Monday’s ad is entitled Teaching Guests The Square Dance, and the illustration was done in 1952 by John Gannam. It’s #72 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, a group of well-dressed people are at a party at someone’s house, and after many beers — I presume, I won’t dance unless I’ve had many, many beers — someone suggests square dancing. I learned square dancing in school, 3rd or 4th grade I think, and then promptly forgot it, and never looked back. But hey, maybe with enough beer….
But why aren’t the other 3 couples in on the act? They should be standing aside, letting the one couple figure it out. Like Jay, I also learned basic square dancing at the same age – the nasty old bat who came to my elementary school (in Fresno) once/week also included folk dancing (which I hated; I was OK w/square dancing) in her hour. Best one we ever were taught was a square dance that had no calls – all the standard basic square dance moves were based on musical cues, which I, having an ingrained musical gene or 2 I inherited from my mom, caught onto quickly. We did a springtime “showoff” show during lunch hour one spring – I was part of the
Old bat weirdness: While trick-or-treating when in 4th/5th grade (late 50’s), when my pals & I were allowed to go unchaperoned & extend our range, I find out that she lives 7 blocks up the street I’m on. We hit her door (screened, but open; fall chill wasn’t there), she’s on her couch, puffing away on a cigarette (no liquid on the end table). Our costumes prevented her from recognizing any of us (or if she did, she didn’t acknowledge it – we all despised her, so we didn;t say anything).
Tx, Jay, for a weird memory tweak. 🙂
Oops – I left an incomplete sentence – I was part of the square for the call-less demo; the better-coordinated kids (all of whom were shorter than I) did the more complicated folk dancing stuff.