The Passing of the Brickyard Boogie Dancers

Kelly has a favorite bluegrass tune that has an appropriate lyric for how I feel right now:

"There is a time for love and laughter
The days will pass like summer storms
The winter wind will follow after
But there is love and love is warm"

Saturday we went out for the usual. That is to say we made the short trip to the Starlight Ballroom for the Brickyard Boogie Dancers weekly get together. When we pulled into the lot, Kelly commented how she hoped things were going okay with the club. Attendance of the club’s dances has been dwindling lately and there’s been an ongoing effort by the leadership to attract new members and encourage the existing membership to come out to dance. We walked into the ballroom and found our seats, then put on our shoes while we watched the tail end of the group lesson that precedes every Saturday dance.

Things seemed pretty normal as the evening wore on. The tunes were familiar as were the attendees, we danced what we’ve affectionately deemed the ‘traditional first swing’ and then settled into the rhythm of the night. The Boogies always are good for moderate to slow tempo WCS broken up by the occasional Texas Two Step or Nightclub Two Step and a smattering of Cha-Chas and there were no surprises in Ron’s repertoire. We danced ‘till we sweated, then sat down long enough to catch our breath again before hitting the floor again.

At around nine thirty there was the usual break in the dancing and music. For those of you who belong to dance clubs the mid-evening break probably is familiar. It’s time for announcements, maybe a demonstration dance, and if your club is so inclined there might be a drawing for free tickets to the next event. Unfortunately, this evening’s break didn’t go as usual, though.

Ron started his announcements with “It’s been a good run…” and that’s never what you want to hear when you’re interested in seeing the ‘run’ continue indefinitely. He proceeded to give the glum news about the club coffers and the night’s door, including the fact that the club made less on Saturday than they paid out to rent the facility. In short, the Brickyard Boogie Dancers were within $80 of broke and until further notice there would be no further dance events.

It’s probably hyperbole to compare the closure of a club with a lot of the losses people are experiencing in these tough times. I’ll flat out say that it is harder to lose your job or your home or your insurance or about a thousand other things people have on the line right now. A club, after all, is the social equivalent of a toy – a diversion to pass the idle hours. The loss of the Boogies, though, is a loss and the psychological process must be similar if on a smaller scale. My psychologist wife might have to correct me, but I’m fairly certain that the grieving process is the same: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Maybe they’re ‘mini-stages’, passing in a few days or hours before the next stage begins…I don’t know and it really doesn’t matter (or maybe that just means I’m in stage four).

What I do know is that we’ll miss the Boogies. I’ll miss dancing with a laid back club that’s not ballroom-uptight. I’ll miss having a place where I can get out and dance without worrying about someone putting their elbow in my ear so that they can do their patented ‘double-back-flop-tango’. I’ll miss Ron’s “so…let’s dance…”. I’ll miss seeing our favorite couple looking the way I hope to look someday when I do the WCS. I’ll miss having a club that doesn’t do a ‘mixer’ or ‘snowball’ or any other enforced version of partner changing. I’ll even miss the predictable play-list that we’ve danced to almost since we joined the Boogies.

I guess I’ll just miss the Boogies.If you read this blog you’ll already know of the demise of the Brickyard Boogie Dancers, the club with the funny name that quickly became our favorite place to dance. I hope you’ll pardon my recanting the tale. Some part of healing comes from the retelling of sad stories and over time they become fond memories.