A Night of Old Time Clogging in Blacksburg

Eye of the Monkey String Band plays as dancers pass in front.

Band members go at it hard.

Alicia Lindeberg clogs ...

... and Alicia and Phil Louer turn.

It was Sunday night square dancing just outside Blacksburg at Bill Richardson's new place--one he designed--and the mood was strictly Yaaaaa-hoo! A crowd of about 25 jamed into the new dance room Bill just added to the house and the clogging and prancing commenced to the sweet tunes of Eye of the Monkey String Band.

I was visiting as an observer, developing an an honest feel for this type of dance for the novel I've finished (CLOG!) and am putting on the market in a week or two. Phil Louer of the Hoorah Cloggers, a more than 30-year-old clogging troupe from Blacksburg, invited me  to the dance and it was a nice stroke by him. We had chatted last week about dancing and he gave me some good ideas for the book (which I included before closing it out).

Before the evening was done, Phil and a pretty young novice from Ohio named Alicia Lindeberg were hot-footin' and and I was truly impressed with Alicia because she picked up the dance and especially the clogging so quickly. She's a natural and I suggested to Phil that the Hoorahs might be able to use her, especially with my buddy Amanda Wareing moving toward motherhood in the near future.

This was about square dancing mostly, but the guitar player in the band handed me his late 1960s era Nikon F3 with the 1.4 50mm lens in order to take a few shots of the band for him. I'd forgotten how good one of those old cameras feels (although I have several in my collection). It was a nostalgic moment there, getting in close, knowing this was going to film and that no high technology was touching the photos the guitar player will likely have processed this week. Nice moment for me.