“Hey, whatcha doin’ Saturday night?”
“Goin’ to Ft. Parker to do some dancin’. You?”
That was a typical inquiry and response in my teen years and the question and response here might tend to be a bit confusing to a minor history buff.
Ft. Parker is a replica of the original fort and settlement in early Texas by the Parker family. The group gained a unique place in history when the Comanche Indian tribe raided the fort and kidnapped a young girl, Cynthia Ann Parker, age 9.
Cynthia grew to be the teenage wife of a Comanche chief. She gave birth to a boy who gained the name of Quanah Parker and became a war chief who led raids against white settlers in Central and North Texas.
Ft. Parker is situated on a lake, Springfield, located between Mexia and Groesbeck. A facility on the lake’s edge and was known in my young years by the lake’s name. It had a nice clubhouse with facilities for soft drinks and snacks. There was the inevitable jukebox and a huge concrete patio with a wall about three feet tall made of natural rock and concrete. The jukebox music was piped out onto the patio.
Springfield/Ft. Parker became a destination once we teens were taught to “slow dance” and jitterbug to the 1950s ballads and rock and roll on the Wurlitzer.
Teens of my era learned to dance via a music teacher who defied the fundamentalist leanings and teachings of a commanding and demanding preacher in the First Baptist Church. And, we took to it like the proverbial duck to water. The deliberate defiance of non-First teens manifested in identifying “Springfield” as the unofficial gathering place to “practice” the things we’d learned.
To be sure I wasn’t destined for hell, I went to the preacher (we didn’t use the term “pastor” at our country Baptist church as opposed to the “town” First Baptist) and asked if it was a sin to dance.
His reply showed, I thought, a lot of understanding and common sense. “Do you have evil thoughts when you’re dancing with a girl?” My reply, since I just loved dancing and music, was “no.” He said, “Then, it’s not a sin.”
So, as teens we were, of course, “ineligible” to go to the “beer joints” (they weren’t nice enough to call “bars” or “night clubs”) where live bands provided dance music. These “joints” were in Mexia, about 10 miles from my hometown of Teague. Springfield was a couple of miles nearer to Mexia than the actual fort portion of the park.
Frankly, it was natural for us to separate Ft. Parker and Springfield in our minds. One was “history stuff” and the other was “fun stuff.” Boring or a blast.
While the state park had lots of roads conducive to “parkin’ and sparkin’,” the practice was discouraged by the frequent patrols by Limestone County deputies and state park officers.
Besides, those of us who’d become so enamored of our newly-learned pastime were more concerned with being smooth on the dance floor, not to mention that our home Freestone County had more country roads than you could shake a post oak limb at.
In the course of learning to put one foot in front of the other in doing the two-step, we were also taught how to jitterbug. While I loved the two-step, I went nutso over the jitterbug – you could just naturally jitterbug to the “new rock-n-roll” with such groups as Bill Haley and The Comets, not to mention a new hip-shaking sensation named Elvis Presley.
One step I never quite got the hang of, nor did I particularly like, was the waltz. Later in life, when I re-discovered country music, I found that dances featuring that music just about required the waltz, because about every third song was a waltz. For a short period of time in my life I became fairly proficient at waltzing, even getting “fancy dandy” with it by taking the big, long steps and swirling your partner around the floor in an eye-catching manner.
A double “A” affliction – age and arthritis – have called a halt to anything but a once-a-year or so two step.
Ah, but there are still memories.
Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher of more than 50 years experience.
