I didn't get married until I was 31 years old. No special reason. I just didn't find the right girl or all those right girls didn't see me as the right man. Whatever the case, I went through my twenties going to night clubs and sadly, disco palaces.
I didn't have much choice, as back then almost every decent sized bar in Chicagoland went disco to keep their establishments buzzing with young dancers and drinkers. I think disco was one of the reasons I stayed single so long. It was hard to meet girls who were all too busy getting in a line which meant there was little opportunity for me to use any of my lines.
Now I really enjoyed some of the beats of many of those songs. They certainly were danceable songs. The problem was disco dancing wasn't what I call dancing. Getting into lines and everyone doing the same thing just seemed to take the individuality out of bopping around a dance floor, let alone meeting a girl. Ask a girl to dance during the disco era and there wasn't much hand holding, let alone tight embraces during a slow song.
I'm not one of those "disco sucks" kind of people but those songs do bring back memories of many frustrating nights as a young man. I mention this because this weekend we went up to Chicago for a nephew's wedding.
It was a classic wedding. A beautiful place, great food, open bar, a ton of laughs and way more disco music than I could handle. It was great fun to see some of our youngsters, now adults, enjoy in many cases their first big bash wedding.
All of us adults had our group of big weddings before they were born of course, and there was a generational lull until our youngsters came of age to begin another round of marriages in the family. This one was the first of those on my wife's side of the family and it was a hoot to see the youngsters enthralled with an all-the-food-and-drink-you-can-consume shindig. I am proud to say none of them carried this opportunity too far, which I don't believe I can claim remembering back to a few of those bygone weddings.
It was good to see some of the family that we don't see often and if there was one laugh there were a thousand during the night.
The one thing that almost made me change my rating from one of the best weddings to a notch down was the music played had a preponderance of disco.
I imagine the bride's parents and friends, just a few years older than I, probably thought this was a good idea and there always was a serious gathering of oldsters on the dance floor, all lining up to follow the leader in those pre-packaged disco moves on every song. I imagine that makes their music choice correct and me one of those strange people who preferred the Doobies, The Rolling Stones and all those soul songs of the late sixties and seventies.
What made the observations important to me was that I saw our progeny all jump up and join in on the dance floor. Some of them actually knew exactly what to do. Others watched for a minute, caught on with their quick young minds and joined the lines.
It brought back old days to me.
I remembered all those weddings when we were the young men and women. We were the ones fascinated by the extravagance and lavishness of the weddings and it was we who went out and danced to Benny Goodman, or Glenn Miller or the Dorsey's trying to show our parents we could share their joy for an era now past.
It dawned on me as I saw all our kids, now young men and women, join in the meeting of two generations on a dance floor that things aren't the same as they were so many years before.
The torch has been passed. It isn't my turn anymore. It isn't the oldsters turn anymore. The acknowledgment makes me smile. I'll rank this wedding as one of the best ever.
Freelance writer, columnist, author and writing coach, ex-Chicagoan Mike Fak presently resides in Central Illinois. More information about Mike's services are available at his home website www.mikefak.com
Mike currently writes primarily humor columns for searchwarp bi-weekly and is the managing editor of www.lincolndailynews.com
Mike now offers a 26,000 word e-book on making money as a freelance writer for only $10.00 at this page. http://www.mikefak.com/id45.html
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