Singles

Daizy and I visited another square dance club recently and couldn't wait to get home to tell our caller where he was going wrong.

We certainly can't complain about his calling —with a voice like his he could outsing a canary. Indeed, the only time he ever sang flat was at a soup-and-damper night when somebody spilled chicken broth on the stage and he slipped and fell full length on the floor without missing a call. Mind you, it was his body that was flat that night, not his voice.

But beautiful voice and tantalising hoedowns to one side, a caller should be more than just a pretty face behind a microphone. He should be an organiser—and that's where we felt this guy had a bit to learn.

You see lots of people at our club are married. What's worse, they're married to each other. At the club we visited the majority of the dancers were singles.

What a difference!

To a gourmet like myself it became obvious as the dancers trickled in that absolutely everybody brought a plate for supper. Compare that to a club like our own where couples only bring one plate between them. When supper time came around we didn't eat—we feasted.

So my suggestion is that we should minimise the number of couples in the club. If marrieds want to square dance they can either go to separate clubs or come to the same club as singles, then each would be obliged to bring a plate.

It has to be better for everybody, including the caller. After all, with all that tempting tucker waiting to be had who's going to want to wait till supper time? It means that we would be doing more eating and less dancing. That would make it unnecessary for callers to buy so many records or spend as much time practising and preparing their programs.

Perhaps the Australian Square Dance Society would consider changing the constitution to make it policy.

In the meantime we have all those wonderful club Christmas and New Year parties coming up with lots of goodies to be had. I've written them all in my diary and am planning to do the rounds.

I'll see you there.