Messin' at the Moose

Yesterday evening took us to an Indy Dancer’s event at the East Side Moose Lodge. That event was a ‘luau’. Yup, Hawaiian luau right here in Indy…well, only with hot dogs instead of roast pork…and baked beans instead of poi…and coleslaw instead of, well, you get the picture.

When we got to the Shadeland Avenue exit I was reminded of just how hard the economy has been on blue-collar America. I remember in my youth that Shadeland Avenue was home to two things: the Chrysler plant and the Ford plant. My parents had friends who worked at Chrysler – they were genuine auto worker stock: union to the bone, church-goers by rote, and just about as middle class as you can get. I vaguely remember my mother or father (can’t remember which one anymore) commenting on how this particular couple could afford things like a houseboat because of how much their jobs paid while we couldn’t afford to spend our money on such luxuries. I also remember my dad’s revulsion at anything unionized – odd considering he came from coalminer stock.

Anyway, since those golden days the U.S. auto industry has pretty much headed into the ground with all the speed and grace of the Hindenburg and pretty much to the same ends. The remains of that particular aircraft reminds me of what Shadeland Avenue has become: a smoldering husk of its former, glorious self.

The Moose is a relic of the time when autoworkers came off the line and banded together in leisure fraternities outside their union affiliations. It kind of makes you wonder, couldn’t these guys do anything without making a club out of it? The lodge is a nondescript building save for the silhouette of a moose that adorns the drive-under awning. Wouldn’t want the wife’s fancy bouffant to get ruined by the rain and, besides, gen’lmen drop the girls at the door. The luau was out back in a shelter house surrounded by horse shoe pits and playground equipment. I wondered how many autoworkers spent their Labor Day holidays on this lot, drinking beer and playing euchre with the fellows from the fabrication line. The country used to be a different kind of place, I think.

The floor was rotten for dancing: concrete, uneven, and uniquely slick and sticky at the same time. Once a few handfuls of crushed potato chips got strewn about it was practically treacherous. We got in a few EC and WC swings and a rumba but by nine o'clock we were calling it quits. Not an event I think I'll repeat but still we had a good time. The heart was in the gathering but the venue, not so much. We're hoping to attend an indoor dance at the Shadeland Avenue Moose sometime in the future, though.