Frankie 95, Part 3: Memorial, Central Park, and Satanic Swing Dancing?!

Somehow, despite Jillian’s bed resembling a sheet of rock, I managed to get a decent night’s sleep and was able to get going to the memorial service that was supposed to start at 9:00 AM.  Of course, this being a Lindy Hopper’s event, everything starts late.  I was one of the first ones to get in to the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church due to that.  I cried during a lot of the ceremonies.  I again found a new respect for Dawn Hampton.  But not even halfway through the service, I ran out of room on my memory card.  I knew I should have bought a couple more back home since they were on an amazing sale (4GB SDHC card for $10).

We ran an hour late.  Jillian, who had to go to school in the morning, was wondering where we were at.  We started the processional to Central Park at 1:00, led by the Gully Low Jazz Band.  It was amazing, being in a sort of parade, everyone on the streets looking at us and wondering what was going on.  Unfortunately, I wore the completely wrong shoes to this thing, to both walk and dance in.  My feet were killing me by the time we got to the bandshell.  During the processional, I ran into Nate, so we’re only really missing one of the local crowd. I didn’t dance much because of my feet and the heat, saving my energy for the World’s Largest Jack and Jill contest.

In which I was contestant #666.

(The registration folks raised their eyebrows at me, wondering if I really wanted that number.  When I grinned at them, they said, “A number like that has to be a winner.”)

I was wondering if they were going to do it in heats or all at once.  They chose the all-at-once method.  Each of the six or seven judges (I think one of the judges didn’t do this) had to choose ten dancers each and grab their number while they were dancing.  Most of the judges stayed on stage and just picked people out of the front.  A couple did go through the crowd, but it was at the end.  So, none of them picked my number.  And here I was hoping that the number would draw their attention to how awesome my dancing was.  -___-;;

Before the contest was the World’s Largest Shim Sham.  I managed to be in the front couple of rows, so I might make it onto video.  ^___^

But after the contest, my feet were dead.  We headed back, grabbed some Chinese, and headed out to the nightly dance.  They changed the ballroom to the one on the ground floor instead of the one up eight flights of stairs.  I got to try out my newly resoled Converse sneakers; they work pretty well, but I think if I’m going to do it again, I might just get hard leather on the bottoms for more slide (and I don’t have to worry quite so much about taking care of them ^__^;;).  I’m also finding out that I’m not half-bad for a dancer.  I’ve had a couple of leads who remembered dancing with me last night, and others who commented on how good my dancing was.  My favorite exchange was with a lead from London:

London: So, what types of dances do they do where you’re from?
Me: Oh, Lindy Hop mostly.  Some Balboa and Charleston.
::dance to a blues song::
London: I guess you do a fair bit of blues too back home.

I didn’t quite have the heart to tell him that I didn’t really learn blues with the Jitterbugs.  ^__^;;

Jillian and I lasted past midnight this time, but not by much.  The dance floor had gotten too crowded around 11:30, and the whole room was too hot by 12:30.  But we stayed around long enough for the Hellzapoppin’ (Couples) semi-finals.  They added some “special” couples to the competition at this round, ones who didn’t compete in the prelims the night before.  It was fun, getting to watch people dance in real life that I had only seen previously on YouTube, like Kevin St. Laurent and Max Pitruzzella.  (In fact, I had almost asked Kevin to dance earlier in the evening.  He had been dancing close to where I was standing.  I never got the nerve to go up when he didn’t have a follow.  There should be time to try again though, right?)

But, I’ve decided against the master class auditions.  A lot of the other classes look more interesting than those.  And, in the fluke case that I did make it, I’d feel obligated to take all the master classes.  -___-;;  So, extra hour of sleep/goofing around for Sarah.