Ordinary Days By Lauren Denton: Of sock hops and stirrup pants

When I was in middle school, my school had sock hops. Yes, we called the middle school dances sock hops even though it was the early ’90s.

Twice a year, the school would decorate the fellowship hall (it was an Episcopal school), set out food and punch, and all of us middle schoolers would come dressed in our finest (meaning plaid skirts, stirrup pants and patterned sweaters) for an evening of dancing.

Here’s how it would go: for the first hour or so, the girls would remain staunchly on one side of the gym, and the boys would stay on the opposite side. The DJ would play classics like “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” by the Four Tops and Chubby Checker’s “The Twist.” Songs like those would eventually break the ice and pull everyone out onto the dance floor.

Then came the more popular songs of the day: Boyz II Men’s “Motownphilly,” “Jump” by Kriss Kross and anything by New Kids on the Block. We’d all jump around with our friends and sing the songs at the top of our lungs — still mostly congregated in lumps of all girls or all boys.

Strangely enough, the one song that would always bring the boys and girls together for slow dancing was Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” I think the DJ may have been trying to relive some of his own middle school dance memories, but for whatever reason, the song seemed to give the boys the confidence needed to approach a girl and ask her to dance.

When I think back on those days of sock hops and stirrup pants, one of my clearest memories is hearing that opening guitar riff and watching George Oakley* cross the floor toward me, knowing he was going to ask me to dance. Then, surrounded by other pairs of kids, all of us stiff-armed and solemn, we'd “dance” to the longest song in history.

At least that’s how it felt. The song is “only” eight minutes long, but when you’re dancing with a boy you’d rather not be dancing with (no offense to him), eight minutes of serene guitar and moody lyrics transforming into bluesy hard rock and a screaming Robert Plant truly feel like an eternity.

At the age of 13, the only boys I had really talked to other than my brother were the ones with whom I went to church, and even then only when I had to. But there I was with my hands planted firmly on a boy’s shoulders (with a good 2½ feet of empty space between us) swaying to a decidedly not-slow song in an over-warm fellowship hall that smelled of adolescent energy and chocolate chip cookies.

Despite the awkwardness of those years, I’m a little nostalgic about them. And having my own kids now — one of whom is the same preteen age — I mourn all the things we’ve lost for the sake of technological advances and convenience. I’m sad there are so many more ways for kids to feel left out now, and so many more ways for kids to hurt each other and themselves. I often wish my kids could grow up as I did, with a TV, telephone, Walkman and

a Swatch watch.

As I write this, my daughter’s first middle school dance is less than a month away, and while I’m having a lot of flashbacks to George Oakley* and “Stairway to Heaven,” I’m also remembering those days as a time of figuring out who those strange (but cute) boy creatures were and why they acted in the ways they did, who my friends were, who I was and who I hoped to be.

It’s good to remember that while it seems like everything has changed since my time in middle school 30 years ago, some things have stayed the same. Kids are still figuring out who they are and who their people are. Who they can be themselves with and who makes them feel like they have to keep their guard up. They’re figuring out how to balance school work and personal time, family time with TV time and how to love their siblings while also wanting them to stay out of their bedrooms. (That’s not just our house, is it?)

As I drive to carpool in the afternoons, I watch the kids as they stream down the sidewalks and into the neighborhoods. They walk alone or in groups of two or 10. They stare down at phones or laugh with their friends. They have sports gear in hand or have nothing but a backpack. Just like us, they’re figuring it all out as they go.

And hopefully 30 years from now, when they look back at their middle school years, they’ll remember some song they danced to with a boy or girl at their first dance. Or the support of a special friend when they needed it the most. Or a time when their world opened up a little bit and they got a glimpse of how big life would be once they left the walls of school behind. As I pray for my own kids, I pray for all the rest of them, too, that in the midst of the 2020s, they’ll treasure the small things, the things that don’t change with the years, the things that matter the most.

When I’m not writing about my family and our various shenanigans, I write novels and go to the grocery store. You can reach me by email at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks or Facebook ~LaurenKDentonAuthor.

*Name changed to protect the innocent