My New Year's Eve First

OK, first, put your left hand on a bible and raise your right hand. Now repeat after me:

I promise that what I am about to read is not to be held over Corey's head, nor to be used for evil, but for good. I realize that out of the goodness of Corey's heart, he sometimes does things and goes places strictly for the benefit, education and entertainment of his Crossing Paths readers, of which I am, faithfully.

Alright, you can lower your right hand. However, I think you should keep your left hand on the bible as a reminder of your oath.

On New Year's Eve, I went to a Christian dance. Yeah, I know...I didn't either. But you know...I had good friends going, I had nothing else going on, blah blah blah. If you're a people watcher, as I am, this was a ground zero.

Let me preface where I'm going with this by saying that by my observation, every person there had a great time. My philosophy is, as long as people have fun and no one loses an eye...what more could you want?

Most of the people there were north of 40 years old. Some of the songs played were ones I hadn't heard since my senior prom. I was disappointed they didn't play Freebird, but you can't have everything. Can you guess the last song played before midnight? Submit your guess by clicking the comment link below. I'll post the answer in an update after a few days, so check back.

I'd like to take this opportunity to share some of my experience with you. Here are four guys who caught my attention on New Year's Eve, and why they did.

Over-Dancer Dude: Let me tell you, there was some BAAAAAD dancing going on. And I don't mean the 80s, Michael Jackson bad-is-good kind of bad. I mean lots of finger-snapping and little foot kicks. Now most modern songs have 4 beats to a measure. In most dance songs, there is an emphasis on the 2nd and 4th beats. So get a little beat going in your head, and count to four. But put an emphasis and two and four. For instance, one-TWO-three-FOUR, one-TWO-three-FOUR. When dancing, people instinctively bounce their heads, their knees...whatever, to these accented beats. However, I saw Over-Dancer Dude dancing to Thriller in which he bounced, jumped, kicked - you name it, to all four beats of the measure. So in his head, he heard this, ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR, ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR. If you can kind of think of Thriller in your head, those four beats come at your pretty quickly. This guy looked like he was having a seizure...standing up! This guy worked up a serious sweat! Which brings me to another guy.

Sweat Towel Dude: This guy spent some time at the same table at which I was seated. He apparently brought a little wash cloth from home that he kept with his stuff at the table. During his rug-cutting breaks, he used this cloth to wipe his dance-induced sweat. However, he would often toss the sweaty towel on the table as he would leave and head back out to the floor to work up some more.

Uhhhh, yeah.

Marcel Marceau meets Milli Vinilli meets Rerun Guy: This guy basically pantomimed the words to each song as he danced. He lip-synced the words he knew, while gesturing to the lyrics. So if a song referred to a heart, he would place both hands over his heart. Yeah, now imagine with me what some of the lyrics to the Billy Ocean song Caribbean Queen actually looked like:

She dashed by me in painted on jeans
And all the heads turned beacuse she was the queen
In the blink of an eye I knew her number and her name yeah
And she said I was the tiger she wanted to tame

Caribbean Queen
Now we're sharing the same dream
And our hearts they beat as one
No more love on the run

So imagine someone acting out those words. And when the lyrics said, “no more love on the run”, yeah, he ran in place. THEN, to top things off, he even dropped a little Rerun action at one point during the night. Remember Rerun from the old TV show What's Happenin'? Maybe this will help:

Pimp Guy: There were some interesting outfits, as well. One gentleman had a black fedora hat with a very long white feather hanging off the brim, very much like the hat pictured here. He also had a cane. I learned later that he suffered an ankle injury, so it's possible the cane was something of a necessity. Perhaps the hat was just an accessory to play out the cane motif. I don’t know. But at a church dance, and with the guy being a bit on the older side, it was a little creepy.

With all this being said, I want to reiterate that it seemed like everyone had a good time. I was happy being with friends, watching people, and remembering the songs from my youth. It was a fun way to say goodbye to 2008, and to welcome the New Year.