I’m a Big Square (or, Going Back Part 1)

I like to think of myself of an urbanite. I now dwell in a metropolitan area. I like being in the city. However, I still enjoy the weekends at home with my parents. Their house has become a sort of retreat center for me. I grew up 15 miles from the nearest town, and five miles from the nearest phone line. Our location is great for things like picking blueberries that grow wild on a rock ridge, or in some recent logging activity.

Of course, there is another aspect of small town life. Our town hosts a district fair. It’s not quite the county fair, but it’s a pretty big deal. During my weekend at my parents, it was the fair weekend. I haven’t been to the fair since I was in high school. The fair is something that takes a bit of commitment from everyone in the community. My father drove in his ’55 Ford Crown Victoria for display on Saturday. My parents also did square dancing demonstrations. I remember my parents doing square dancing when I was a kid. We would go to the nursing home. My parents would square dance and us kids would try to amuse ourselves. As we got a little older, we were invited to be a part of the square dancing. Now, probably more than 20 years later, I watched my parents do some more square dancing in a barn on the fair grounds.

Eventually, my parents decided that I could remember enough to join in. Of course, I wasn’t dressed like the rest of the square dancers. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. All the other men were wearing jeans and country shirts, usually matching their wives. I was probably 25 years younger than the next youngest dance (which I believe was my mother). I can remember your basic moves, like your do-si-do and your allemande left. But sometimes there was some move that I hadn’t ever heard of, or I couldn’t pull it out of my long term memory fast enough to execute the move.

The other dancers didn’t seem to mind much at all. They all asked me if I would be joining the local square dancing club. When I informed them that I didn’t like in our small town anymore, they told me that I could probably find a club in Minneapolis. I didn’t quite have the heart to say that it would probably be several more years before I attempted to try square dancing again.

After the dancing was over, my parents had signed up for a shift working at the church food booth. The booth was more of a mini-restaurant, with a very limited menu. When they got there, they discovered how short-staffed they were. I ended up volunteering for the rest of the evening. After picking blueberries all morning (in a hunched over position), I spent the afternoon hunched over a counter, taking food orders.

Whoever said that you can’t go back obviously never came from a small town. It was as if I hadn’t left. Of course, I don’t want to move back to our small town. But it was nice to visit my childhood days again (without all the awkwardness of puberty!).