There is Nothing Square About Square Dancing

I always loved to dance.  When I was a kid, listening to the radio, I used to dance in the kitchen with one of the cabinet doors as my partner.  On the television you could watch a local show, Dance Party, and a national show, American Bandstand, and I watched both of them as often as possible.  A girlfriend of mine even got tickets to Dance Party in SF when I was a teen, but my Dad would not agree to let me go.  To say I was disappointed was an understatement.

Remembering back when the SF Italian American Social Club facility had some events put on by the Stella d’Italia Club which my Dad belonged to, I danced the tarantella with the old men whose wives did not want to dance. Those old guys could really cut a rug! They sure had lots of energy because that is a very fast polka-type dance.  It was a dance that was a little too fast for my Dad because he liked the slower dances. When I was a real little girl, I remember dancing with Dad by putting my stocking feet on top of his shoes as we went around the dance floor. 

My Dad’s cousin, Norma, had the first party in SF that I can remember where we all danced the Bunny Hop, a little conga-type dance which was invented at Balboa High School in SF in the 1950s. Once trying it, I was hooked.  It was tons of fun and an ice breaker for sure and everyone, no matter what age, could participate. As a kid at the time, the cousins and I really got into it with the adults, some of whom were inebriated which made it all the more fun.

When I graduated from eighth grade in Catholic school, we had a dance. Who knew some of those boys could dance.  I was amazed that they were not embarrassed to ask some of us girls to dance. It was great and I don’t think I sat out one dance. We did not have many slow dances, so the nuns did not have to worry too much either.

In ninth grade, we had dances during lunch time certain days of the week.  I never missed one. I even won a dance contest with one of the boys.

As a teenager growing up in the south Bay Area, we had the Rollerena (a roller skating rink that held dances one night a week) and Frenchy’s (a night club) in Hayward to practice our dancing skills. I was forbidden to go to either but I somehow managed to go there with friends or dates on the sneak.  One time at the Rollerena I danced with a boy who insisted on getting my phone number. Since I didn’t give it out, he looked me up in my school yearbook and called my house a few days later.  Mom answered, pretended she was me (we had been told that we sound alike on the phone) and pumped the guy along to ask him where we met and he fessed up that it was the Rollerena. OMG I thought I would be locked in my room forever if she told my Dad.  Thankfully, she didn’t and I was forever grateful.

My ex-husband’s father, Jack Petri, was a beloved popular square dance caller from Castro Valley, who called all over the Bay Area who choreographed his dances and even made a few records.  When he had parties at their house, there was always some square dancing going on and someone would inevitably pull me onto the dance floor to dance.  I had no idea what I was doing but I managed to get through a dance or two.  I enjoyed it but could not get the ex to participate, even though his father was a caller for most of his life. The ex husband did not like to dance and only did so when he was inebriated and after all these years I doubt that there are any changes with that.

Square dancing is not square. But the formations while dancing resembles a square with four couples (eight dancers) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side. 

Years later when I was living with my ex at South Lake Tahoe, the Parks and Recreation Department had a beginner square dance class starting up. I told my ex-husband about it and assured him that if we went and he did not like it, we would go home. Secretly, I hoped he would like it so we could participate in something fun for a change.

Surprisingly, he agreed.  He was glad to hear that you did not need to be a good dancer to square dance, you just had to have good ears to hear the calls and you need only shuffle your feet.  Bingo, that worked and we took lessons.  We loved it and became pretty good at it. Not sure how the two kids felt about it though because we dragged them along with us each time we went dancing.

Once we joined the Cowboys and Petticoats Square Dance Club in South Lake Tahoe, the caller said to me, as I was dressed in one of the western outfits that I made and that I wore along with my western boots, “Anne, those are not traditional square dance clothes or shoes.” I told him I knew that and that I would not be caught dead in those “little lamp shade dresses with the full petticoats or those mary jane shoes” and, if I was going to square dance, I would be “wearing this type of western outfit” and that was that.  I have to say that I was a trend setter and more and more young people joined clubs wearing the longer western type clothing that I wore along with their western boots which were by far more comfortable to dance in. 

There was a flier on the wall one night at the square dance class advertising a square dance camp in Golden, Colorado, for various levels of square dance.  We were beginners then.  It sounded like fun, was relatively inexpensive, and I had never been further east than Reno, Nevada. Another couple we met in the beginner class also wanted to go and they had a camper.  We decided to go together and split expenses on the road and once there, the ex and I would book into one of the many cabins on the property that we reserved for the week at the Lighted Lantern Square Dance Camp. 

The road trip ended up truly being a trip from hell.  The woman we went with was such a nag that I felt so sorry for her poor dear husband who was a really nice guy.  He could not do anything right in her opinion.  We could not wait to get to the square dance camp so we could get our cabin and get away from her.  In fact, we arrived a day earlier and I begged the square dance couple who ran the place to let us book in a day sooner because I was afraid of what I would do to this woman. We booked into our little cabin that day which was just a bedroom and bathroom but quite comfortable.

We all had breakfast together with all the other guests in the mess hall each day and after breakfast we danced until noon, had lunch, danced in the afternoon, had dinner, and danced after dinner until about 9 PM which was usually followed by after parties.  There was one day mid-week that we did some sightseeing which one year included going to see “Nunsense” at Elitch’s Gardens in Denver, home of the oldest roller coaster ride in the area.  Each year we went there, we could not resist touring the Coor’s Brewery in Golden. 

We did not look forward to the end of the session because when the week came to an end, we had to travel back home in the camper with the couple again.  We did not relish this idea but we made a deal and kept it rather than find another method with which to return home.

The ex-husband and I went back the next year on our own to the square dance camp and took Plus dancing lessons and the following year again taking Advanced lessons.  It was such a fun week and we met people from all over the country. Beryl Main was the owner of the camp and a great caller but we also had a very handsome, dynamic caller, Ken Bower, from Hemet, California, each week we were there.

Back at home in South Lake Tahoe, during the evenings between square dance calls at our club there always was some Round Dancing. Round dancing is performed by couples dancing in a round circle to calls by a caller.  This required a little more skill.  I ended up dancing the man’s part with another lady from my club because our husbands did not want to.  It was such fun.  I loved it.  Our square dance club was on television once when a Nashville group wanted to film our club dancing at the old Lily’s Dance Hall at the casino at Stateline.  We each got a Nashville belt buckle to commemorate our event.

My ex and I square danced one night a week at home in South Lake Tahoe, and two nights a week down in Gardnerville, Nevada, or {down the mountain” as we used to say.  It was a great way to socialize with some nice people and a way that the ex and I could do something together towards the end of our marriage.

In the process of my divorce, my fiancé (the doctor that I met at the Gardnerville square dance club) and I square danced together and since he also clogged, he taught me how and we practiced at my house and enjoyed that quite a lot too.  Clogging is lots of fun and unique. I glued some taps onto a pair of my western boots and it worked quite well for me to dance in.  As if that was not enough, I took a class on Sundays by myself for folk dancing as well as my belly dancing classes.  I kind of felt like the “Dancing Queen” from the Abba song. 

After breaking it off with the fiancé, I met Bill a few months later.  I told him he would have to learn to square dance because I could not give it up and I certainly did not want to dance without him.  Bill likes to dance so he agreed, took lessons, and liked it too.  We went back to the square dance camp in Colorado together for a few years and I have to say it was much more enjoyable with Bill than it was with my ex-husband. With our after parties at the square dance camp, we even did some skits.  Each “square” of four couples had to perform a skit.  Bill wrote one of them which we performed one evening and it was well received by the rest of the group as well as being quite funny. 

I don’t think the Lighted Lantern Square Dance Camp is in existence anymore.  It was high on Lookout Mountain overlooking Golden, Colorado. Each night we would pull up the window shutters and see all the lights of Denver during our little breaks between calls.  The mountains there were breathtaking and the air was so clear.

It was there that I was introduced to “Sex On The Beach” - the drink, of course, there is no beach in Golden, Colorado.