ROCK ON

My school gal pal Maggie is a saver, just like I am. Last week she excavated her archives and came up with a real gem, in my opinion. In her high school memory book was a picture/poster of The Dawgs advertising a jr. high dance at Fredonia's Teentown. What a relic!

The Dawgs were four musically inclined high school guys who aspired to become the next Beatles, like every other garage band in the country in the late 1960s. I'd forgotten about them until seeing Maggie's treasure. It appeared that the picture of them had been taken atop the South Mound in Fredonia, or some other outdoorsy locale. They had the serious, pseudo-sexy pose down pat, as well as the required tight slacks of the time. I don't remember swooning over them, but they provided ample noise and that was the main idea.

Teentown was a dance hall on the 2nd floor of a building downtown. It was opened after home football and basketball games (records played) and also for special occasions (live bands). Here is where I learned The Twist, The Jerk, The Swim, The Monkey, The Dog, The Dirty Dog, The Hurky Jurky, and the list goes on. Some nights I was among the queens of the dance floor, and other times I was huddled in the girls bathroom with the other wallflowers. Teentown was our educational facility for developing social skills of the highest order, from sneaking kisses to dealing with rejection.

I think Teentown died along with the break-up of the Beatles, or a state fire code ruling that the place was a fire trap. It's been long gone, and The Dawgs never made it super stardom. If I tried to Twist and Jerk these days, I'd probably end up in traction. Every generation has its special music and dance crazes, but I think ours was the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah!