By the time Jan and I won the local ?Jitterbug? contest, the pop culture craze was becoming old shoe. The generation that came of age during World War II (those intrepid parents of baby boomers) made the jitterbug ? swing dance styles to jazzy beats ? a national youth obsession.
Swing was taken literally. Look at those old films. Girls go flying in the air. Guys twirl around like tops. These kids were acrobats. And as wild as the antics got, they danced together as a team, unlike the ultra-cool rock n? roll moves of baby boomers in the late 1960s, where a dance floor looked like a random crowd, each moving to his own drummer. It took Disco to bring back the sense of partner.
Jan and I lived in different baby boomer worlds. My Dad was a doctor and we had one the grandest houses in town. Jan?s Dad worked on the Caterpillar assembly line. His family of six squeezed into a tiny bungalow behind our estate. People thought it was our second garage or a ?play house.? Jan was tan-skinned and we could only guess at lineage. In those days, the phrase ?people of color,? if it were ever used, might have described someone with jaundice.
My family didn?t encourage or discourage my girlfriend. If the relationship had turned ?serious,? I?m sure there would have been a family ?sit-down.?
Hormones and rock n? roll brought us together. So it was with many. The new music had strong black roots; concerts in the 1950s and early 1960s had lots of ?people of color? mixing with the white crowd. The beat crossed class and religious lines as well ? part of the reason parents of baby boomers viewed it with apprehension.
For dance contests, Jan always wore a poodle skirt and tight cashmere sweater with a pointy bra that accented her 32A breasts. I knew those details because she told me. I never saw them. In those early boomer days, guys seldom got past first base. For the record, second base would have been bare breasts; third base, south of the border; a home run beyond my expectations (and expertise).
Jan and I did a standard herky-jerky dance movement that looked like early American Bandstand styles: fall back loosely holding hands and then come together sharply, pushing in. For something special, we would cuddle dance side-by-side or she would twirl around under my arm. At no point did we let go of each other. This was a popular baby? boomer style between the wild flip-the-girl-over-your-shoulder and the free form do-your-own-thing-high-as-a-kite hippie dancing.
Our prize for winning the contest was $2 and our choice of album. I took Elvis: GI Blues. Jan grabbed It?s Everly Time.
Source: http://www.babyboomerdaily.com/2011/09/27/baby-boomer-jitterbug-bug/
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