time, Americans from coast to coast banded together and partied hard.

Fittingly, for the girls from the Hungry Bunch the day got underway with a primping party at Aveda Institute Austin. Dresses were provided by 1 Million 4 Anna and the Austin Fairy Godmother Foundation (click on banners below for more information about the event's sponsors).

"Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder..."

All quotes above from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Photo credits to Ross Bonander and the CBCC.

This is the thirteenth installment in my series on the Children's Blood and Cancer Center at Dell Children's Hospital in Austin, Texas. The prior twelve are listed below:

• Introduction: Uncommonly Ordinary
• Part I: Not Your Average Prom
• Part II: Teenage Cancer: One Girl's Story
• Part III: A Food Fight for Life
• Part IV: Clowning Achievement
• Part V: Superhero Kids
• Part VI: Peaceable Kingdom
• Part VII: Survivorship at the CBCC
• Part VIII: WWE's The Shield Visits the CBCC
• Part IX: Austin Film Festival Comes to the CBCC
• Part X: St Baldrick's Delivers the Buzz Cuts
• Part XI: Jeff Gordon Treatment Room at the CBCC