The Big Dance

It's been a week since Anna and I went to the Big Dance in Fulda and did our part to help the town raise money for the new ambulance. I can now give you my review. We had a pork loin dinner with baked potato and green bean casserole with a dinner roll and berry cheesecake for dessert. The dinner was very good, even if the pork was a little dry. They had barbecue sauce available, so if you put a light coating of barbecue sauce on the meat it was better.

The real highlight of the evening, of course, was the big band. Fulda has it's own big band, called (oddly enough) "The Fulda Area Big Band". The director of the band is also the director of the high school band, but this band is all volunteer, and they were very good. Not to say the high school band is not good, but the only time I have heard them play was at a football game, and they were OK. The big band was REALLY GOOD! They played a nice variety of music including some Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, some traditional numbers that had been rearranged like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and they even played polka and waltz music. Anna and I danced for about an hour and a half before something in my knee went "Ping!" and I kind of needed to sit down. We danced just a little bit after that, but Anna didn't want to aggravate whatever it was in my knee that went ping. I suspect I irritated an old injury that I got ice skating in college, and when I put my knee support on at home it got better. Anna got a good chance to remind me that I'm getting old, but the next day we were back at it, dancing in the living room.

One positive result of going to the dance is that we were able to observe other dancers and picked up a couple of new moves, my favorite of which is a back-to-back spin. Another positive result is that some people from the Fulda church were there and complemented us on our dancing. That was nice to hear, especially since we're quite new at it. I don't know when we will get to dance in public again, but I suspect it will be sometime this spring. In the meantime we will continue to dance in our living room, with good music from Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Manhattan Transfer, The Andrews Sisters, and anyone else we can get a good beat from. We're also getting used to dancing together, and the more we do it, the more we like it! Swing dancing is really great fun, even if you're not as coordinated as Fred Astaire or Danny Kaye. I have one advantage over both of those guys; I'm not dead! HA! If you ever get a chance to learn to swing dance, I recommend it. Blogged by Don