KFWB – Gene Weed – March 27, 1959 –
All Summer, when you weren’t at the beach you were at Ted Raden’s Dance School. It wasn’t your idea – your mom said something about you being well-rounded and sociable so she enrolled you. Since it meant a boost in your allowance you went. It was torture – the girls were a foot taller than you and one of them laughed a lot. You knew she was laughing at you. You tried to be cool – you were working on a pompadour, even though you had a cowlick you couldn’t keep down. You started smoking, even though you hadn’t figured out how to inhale yet. Still, there you were, dragging away outside school before class started. The Foot Taller girls walking past you, holding their noses. The one who laughed a lot snorted a chuckle. Dark shades and a carefully practiced blank expression – that was you.
That was also you with two left feet, sweaty palms and a nervous tick. You had no rhythm to save your life and you couldn’t think of one clever thing to say to break any kind of ice with the Foot Taller girls, even the one who laughed at you a lot.
But you weathered through it, and after nine weeks could bluff your way through a Fox Trot and do something that faintly resembled a Mambo, but Killer Joe you weren’t.
You were happily enjoying your boost in allowance, having withstood the endless torture to get it, but your mom got wind that your school was having their big Spring Dance. She reminded you she didn’t enroll you at Ted Raden’s for nothing. So she dragged you off to May Company and turned you into a five-foot two-inch Peter Lawford – all you needed was a Martini. You didn’t object, in fact you liked this cool new transformation. You still couldn’t dance though – and all the hours you spent trying to get your feet to work had gone out the window sometime in September. You were smack in the middle of March, months later.
But you were reminded about the boost in your allowance and all the cool new clothes and you were obligated to at least show up.
The Boys Gym was packed – everybody from grades seven to nine were lined along with walls or clustered in packs, glaring at two brave couples on the dance floor while the PA System blasted out Sam Cooke’s Everybody Loves To Cha-Cha-Cha. At least you kind of knew the dance steps. You tap your feet. Big mistake.
There’s a tap on your shoulder. The Foot Taller girl who laughed a lot, grabs your arm and drags you out to the dance floor. She either shrank several inches or you got taller several inches because now you’re almost eye-to-eye. You realize she’s cute. You realize her palms are sweaty. You also realize you didn’t forget any of the dance steps you thought you were bad at.
And somewhere between Sam Cooke, Jesse Belvin and a slow dance it dawns on you this might be the start of something totally unexpected. And probably really complicated.
Now you start wondering if she has a boyfriend.
And just to remind you, here’s Gene Weed exactly as he sounded for a little over 45 minutes on KFWB for March 27, 1959
