Slipping Away

Sometimes I feel like I’m fighting an irresistible tide. I’m promoting wall-mounted telephones with curly cords; coming out in favor of quill pens in the era of the word processor. The world moves by, time grinds the slow under its wheels, and things slowly become extinct just when I’ve realized their value.

Dancing has acquainted me with the pangs of seeing dear things rudely pushed aside. It started with realizing how many great venues have been replaced by parking garages or dull modernist boxes of concrete and glass. Houses of joy replaced by storehouses for machines we were told would deliver the American dream; prisons for people slaving away to earn the cash they’re told measures their success. The simple things, the pleasures that could be taken for granted, slowly get mowed down.

The latest possible example of this is the Raleigh Community Center. On Saturday we had an opportunity to make the hour-and-fifteen minute drive out into the cornfields east of Indianapolis to the tiny town of Raleigh. The Community Center isn’t grand, just a concrete block building with a great dance floor and a small stage for the house band. It also has been the center of the small farming community since 1944 (at least they’ve been having a Saturday night dance for that long). Just think how many first encounters have taken place during those sixty seven years. How many relationships have started with a waltz across that floor? How many last dances? How many ships have passed on that hardwood? So, I felt good going there on Saturday. I felt we were doing what I like best, honoring the past while keeping up with the present. So you can imagine now I felt when I heard the place might be closing down.

The reasons are the same as the reasons companies close down – money. Guests feel the pressure of the bad economy as much as businesses and that means fewer show up. Also there’s the seasonal sag in attendance – during the summer fewer people dance, they go camping and do things that don’t involve sweating. The thing is, when you don’t support a thing it doesn’t stay around. Think of the hundreds of small dance halls that have been bulldozed and paved under. Think of the drive-in theatres that used to be the setting for cinematic and romantic tension. Think of all those places and things that only exist in nostalgic memories now.

I guess I’m writing this as a kind of open letter to people out there who love dancing like we do. This is about priorities. You save what you love and if you love the classic dance venues in your community, support them. It isn’t all about money. You can volunteer. You can spread the word. You can think of your favorite venue when you have an event. You can introduce new people to dance and take them to the venues that mean a lot to you. There’s no guarantee that any of this will save a venue like the Raleigh Community Center – but if it doesn’t, at least you’ll be able to say you tried.