The Good Old Summertime...is Over

Labor Day weekend, the summer's come to an end and a fall-feeling breeze is wafting in through the office window. Kids have already returned to school. On my way home from work I pass one of the local mega-high schools and each time I drive by the boys are drilling for football while the band sweats in their uniforms out on blacktop parking lot, running through formations. This is the shoulder season, spring's riotous growth has run its course, summer's flowers have bloomed and gone, and the air is filled with anticipation. It won't be long before frost and eventually snow and the long sleep, waiting for the wheel to turn again.


This weekend we headed for Cincinnati and Coney Island again. The Moonlight Pavilion played host to the Pete Wagner Big Band, a local favorite and apparently an acquired taste. The night was perfect; cooling off into the fifties by the time the band took the stage. We danced the night away and hardly broke a sweat in spite of it being early September. I imagine there was a time - a time long before air conditioned dance palaces - when every dancer hoped for a night like we had. The blessing of clement weather should never be overlooked.

Pete Wagner's band (we were repeatedly reminded) has been a fixture for sixty years in Cincinnati. Back in the fifties they played the Moonlight Garden, a slightly different venue within the Coney Island park. They're skilled - on key with a killer vocalist - however a bit draggy for our tastes. In the first set I don't think we made it past a song that qualified as WCS. In the second set they overcompensated by turning up the speed on In The Mood to the point it was a flat-out run to keep a single swing going. Complicating matters, the floor was hard and slick and the crowd had no idea what the meaning of floor-craft is.

Still, we had fun. The essence of dancing is to remember that it's all about the fun. Some days that means dancing with a bunch of people who know how to maneuver the floor and listening to a killer band. Other nights it means looking out across the scrum while the band beats the life out of some poor swing tune and shrugging. So long as you're with the one you love, hey - it's all good.