I wrote a commentary back in the 1990s about my son and daughter complaining that there was nothing to do in Wheeling for a 13- and 14-year-old.
My immediate solution way back then was to take Mikey and Mandi outside, and it seemed simple enough to show them the parts of Oglebay Park they didn’t know. I took them to places I knew after spending my childhood outside, and they experienced the park’s deep woods and saw waterfalls they never knew existed.
But that didn’t solve it, and it was at that very moment when I realized I wished my kids could have just one thing I thoroughly enjoyed during my teenage years.
That’s right; those park dances and those Wednesday evenings when not only Wheeling Park, Central, and Linsly students crowded the top floor of the White Palace before the building was enclosed with windows and extensive utilities, but also kids from the north, south, and west converged. If it was a cooler-than-usual evening, that’s when the letterman jackets all of colors came out, and it looked like an OVAC rainbow.
And sure, there were pushing matches and a few fist fights, but to this day I thank The Lord for those Wednesday nights because of the friendships I’m still blessed by today. I think the most frequent memory mentioned to me is when the DJs would play “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s, particularly the “Down … Down … Down” part of the song. Classic.
There are two obvious reasons why those dances are no more, and one of them is liability, and the other is today’s online interaction dependence that’s replaced face-to-face conversation. Sure, it takes place in school between friends and when forced, but there was nothing like the school dance. Boys on one side of the gym and the girls on the other way back in grade school, but I do recall much more of a mix in high school, and yes, any slow song by Journey or The Commodores got the couples together.
My friend, Tim Boudreau, organized for a bunch of years the Park Dances Revisited events, and for a few years, hundreds attended to see “those people” again. The evenings, though, brought back memories of the sweet times when the kitchen telephone was the only option, when passing notes in grade school was a thing, and when a young man overcame his nervousness to finally ask his crush to the dance floor.
Sure, go ahead and call me sentimental if you must, but I wish today’s teenagers would at least have those dances this summer.
