Maycation Day 6: The Party

by pjmcbride

English: Ozseeker the Clown doing the Chicken Dance at the Sarge Boyd Bandshell in Eau Claire, Wisconsin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, I had just enough beer to eventually make me sullen, so no post last night. But before that point, I had fun, in the sitting-around-and-talking mode, not the wild-in-the-streets mode. Not that wildness in the streets has been a noted characteristic so far.

Talkin’ ’bout m-m-my generation…

This was a generational gathering, which currently means middle-aged only. This means we’re old enough to start having various ailments, but young enough to still be surprised we have them.

Middle-aged concert-going: Young enough to be able to stand all through the show if necessary, old enough to wish it weren’t necessary.

Which reminds me of…

In olden times, they’d talk about the Seven Ages of Man. I have observed the Stages of the Chicken Dance:

Childhood: It’s fun, like the Hokey-Pokey and any amount of other silly stuff.

Adolescence/young adulthood: You think we would do that sort of hokey stuff? How mainstream.

Middle age: The Chicken Dance? I remember that! Let’s do it–it’d be ironic.

Old age: I love the Chicken Dance! Reminds me of old times.

You can observe, at successive high school reunions, whether the Chicken Dance is done or not, and with what degree of irony/non-irony. Of course, I can’t help being somewhat ironic, since I’d never heard of it before I moved here. It’s like the obligatory rendition of “Rocky Top” I kept running into at parties, which always made me think, “This is Indiana! Why do they keep singing about Rocky Top, Tennessee?”