Square Dancing

As I was perusing our picture albums, I found some great pictures to share with you. I'm glad I started going through the albums because I may have been able to avoid disaster because of it. Our albums are like the ones many people have stashed away in some obscure place in their home, and that may be an open invitation for ruining your pictures. Ours were in albums made by Kodak (of course) with self-sticking pages. Well, as I found pictures I wanted to scan, because of the age of the album, the pictures were very difficult to remove. I was lucky as I worked very slowly removing the pictures so I didn't tear any, but it was touch and go, so to speak. So, if you have any old albums, and want to keep the pictures, check them out before it is to late.

I have also noticed a problem when I scan the pictures. When a picture is scanned, it reflects the size of the original. So, in order to make the picture large enough to actually see, you have to "crop" the image, which makes it larger. However, this is where the problem lies. When you crop a digital picture, the image is really just made larger by increasing the pixel size and dropping some pixels all together. This cause a loss of definition, resulting in an image that looks somewhat out of focus. But that is a trade-off I'm willing to take so I can share the pictures with you.

Enough of all that technical talk. After I mustered out of the Army, I went to work for Kodak as a field engineer. In order to do my job correctly, I was required to attend training in Rochester, NY, over the next few years. While I was on one of my training trips, Betty read that the Santa Paula Roadrunners, a family square dance club, was starting a new class. Well, she signed us up, so on the first night of class, Betty, Daryl and I headed for Isbell School to learn to square dance. I have to tell you, it was a ball. We met many great new friends and throughly enjoyed ourselves. The Roadrunners prided themselves as being a family club, but, when we would go to another club to dance, we required our kids to form their own square and only join another square when asked. There were many times when we would visit a new club and when the members of that club saw our kids, their first reaction was to isolate the kids. The most interesting thing was watching the reaction of those club members as our kids danced and it wasn't long before they were asking to join the kids square. Dancing with the kids was really fun as their enthusiasm is infectious.

Betty will tell you, when I get involved with something, I really get involved. Over time, Betty and I were asked to be a directors of A Square D, a Southern California Square Dance Association. We accepted at my insistence, so we had to form a board and we were required to visit every club in our district at least once. I also had to attend board meetings with all the other directors. Betty picked out our colors, yellow and white, made her skirt and shirts for Daryl and I. The best part of the experience was going to the annual A Square D dance at the Hollywood Palatium. If you have never seen hundreds of people all square dancing at the same time you need to as it is a sight to behold. Enough of all this wordsmithing and on to some pictures.

Our Board
I don't remember the two couples on the left or the lady in front on the right, but that is Betty and I in the middle, nest to us on the right is Ray and Mary Parks (Ray talked us into becoming directors. He and Mary had been directors many times) and next to them is Don and Nadine Davis. Don't you think the yellow and white is great?


Great Western Promotion
Great Western asked if we could help with a promotion they wer running and they donated to A Square D. We actually had a dance, with caller and other clubs, in the parking lot of the Ventura Branch. The couple with their backs to us were are good friends Al and Loene Massey but I don't know the other couples.


A kids square
Same location but with just kids in the square.


Part of the promotion was to introduce people to square dancing and having a fashion show was just another way. Betty is modeling different outfits in these two pictures.



Mary Parks and Daryl

Graduation from square dance class. Every year at graduation of the Roadrunners yearly class, we would do something to make it fun for everyone. The next three pictures show us dancing with the new class.



Jack Elliott top picture, Al Massey nest, and then me.

Yes, we danced as women in the square, and it really wasn't easy trying not to do the man's part. But we had a lot of fun.

I know this is a long post, but it was fun doing it. More tomorrow.