High Bridge Park is located in Jessamine County, southwest of Lexington, Kentucky. It's tiny. I mean really tiny. Like less than a city block. However it centers around some really great scenery. One amazingly beautiful aspect of the park is the way the Kentucky River winds through the property. The park is located high on a bluff over the river and from an observation platform cantilevered over the hollow you get a dramatic view of the river winding southward through the green, hilly countryside. The most amazing view, however, is the spur of the Norfolk-Southern railroad that spans the hollow to give the park its name.
What does this have to do with dancing? Well, another feature of the park is an outdoor dance pavilion built in the 1920's. In its long history, the dance pavilion has played host to famous personalities such as Williams Jennings Bryant however by 2000 it had fallen into decay. With luck some dedicated people stepped in and rescued the structure. Today it's been restored to a condition similar to what it would have been back when Bryant spoke at the site.
Saturday, May second we made a trip south to Lexington. The weekend turned out wet, breezy, and cold but, since the pavilion is covered, it didn't interfere with our plans. We spent the night in a run-of-the-mill hotel outside of Lexington and then made our way to the park Sunday afternoon. The view was everything that the park website advertized; an amazing panorama of the Kentucky countryside and the river. The pavilion is an amazing sight too. Imagine that on the sight of this structure so many amazing things have happened.Whenever we go to a historic venue I like to think about all that's happened in that spot before I ever became aware it existed. In High Bridge I think about all the joyous moments that have filtered through the old dance floor and soaked into the ground. A dance floor is all about fantasy: envisioning the music, feeling the beat, and sensing your partner all boils down to constructing a reality out of the air. Dance venues are places of bliss and heartbreak – just think about how many couples first saw each other across a dance floor and how many budding love affairs withered and died to the strains of Satin Doll or Some Enchanted Evening and its hard not to believe every dancehall is haunted in one way or another.
The band for the day was the MetroGnomes out of Jessamine County, Kentucky. Let me tell you, if you get a chance to see the MetroGnomes, don't hesitate just grab your dance shoes and go. They're a big band in all senses of that term. They really rocked the old pavilion in the way it deserved. Their tempo is hot, in the one set we stayed for they played one slow dance. I can only hope they follow Terry Lee's example and migrate northward into Indiana so that we can catch them again. I think they'd do the Indiana Roof proud.
As I mentioned, we only could stay for one set. The problem with traveling (even to Lexington) for a Sunday afternoon dance is that you've got to allow for the trip home and enough time to get to bed, get up, and get to work on Monday morning. I bemoan the decline of social dancing if only for the fact it relegated many dance events to Sundays when venues aren't being rented out by bigger, money-making ventures. Maybe there'll be resurgence, though I would argue the down economic environment argues against that since dance isn't a cheap hobby. Anyway, we finally rolled in to our driveway around 10 o'clock on Sunday night with tired eyes and a swing tune in our hearts. Being tired on Monday morning seldom feels this good.
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