Blogtrek

An old friend

My wife's friend B. from her workplace called recently asking for her. She was working, so B. talked to me about a computer problem she was having, concerning a reply that she had gotten from a singer whom she had emailed recently. I solved her problem, but I also found out that the web site of this singer is http://www.everon.50megs.com. I looked up that web site and ran into an old friend, Dan Fogelberg.

I remember that his song "Nether Lands" was one of those used for something called "Free Form Dance" at my Unitarian church back in the early 1980's. We would meet at the church and clear the furniture out of some of the religious education classroom areas (it was an open-court type setting). We would play some songs and then dance to them as we see fit. There were variations, such as dancing around in circles around someone or having one person freeze and another dance around the frozen person. I found the whole thing enjoyable and "Nether Lands" was used frequently as the song we danced to. It was a good choice, with dramatic melody and dynamics changes. I liked it so much that I bought Dan Fogelberg's album. Sadly, the free form dancing went away by the mid 1980's and I have never seen it again.

Tonight I got out my Daniel Fogelberg record and played it. Yes, record. It was a 33 1/3 rpm vinyl LP disk. I got out our 29-year-old phonograph and hooked some boombox speakers to it and played it. I remembered quite well the strains of that old tune. It brought back the days of the free form dance. I was pleased to find out that he is still recording and performing, and that he is a favorite of a friend of ours.

Maybe one of these days free form dance will return to my UU congregation. In the meantime I will play my phonograph and remember.