Dinner Dance

This past weekend we attended a dinner dance organized by our social club. There were over eighty people there, of which better than seven-eighths were seniors. The music was provided by a two-man group which I thought did a remarkable job.

The dance tunes were familiar ones from the years of our youth, stirring nostalgic responses as we filled the dance floor after dinner. The fact that the music makers were in our age group gave their performance an added fillip, for they interspersed the numbers with an occasional quiz about the music — which performer made the piece famous, in what film did it make its first appearance, in which year — and the audience participated with enthusiasm.

Considering that there were only two people making music, one with an amplified accordion and synthesizer, and the other on percussion (a third, the vocalist, was indisposed with a strep throat), the sounds that emerged in that large hall were full-bodied and varied. Clearly the advances in electronic audio enhancement have added a richer layer to two-man bands.

We shared a table with friends old and new. True to the solid manners of our generation, the ladies did not lack for dancing partners, however much their menfolk's aging joints may have preferred sitting to dancing. For, as we all know, it is the fairer sex that prefers that particular activity, and what can the guys do but surrender to that preference. Exercise is good, don't you know?

It was an evening warm with shared memories, which will likely increase in frequency as we enter the last quarter of our year.