Let's Do The Twist, Shall We?

                So this will get an bipartisan eye roll, but I am going to ignore 3 pages of notes on the DACA hysteria and what President Trump actually said and did as opposed to what was reported in the lame stream media. Instead I need a break and I’d like to share a personal story with those of you who’d care to read along.

                Last night we went with long-time friends to a little night club in Louisville, CO, called Nissi’s to listen to a group called The Jerseys.  They are definitely not to be confused with The Jersey Boys, in fact I think they’re from Pueblo, but they knew all of Frankie Valli’s songs as well as the requisite supplements by The Isley Brothers, Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, Rickie Valens, others and they brought a smile to my face from Sherry Baby to Margaritaville.

                (I bought my first Jimmy Buffet album in 1972 so yes, youngsters, he has been around as the undisputed champ on my playlist since almost the 60’s.)

                Almost all the music they performed though was about 10 years prior to what I would call “my era.”  We sadly came of age to disco tunes (yuck), as well as Led Zepplin, Hendrix, Van Halen and the like. Somewhere in there Bob Seeger and Neil Diamond came along with The Rolling Stones and, I don’t know who else, it’s been so long.

                So how is it I know all the words to almost every single Frankie Valli song and a bunch of others from that genre? It’s a little scary and I don’t normally listen to them on Pandora but every time I hear them I like it. That music makes me smile.

                We thought there might be dancing and since Nissi’s is really close to Boulder and we knew they would come so we weren’t worried that anything we might do on the dance floor would be weird.

                And show up those Boulderites did.  I chose not to crash the Prius-fest in the main parking lot with my SUV so we parked on the perimeter at a slight angle with the F-150’s there from Niwot.

                From the very first note the dance floor was full. I was even out there before the first song was over and, in fact, probably danced more last night than I have in years. Sang along with everything too. So was everyone else so it wasn’t as embarrassing as say, karaoke would have been.

                I am newly minted into my sixth decade and my wife Barb, younger still, and we were probably in the low end of the sweet spot age-wise for that crowd.  I am telling you, I have never seen so many 55-75-year-olds kick it like it was 1999 before in my life.

                I remember thinking, “My kids would puke if they could see this,” and then those Jerseys sang the lyric “If I should call you up, invest a dime…” and I thought, “My kids wouldn’t even know what that meant.”

                There were so many happy faces on that dance floor.  You could almost literally see 40 years peel off the crowd as we all slipped back to a time when our moves were the ones to copy.  Almost literally. You kind of had to close your eyes and mostly imagine it but that’s what it felt like.

                For three and a half hours we were kids again and it was great. Ronald Reagan hadn’t been president yet so our best days were still ahead of us. I don’t know what happened but my arthritis didn’t bother me. I wailed like I actually had a singing voice and moved my feet like I didn’t have two prosthetic hips and a fake knee.

                It was a miracle.

                And watching the crowd I could tell I wasn’t alone at all. Everybody was smiling, jiving and singing at the tops of their lungs. I haven’t seen that many old people on a dance floor since an anniversary dance at a midwestern wedding and it was beautiful.

                They say 60 is the new 40 but I’m pretty sure we say that because it’s a lot more hopeful than saying, “Oh my God, my life is ¾’s over and I’m going to die soon.” I sure don’t feel 40 but I at least don’t feel like I’m going to die soon either. We say lots of things to cheer ourselves up, I guess.

                And we do things like go listen to Frankie Valli tunes and cut a rug with a bunch of other old farts to recapture a few moments of our youth while we can still remember we were us.

                Frankie Valli is still performing by the way. Not at Nissi’s but, you know…   He’s 83.

                So today the world kind of still has a golden glow around it for me. Our grandson is coming over to visit later this afternoon and that is one of life’s best rewards for no longer being a kid.

                And tomorrow morning I will wake up and move to my favorite chair in my bedroom. The world’s greatest wife will bring me a cup of coffee with the perfect amount of creamer in it like she always does and with it I will wash down a handful of ibuprofen so that I will be able to eventually pull on a pair of pants.

                And then I’ll go to the office and the carriage will turn back into a pumpkin. As I sit there in my 7,873^rd sales meeting I am likely to be quietly humming “Walk Like A Man,” or “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” The younger folks will undoubtedly think, “Silly old man, we’re busy building an empire here.”

                I’ll probably smile.