Head couple rip and snort …

Social dancing -- it's one of my soapbox topics. As in, we as a society don't do enough dancing just for fun, as a way to socialize with our fellow human beings, anymore. Oh yeah, "young people" go out to clubs and dance, and sometimes "women of a certain age" might drag their spouses to a mini course on ballroom dancing. But just to go to a dance for fun doesn't seem to happen all that often.

So, when I got an email from some listserv or other that I am on, announcing a square dance with a visiting caller and LIVE MUSIC on Friday night at our wonderfully funky WilMar Neighborhood Center, I had to go. (And I dragged my spouse, though it wasn't really much of a drag. He feels much like I do about social dancing. We were even joined by our 16 year old daughter later on in the evening.)

My main experiences with square dancing were, first in elementary school gym class in 6th grade ( a surprisingly happy memory, actually) and then at my alternative high school, where the only dances we had were square dances with a caller named Vern Weisensel from Sun Prairie. (I often wonder what he thought of calling square dances for a bunch of stoned wannabe-hippie kids in thrift shop finery … Who knows? Maybe he wasn't nearly so straight-laced as I remember him.) It was a great way to dance and socialize … you could be flirtatious, touch the other lust-filled adolescents, maybe even snuggle a bit, and then "Cab driver, once more round the block …" and you'd move on to the next person.

The caller last night was T-Claw from Nashville, TN. He takes the tradition of calling dances seriously, but he was anything but straight-laced. I knew I was going to like him when I opened up a copy of his square dance calling 'zine (!) Dare To Be Square and found this variation on the Virginia Reel:

All join hands, up and back 

Let's get our troops out of Iraq 

 Allemande right if it takes all night 

Allemande left, this war is theft …

As the evening progressed he was lounging back in his chair, a microphone in one hand and a beer in the other, calling out "Same old gent with a brand new girl, down the center and divide the world!" He was clearly having a good time. He seems passionate about getting people to participate. (Isn't that one of our great societal ills in the U.S.? People will pay big money to be consumers of lots of things, but it's harder to get them to participate -- not just in the arts, but in things like VOTING, for instance. But I digress.)

He was accompanied by Can I Get An Amen!, a really rocking quartet of old timey musicians (but definitely not old!) out of Chicago. I urge you to check them out. Not only did they play a good reel, but they threw in a couple of achingly beautiful waltzes (the most romantic of dances, in my opinion) and sang in glorious Louvin Brothers-type harmonies. Sigh.

Which leads me to another point. In recent years when I have attended folk events, it's been disconcerting to look around at the audience and realize that I am the youngest person there. (Although I still regard myself as 27 or 28, I'm nearly 53 years old, hardly qualified to be called "young", for Pete's sake.) I have frequently wondered what the future is of a lot of traditions which I hold dear, if the card-carrying young people aren't carrying them on. Well I'm happy (sort of) to report that at last night's dance Ed and I were maybe not the oldest, but among the oldest people there and there were an awful lot of youngsters ("dirty hipsters," my daughter informed me, and that's a good thing) dancing away. It did my heart good, it really did. Even when the sweet young man I was talking to asked me if I was retired.

So … meet your partner, pat 'em on the head, if they don't like biscuits, feed 'em cornbread, promenade across the floor, that's all there is, there ain't no more.

T-Claw "Breaking Up Winter" w/ the Georgia Crackers

Shooting the Messenger (in a Friendly manner, of course)

Pity the poor earnest young man, trying to earn some summer cash by canvassing door-to-door for the Democratic National Committee. He just came to my door. He got an earful. He got two ears full. And a doggy bag.

I give him a lot of credit. He listened. He didn't argue with me. He didn't ask me for a penny. I've had people call on behalf of the DNC who get all huffy and tell me I'm wrong, and on more than one occasion I've had to say, "Wait a minute. You called me, asking for my money! You had darn well be willing to listen to what I have to say!"

This guy said he'd been hearing a lot about impeachment. Yeah, I'll bet. Hey, Dimocrats! Anybody home? Are you listening?

Can I just weigh in on Tim Russert?

I am sad for his family. It is certainly a devastating loss for them.

But I don't think it is wrong to say that this man, through what frequently passes for journalism these days, aided and abetted the criminal Bush administration whose actions have perpetrated too much death and devastation for too many people around the world.

His family, colleagues, and those who knew him personally will rightfully grieve. It does not mean that we on the left end of the political spectrum have to ignore or whitewash what he's done for the last 7 years, out of some misplaced sense of "respect."