OPINION: I miss dancing

The last time I danced was nearly twenty years ago at my daughter’s wedding. I danced quite a bit along with my sisters, daughters and granddaughters, and paid for it the next day with an aching back and very sore knees. Today, dancing is out of the question as my walker isn’t a very good partner.

I always truly loved to dance. I inherited this enthusiasm from my parents who danced to music during the big band era. They were beautiful dancers. I loved watching them as they turned up the radio for songs played by the Glenn Miller Band and performed for us kids. The big bands played wonderful music in those days and Glenn Miller was a favorite.

My folks and their friends danced on Saturday nights at Creston’s Chicken Inn during its heyday. There was a group of them – all farm couples from the Thayer and Murray area. They also danced during the winter months in a little club house they maintained at the north end of Thayer. Their dancing days eventually ended, but my folks never lost their skills. I have a picture of them in their 70s smiling and dancing at my son’s wedding, still showing exceptionable rhythm and footwork.

Not only did I have parents who loved to dance, I also had teachers who encouraged their students to learn to dance. At Thayer Consolidated School there were 40 students in high school. During my senior year, we went to the gym occasionally and spent an hour learning to dance. Superintendent C.J. King and his wife, our high school English teacher, taught us two-step dancing and what we called jitter-bug dancing, plus rousing rock and roll dancing introduced by Elvis Presley and other rock musicians during the 1950s.

Looking back, it seems incredible that Mr. King, one of the strictest, no-nonsense superintendents ever, thought we needed to learn to dance. He was very serious about it. No one was to be left sitting out at any time, and no boy was to assume they would only dance with their girlfriend. I remember how he angrily sent a couple back to the classroom when he noticed they had dared to dance together a second time.

Dancing continued to be a favorite pastime for me when I went to college. Membership in a sorority meant there were frequent dances, so I was grateful I had learned in high school. For two years, I danced regularly with one of the best. He was a ballroom dancer and it was pure joy to move around the floor with him. He was tall, gangly and had very little personality and we had no relationship outside of dancing. I don’t even remember his name, but I’ve never forgotten how that boy could dance.

When I transferred to the University of Iowa, I remember dancing to the music of jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain at a key-club in Iowa City. Then, during my senior year, the HAWK Club opened and became the place where students hung out. It might have been a former roller-skating rink, because it had booths all the way around a huge dance floor. Students, 21 and older, could buy beer, but liquor was not served by-the-drink in those days. I have no idea how long the HAWK lasted after I graduated.

While at Iowa I experienced one of the biggest all-time dance crazes in the world. Chubby Checker released his “The Twist” song and it became a world-wide phenomenon. The dance’s fame grew from watching Chubby’s energetic performances on national television. This new dance was such fun and allowed for individualized dancing – really for the first time. With the Twist, we could dance with a partner, or without a partner. There could be a floor full of dancers all doing their own thing

In a way, the Twist also marked the decline of ballroom dancing, and two-step dancing like my folks did to the big bands. Of course, people still dance as couples and you still see good dancers swinging to great tunes, especially to ever-popular country music. Young people dance as couples at proms but if one looks closely, there’s not much footwork and no one has a clue about ballroom dancing. It’s become a lost art.

My days of dancing ended long ago. I still miss it, but I have my memories.