Month: April 2017

“But We Had Timing”

~ Elizabeth ~ 6 Comments

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It turns out that all that practice dancing Dixie and I had done was not in vain. That December we got to attend our first Christmas dance in the gym. There were two of these each year and they were attended by seventh and eighth graders together. We had dance cards, one of which is pictured above. The ribbons we used to tie the dance cards around our wrists were school colors, blue and gold.

What was a dance card, you might ask if you are younger than I am. In grade school, it was an item worn by each girl that had been filled out by someone(who knew who, certainly not a student!) which listed the ten boys you were to dance with that evening. This took the pressure off the boys, which must have been a relief, because they simply had to respond when girls showed their cards as each numbered dance was announced. The system also guaranteed that every girl would get to dance with at least ten different boys.

But the highlight of the night for me was the dance when an eighth grade boy danced with a seventh grade girl in the evening’s only dance contest. This was not part of the dance card, so it was up to a boy to ask a girl. And,unbelievably, Ralph, a boy I hardly knew, asked me to dance. The tune for the contest was “Good Timin” by Jimmy Jones. Ralph must have been watching American Bandstand, too, because we joined hands and rocked out to that song as if we had been dancing together forever. And much to every popular kid’s amazement, we won the dance contest.

That was the only dance contest I ever entered. As my father always said, “Quit while you’re ahead.” So I did.

“Do You Want to Dance?”

~ Elizabeth ~ 6 Comments
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A class similar to ours

So Dixie and I had practiced every dance we could see on American Bandstand and were getting more confident in our steps. Then we entered seventh grade and that meant Mr. Billings Dance Class. For many years his class, by invitation only, was attended by everyone in my elementary school and the other elementary school in Portland attended by white upper middle class students. Everyone got an invitation. Except Mary Jo. Mary Jo was the daughter of a live in maid in the neighborhood; she was from Haiti; and she was a Negro. (at that time the socially polite word.)There already had been a stink from one mother, another transfer from Georgia to Portland, about letting Mary Jo even attend Riverdale Grade School. But we were a public school, and she lived in the neighborhood, so she had the right to attend. No one discussed Mary Jo’s exclusion from dance class, but we all understood the reason.

To our dismay, there was no correlation between American Bandstand dancing and dancing school with the Billings. It was an introduction to dancing and etiquette. We wore party dresses, black shoes with white socks and white gloves. The boys wore suits and ties. We were assigned partners who varied throughout the 90 minute ordeal. I was short, so the boys were taller than me, but many girls towered over the boys, putting their busts at eye level for their astonished partners.

We learned the box step, the fox trot, the waltz and, if Mr. Billings was feeling very sporty, the cha-cha. The lessons went on interminably every Friday night through seventh and eighth grade. At the blessed end of every night, we had to line up and thank “our sponsors” at the door, making eye contact and shaking their hands.

I would like to say that those lessons helped me in later life. They didn’t.

 

“Stuck in My Brain”

~ Elizabeth ~ 10 Comments

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I would be doing a great disservice I made a link to play the jingle for this ad. If you are old enough, you can sing it yourself. If you don’t know it, I will keep your brain free of its jingle. One of my recurring nightmares involves being in a nursing home with the Musak playing advertising jingles.(that would make a great horror movie.)

One of the true benefits of marrying a man my same age is that at a moment’s notice,  he can join me in an advertising song. Ok, it’s a minor benefit, but still! For some reason, my growing up years were full of musical advertisements. There was “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” for Alka Seltzer, “see the USA in your Chevrolet,” and “Brylcreem, a little dab will do you, or watch out the gals will all pursue you.” Ironically, I was not the target audience for any of these ads, yet they are stored in my brain.

One ad, though, has provided a great deal of fun for my grandkids. The original line was ” you’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.” That just called out for a parody, then and now. At camp we made up new lyrics, and I have taught my grandkids the rhyming pattern to produce the knockoffs such as ” you’ll wonder why your mouth turned blue when you brushed your teeth with Elmer’s Glue.” Who says fun has to be expensive?

 

“After School”

~ Elizabeth ~ 13 Comments

 

My best friend in 5th grade was Dixie. As you can guess, she had moved to Portland from Georgia when her father was transferred. She lived within easy walking distance from me, and her house was on the walk to and from school. I often stopped for a while at her home after school . They had a “nigra” maid(this provoked a long discussion with my parents who explained that while Dixie’s family thought this was more polite than its alternative, it was still a very rude thing to call someone)who had a snack and a glass of milk for us waiting when we arrived.

After snacking, we settled ourselves in front of the television for our two favorite shows–American Bandstand and the Mickey Mouse Club. In those days, Dick Clark was famous not for New Year’s Eve, but for his hosting of this wonderful show of singers, top ten songs of the week and real people dancing to the music. It wasn’t until I looked up the video for “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” yesterday that I realized that they were all lip syncing. (And how creepy that it’s a kid in the bikini!)We didn’t have a clue and were totally in awe of all these “famous” stars appearing “in person” “live” for our entertainment. Neither of us knew anything about dancing, but we studied the participants carefully, imagining one day we might get to be on American Bandstand.

With only one radio station playing hits and one television show playing songs, we all knew exactly the same music. I am being delighted to realize that some of my followers memorized the same songs. Unlike later, when musical tastes really diverged, for white middle class kids across America in the late 1950’s, there was only one sound. And we heard it on American Bandstand.

“Flying Purple People Eater”

~ Elizabeth ~ 13 Comments

KISN

Ok, so now I had a radio I could carry around, but this was Portland, Oregon in 1959. If you are young, you probably think Portland is a place on the cutting edge, full of hipsters, restaurants, naked bike rides and legal marijuana. Forget all that. In 1959, Portland was solidly, boringly, dead. There was no radio station to hear music that was new. But in 1959, radio station KISN began broadcasting and even listing the top 50 songs every week. Unlike people in big cities, we had no choice of stations, nor were we able to pick up signals from other cities, since they were hundreds or thousands of miles away. So everyone under 20 listened to KISN.

And what were we listening to in 1959? Well, one of my best friend’s and my favorites was the “Flying Purple People Eater.” Its redeeming quality? There was none. But it was certainly fun to sing at inappropriate times such as when our mother asked “Who did that?” We could respond, “It must have been that one eyed one horned flying purple people eater.” Then when she remained unconvinced, we could single out any available sibling. (As a side note, one of the terrible things about having kids leave home is that there is no longer anyone to blame for things!)

“Purple People Eater” was just one of many terrific “novelty songs” of the 1950’s. Another that comes to mind was “Splish Splash.” Though Bobby Darin’s real hit was “Mack the Knife.”  Amusingly enough, my grandson loved the song about Mack the knife when he was four years old. He liked to shout out “look out old Mack is back!” At one point both my daughter and I realized that it was really quite a gruesome song. We had overlooked that basic fact and had to stop encouraging him. I would have been safer teaching him “Purple People Eater,” but that would have driven me nuts. And maybe given him nightmares.