Growing up Okie in L A: Let's go to the Hop

I was never a dancer. My mom and dad didn’t want me to dance. And I’m talking about dancing at school or any other “Dancing Den of Sin.” Which means no dancing after school in the gym. Dancing with…girls. Absolutely forbidden. Certainly a fundamentalist doctrinaire.

Why not dance? Well, I would be swallowed in to a fiery pit of judgment. Far beneath the surface of the gym floor. Swallowed down into a huge monstrous fire-breathing canyon of smoking black brimstone. Perhaps tumbling down just beneath the scattered pile of boys and girls shoes they tossed off. “What happened to Charlie? He disappeared I guess.”

However, against my mom’s wishes, I did once slip into the side door at a junior high dance in our school gym. And to make this clear, this was just for casual observation. Taking notes for future reference of course. This was 1958 at my junior high. So, this is what I observed from the gym bleachers:
Off up against the gym wall was a portable record player sitting atop a high stool. A record player scratching out a tinny sound of early rock and roll. Then on the dance floor was Boys and girls dancing far apart from each other but holding hands nonetheless. Dancing duos closely monitored by two first year English teachers. Teachers sliding about like referees at a hockey game. And all this noise and shuffling beneath the full power of the gym’s bright lights.

The 20-something year old woman teacher was wearing cat eyeglasses and crowned with brown curly poofy hair. She had at her side, like a magic wand, a one-foot wooden ruler. And occasionally she would approach a fox trotting couple to place the 12-inch rule between their chests. “Remember boys and girls, you must remain twelve inches apart. It’s the rule.”

The guy teacher was also youngish, tall, thin, wore a dark suit with high water cuffs, and looked just like Dennis the Menace’s father. Long pointed nose, black oily hair combed straight back, and with Coke bottle glasses that made his eyes appear like floating prunes. Both teachers giving the impression they would rather be home grading English papers instead.

Now, off to one side away from the larger group of dancers, was a lone couple hanging on to each other’s shoulders dancing cheek to cheek but with their hips at least twenty inches apart. Looking like an A-frame with feet. Seemingly dancing to one beat. No matter how fast or slow the music, this couple maintained a slow two-step shuffle. Quite strange looking I must say.

Never the less, as the dance progressed, several of the junior high kids had cajoled the two first year English teachers into demonstrating how two mature individuals properly dance. Teen dancers knowing full well each teacher was young, single, and most embarrassed to be put together in this horrific teen dance-monitoring job. Both teachers’ faces were beet red and embarrassed. However, they were compelled by teacher responsibility to demonstrate the proper way to slow dance. And again, I must say it was awkward and strange. Both holding each other like they didn’t want to hold each other. More like pushing each other away from the other. All the while teen kids were whistling, cat calling, and hooting it up. A spectacle rather entertaining.

My mom was right. I should never go to school dances. This was most ridiculous. Now you know why I am still alive today.