American Bandstand and its best dancers came from Shidler

Here is a quote from Janet after I posted my blog and I think it is great because she is precisely correct in that when you are a kid you see things through a different light and I am delighted to know the truth.  Here are her comments after she read the blog below.  You will understand why I put it at the top.

By Janet

Hi Gary! I love your collection of stories, even if they are not always entirely accurate. I will agree 100% Bob was the best looking of his family. I know you were a little kid and things seem bigger and grander when you are small. We ...never did have an opportunity to go to Philadelphia (home of American Bandstand), however, we did go to Tulsa and appear on Top 10 Dance Party which aired every Saturday. We won the local dance contest the day we were there and we were given matching shirts for our efforts. My daddy said we stayed in the back of the dance floor too much and he called us "the Grainola farmers".

Bob was always the pretty one and in my mind he was famous.  He married his childhood sweetheart, Janet Gose, which is about the only other good thing I can say about Bob, just kidding.

Janet is the smiling one with the letter sweater on - close to Bob

But let me tell you why he was famous.  Do you remember American Bandstand and Dick Clark?  Well Bob and Janet were on TV and The American Bandstand.  I remember everyone was talking about it and on Saturday morning, if dad did not have something planned, we always watched the show.  NO there was not a DVR or even a VCR or Caviar (bad joke), you just had to watch it when it was on.  And YES we only had black and white TV.  Well Aunt Gladys, Billy and Suzie had a color TV in one of those giant wood cabinets and I bet most people under 50 don't even know what I am talking about.  Anyway, even dad was excited to see Bob and Janet on TV.  We strained our necks to find them at every move and when someone would see them we would start yelling at each other where to look. 

Did Dick Clark ever get old?  He always looked young.

Some of the fun things that came about because of that show were "sock hops" and birthday parties where the girls wore "Poodle Skirts"  and guys rolled up their t-shirts like Fonzie and their blue jeans were rolled up or just short.  The guys would grease their hair and comb it back real tight to their heads and especially on the sides.

 I remember one year my brother, Larry had a birthday party and that is what they did, dance and pretend to be American Bandstand.  We had that cool tile floor, 12 by 12s, and you could dance up a storm on it.  We pushed back all the furniture and the entire house was a dance floor.

Oh ya, Sock Hops, were dances after all the home football games or at least after home coming and then there was the Saturday night weekly Sock Hops.  One of the best parts of that was the local Shidler bands that sprung up.  The one I remember most was Joe Conner, Kenny Kelsey, perhaps Mike Pool, and a few others.  My favorite song of theirs was Louie Louie:

CHORUS:

Louie Louie, oh no

Me gotta go

Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said

Louie Louie, oh baby

Me gotta go

Fine little girl waits for me

Catch a ship across the sea

Sail that ship about, all alone

Never know if I make it home

These guys did a great job on it.   Please tell me and I will make the correction to the band members.  Also I would like to know of other bands and who was in them.  I believe Billy Eden had one and Steve Chrisco was the leader of one but you tell me and we will list them.  Talent we did have in Shidler.

Well it is time to go so -

What did we learn in the Osage?

• Talent is everywhere, you just have to have the guts to try, take a risk
• You are probably a hero to someone, I was watching Bob and Janet all the time I was growing up
• Be the best you can be, you never know who is watching

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com