The Scene... Its Saturday night in late October, 1962. It's The beginning of my Senior Year. It is fall in Mineola but it's still warm enough in the evening to go to the dance in the cafeteria in the new high school with just a sports jacket. You can smell the faint aroma of burnt leaves in the air. I am double dating with Buzz Franquemont and Suzie Fink who will be at my house in a few minutes to pick me up in his parents' pale green '58 Rambler wagon. Then off to Gloria Miller's house to pick her up. It's my first date with Gloria and I am nervous.
I have on my "tab collar" white shirt and blue-green thin "snake tie", highly pressed Khaki pants, white socks and really well shinned penny loafers (with a dime in them... (I thought that was pretty cool) along with my navy blue blazer. Pretty much what everyone else wore going out then as I recall.
Earlier in the week after practice, Buzz, Kathy Richardson, Susie and I got together at Susie's house and Kathy taught me to do the current dance steps to music we played on Susie's Motorola portable record player so I would not completely embarass myself tonight...
We danced... just the slow dances. I was a great first date... I still remember it well dancing to some classic, though slow, Rock 'n Roll. Some songs were played by a school group but most were played from 45 and 33rpm records.
So the first section of our Saturday Night Pop Culture Area is our Music... The music that we listened to, danced to on records and the radio and in a tabletop jukebox in a booth at Peppers, In a coffee shop in Greenwich Village, cruisin' Jericho Turnpike in our first cars or on the beach the day after the prom... back in 1963.
Please feed a nickel into the slot on my tabletop jukebox or the link below to turn back the clock and come back in time with me... and go to the 'Hop' once again...
