One of my elementary school friends sent me a video of a couple demonstrating Rock'n'Roll dancing...asking...do you remember when? It brought back lots of wonderful memories.
When I was 16, Rock'n'Roll was all the rage...and I was a dancin' fool. I loved it. It was called "Jitterbug" in the US...but we called it "Jive"...and it was wild. Back in my dancin’ days I wore tight jeans and had a pair of blue suede desert boots. I'm not sure why they were called "desert boots", but I was cool…and I used to go dancin’ every weekend at the Floreat Park Tennis Club…and occasionally at the "Snakepit", which was an open-air dance floor at Scarborough Beach. When Andy and I were last in Perth I showed him a plaque in the sidewalk, which commemorated where the infamous "Snakepit" used to be located.
A couple of weeks back I was in the Sportsman shopping for sox.. There was a display of men’s shoes. Right there in front of me was a pair of blue suede desert boots…exact replicas of my 1956 models.
As I stood there staring, a young salesman came up and said “May I help you sir?” I did not respond. He said again “Sir…may I help you”. I came back to reality and said. “I’m not sure…at this very moment I am in Australia…it’s 1956…and I am dancin’ in my blue suede desert boots.” Of course he gave me that strange look that hip young men give not so hip old men. I tried to explain:
“Do you know how special these shoes are?”…
”No”
”Have you ever heard Elvis Presley sing about his Blue Suede Shoes?”…
”No”
“Well son…you missed out...you’ve got a lot of livin' to do”.
I should have bought those shoes…but on the other hand I don’t have any skinny jeans…and I really don’t like blue suede shoes that much any more. But I did love dancin'...and Jivin'.
3 comments:
I have never heard that you loved to dance! And guess what Logan's favorite shoes are?? His blue suede slip-ons.... bright blue suede shoes! Love ya Poppa!
Tony,
My mom came to watch Downton tonight, and I asked her about desert boots and the snakepit - and she was familiar with both. She said they didn't get that far south very much those days, but that they would make fires on the beach and sit with friends. Sounds like you've done more living than most of us :)
Yeah Dad, the dancing is news here as well! We'll have to see some of those moves sometime :)
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