Sixty-Something: Dancing Days Are Here Again

The beat of the music goes directly to the nervous system as your legs come alive, your arms start gyrating, you stand, you sway, and your feet start moving. Indeed, soon your movements are in tune with dancing to the music. The time for Summer dancing outdoors in the Hamptons under the stars or perhaps a full moon is at hand. It is now July, and it is full-blown summer.

We all dance a bit uniquely. We all hear and feel the music differently. We dance in a group or with a partner, then, with certain songs, we dance alone. It’s a ritual of being human. Native Americans danced to drumbeats, while Louis XIV danced to full-stringed orchestrated music. Dancing is for everyone.

The Beatles first had me moving in the parking lot of my Grammar school (Our Lady of Perpetual Help) the first Monday after their Ed Sullivan appearance. We took turns wearing Chuckie Bells Beatle Wig! Somehow, we all knew all the words to “ I Want To Hold Your Hand.” At twelve years old, we were transformed.

The next big deal was the Eight-grade dance in the High School gym with a live band—boys on one side, girls on the other. When the music started, one by one us boys would walk across the dance space to ask a classmate girl to dance. It was awkward, and it wasn’t always successful, but when it was, it was magic. 

I actually remember dancing that night to the live bands version of “Do You Believe In Magic,” but the Lovin’ Spoonful. I was definitely feeling the magic.

By the beginning of High School, I was in a band, and we played local dances. We play the music for the dances usually on a raised stage or in front of the dance floor. What I still remember is watching a girl I really liked first stare at us playing. Then I watch someone I knew go over and talk to her. Next, they were dancing, laughing and eventually, there was a kiss. I played my bass guitar the whole time, creating the fuel that started their relationship. Truth be known, they married after high school and college, had children too.

When I moved to the Hamptons, it didn’t take long to discover the Stephen Talkhouse and Saracen’s. They both had dancing, one with live music the other with a DJ. I was too old for the Star Room. Later I moved to Montauk and danced at Nick’s On the Beach, The Memory Hotel and eventually, after it opened, “The Surf Lodge.”

I remember first dancing in the Summer of 2009 at the Surf Lodge with my new girlfriend Cindi, who is now my wife of over a decade! Yes, there is magic in getting up to dance with someone. If you are lucky, the magic happens forever every time you dance with your partner. That night we could not move all that much, but we danced and danced and danced.

Now as a sixty-something-plus individual, I have danced in Montauk, Amagansett, East Hampton Village, in Wainscott, in Bridgehampton, Water Mill, in Southampton, not to mention Sag Harbor and Shelter Island, all with my wife, Cindi. Cindi danced as a professional Belly Dancer for a few decades and never got tired. When certain songs get played at events, her dancing motor starts, she stands, she looks at me, and off we go onto the dance floor.

Perhaps a most memorable east-end dancing night was the 2010 Hamptons International Film Festival opening night then at Gurney’s Inn and Spa in Montauk. I was invited with a plus one due to my “press” work. That night there was a unique full moon that made the ocean waves look like pure molten silver pouring onto the beach. Cindi and I danced on a deck at Gurney’s as silver wave after silver wave came crashing to shore. That romantic night was pure Montauk Magic. 

Yes, it is July and dancing days are here again.