Jim and Jacks, Down by the River...

Last weekend we took a little trip to Cincinnati. It's about a two hour drive from our house to Cincinnati, so the city makes a nice jaunt on a weekend when nothing else is planned or when there's some dance event that warrants our attention. This time around it was a visit to Jack and Jim's on the River, a little bar appropriately located, on the Ohio River.

The evening started inauspiciously. Being from Indianapolis, a city known for its absence of geographic features, I forget that some places actually have hills and rivers and other things that generally make navigation - well - a pain in the butt. We ran into this with Jack and Jim's. As I said before, it's located on the river and that means no straight streets. It's also under about six dozen railroad bridges, which means it looks a little more like a weigh station than a bar with a dance floor. But, after some swearing, insane driving, and putting the GPS feature of my cell phone to the ultimate test, we found the place and all was happy.

There's something about dancing at a bar that you don't get when you go to an actual ballroom. It's called liquor. Ah liquor, that wonderful social lubricant and synaptic anesthetic. A little bit of trivia for those of you who aren't so much into the whole bar scene: people will get drunk and when they do, they think they're even better dancers. Oh, by the way, they're wrong - oh so wrong.

I know I'm no good at things like the foxtrot. Apparently, though, if you poured a few shots of bourbon into me I'd become convinced not only that I'm qualified to foxtrot but I'm probably of the caliber that I could give the dolts on Dancing With The Stars a run for their money. I never saw so many people who were unable to keep their place on the dance floor while doing a slot dance. The swing, regardless of coast, is a stationary dance. You may turn around in a circle, you may move up and back, but you're staying generally in the same spot on the floor.

Not this crowd. Maybe the floor was sloped or maybe there was a wind blowing through the bar that I didn't detect. Whatever the case Kell and I kept moving out of the way until we finally gave up and decided we'd hold our ground regardless of who we had to step on. Hey, part of dancing is defending your turf I guess. At least it is when you're dancing in a bar.

Another thing revolves around my last post. Remember the dance floor map I posted? Take a look, I'll wait. You back? Good. So, you know that center part where you're supposed to do slot dances and line dances? Well, reading through the article and keeping in mind the whole subject of etiquette, what do you think you should do if the floor too small to really allow for social and line dancing? Hmm - well, I'd imagine that you'd refrain from lining up seventeen abreast and hogging the whole floor. It's a novel concept, I know, but one that's apparently far less understood than you might believe. The floor was small and crowded but people still lined up to do the stompy dance.

We wound up leaving around eleven thirty. It was a good time - but I think Kelly would agree we've had better. Is Jim and Jack's worth visiting? Well, if you're in Cincinnati and you don't have plans, yes. If you're looking for a destination to dance - I'd give it a pass.