LANSDOWNE – ALDAN HIGH SCHOOL
GOLDEN FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REUNION 2006

Class of 1956
"Lords & Ladies"

www.lansdownealdan.com
Lansdowne, PA

Good Night Sweetheart

An essay by Roger Walck, class of '54, on sock hop memories.

 Good night, Sweetheart,

'Till we meet tomorrow…

I'm an old softie, and that song brings back more high school memories than any other.

Yes, kids, we actually had sock hops. Those were the days before polyurethane varnish and no one was allowed to wear street shoes on the gym floor. So to have a dance everyone had to take off their shoes. We left ours on the bleachers as we entered by the boy's locker room.

A sock hop was a casual social event. You didn't take anyone, you just went. There was no big decorating effort, we dressed in our usual school clothes, and the cost was trivial, maybe $1 in today's money. They stamped everyone's hand as you went in so you could come and go.

Phil Herr, one of McClure's boys, was the DJ in a tiny audio booth on the far side. Barely enough room for Phil, the record player and a tiny light, and forget about standing up. The records were pretty much whatever was on "Your Hit Parade" that week. "Harbor Lights" was popular then and still turns me to mush.

The gym was dark, and all the girls looked terrific. Anything could happen, even if all you did was stand around mapping out your strategy until it was too late to do anything. In the hallway across from Phil Herr's cave, near the girl's locker room, was the brightly lit soda sales area. You could reconnoiter with your buddies there, and a soda bottle was a necessary prop as you stood in the darkness.

Asking a girl to dance took an incredible amount of courage and planning. You wanted to dance with the best possible girl without getting rejected. Like a moth and a flame, it was a fine line and the sting of rejection was deadly. "Best" was more than just looks. It was a social ranking, a combination of many things including looks, but also personality, style, and intelligence.

We knew we also had a social ranking that had to be within range of the girl we asked. I know, I know, it was only a dance, but we were searching for our place in life and a lot of self-esteem was involved. It was a ritual of social posturing worthy of a peacock. Guess wrong and you would get an answer like, "I'm a little tired. I think I want to sit this one out." BOOM! Down in flames with no parachute. Right out in the open for everyone to see.

One of the ploys was to pretend you were only there to plan for something better to do. The movie "Marty" caught that spirit.

"What do you want to do?"

"I donno, what do you want to do?"

"Let's go over to Jerry's. Maybe his sister is home."

No wonder kids today don't marry until their late 30's. It takes them that long to figure out what we knew in the first minute of slow dancing. You could be talking quietly about the last Civics test but her body language would be shouting that you were the answer to her dreams, would never be more than just a friend, or were downright repulsive. There were a hundred shades of subtlety in between, and what you heard was unmistakable and the absolute truth. Body language could not be hidden nor faked. If it was not what you wanted to hear, just suck it up, that's the way it is.

Sometimes you would be surprised. An ordinary dance with an ordinary girl would suddenly become a revelation as she melted into your arms and rested her cheek on your shoulder, her hair smelling sweetly of shampoo and tickling your neck. Throw in a revolving mirror ball that sweeps polka dots of colored lights across everyone's face and, it may sound corny, but, as Doris Day would sing, "It's Magic!"

Of all the sock hops, the only girl I definitely remember dancing with was Linda Johnston. It was probably only once, and that's probably why I remember it. And I got signals. Nothing came of it, but, on that night, I got signals. By Monday, she had second thoughts.

The important dance was the last one, the "Good Night, Sweetheart" dance. Whoever you were with was the one you would ask to take home. Walk home, mostly. If you were lucky, she would say her friend's dad was driving a group of them home. That was easy to get out of. Her dad driving them home was hopeless. She would politely say he would be glad to drop you off, too, but, of course, getting home wasn't the point.

But, occasionally, everything would click. You got signals from a girl you had only known as the squeamish one in Biology class, and you got to walk her home and stand out in front of her house in the dark and talk and talk and not even feel the cold.

So Ladies,

Good night, Sweetheart,

Good… Night.

Thanks for the memories.