Of course dancing, as I knew it and still know it, was entirely different than it is now!!!! We danced the Waltz, (my favorite, the "Hesitation Waltz"!) Fox Trot , Two step, etc., etc., etc. Your partner took you in his arms and danced with you to the rhythm of the music.
These days, it seems that everyone is out there, shaking his/her you know what, and you really don't know who came with who, etc. The music, to my ears, is not really music, but a lot of loud banging on the drums, etc. which is probably just as well because some of the words that I occasionally hear, I wish I hadn't! The Jitterbug, the Twist, and some of the other "dances?" came a little later.
But I did Jitterbug when that became popular and even before that tried to do the "Lindy Hop"! I didn't get along with that one very well. Seemed like you were dancing with some guy and then he sort of whirled you about and you were dancing with another partner!!!! I never learned to do the Charleston, that was a little before my time!!!!! I liked the "intimacy" of dancing to the music in the arms of my boy friend!!!! You didn't hold each other too close but there was this "almost" oneness.Cappy was a very good dancer and taught me what I knew as a dancer! And he picked up on the Jitterbug as well! The music would start and we were on the floor dancing!! I loved it!!!!
As old as I am, and that is 90, if I hear an old "tune", I dance around as much as I can in my small house!!!! I have to watch myself that I don't fall down now! The kids used to ask us to dance when they were small! And as they grew up some of them, the more agile ones, would ask me to dance at a wedding, or some kind of party! (Probably out of kindness!) But this always made me feel "special"! Wish I could hear some of the good music now. Think I'll go put a tape on that has "my" kind of music!!!!!
