West By Northwest: Day Ten

Friday

I met Lydia during my first visit last December, at the zydeco dance featuring Geno Delafose. Somehow we evolved from doing zydeco to salsa, over the course of four dances. We caught up with one another again at a dance camp in WV this past June. ("Sure, I remember you from last December; you were all over me." "Er, um, well, can you blame me?") Obviously I must have been enough of a gentleman at the time, because she was there at the dock of Bainbridge Island, when Paul and I took the ferry over.

It was my second visit to the Island, a place where (as recorded in The Seattle Chronicles) I would have everything I needed -- a gas station called "Jack's Garage," an old-fashioned hardware store, a bookstore, a little grocery store, movie theaters, a Catholic church, and lots of dancing. So after us grownups watched while Paul downed a pizza with anchovies (ugh!), we got a first-class tour of beautiful downtown Winslow.

That night I went to the Century Ballroom, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I had been there the night before for salsa, and tonight they had the Seattle Lindy Exchange, a weekend convention for all the swing and lindy hopping fanatics from around the Northwest. I always wanted to learn the Lindy, a form of swing (???) that evolved in places like the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club in the 1930s, out of the Charleston dance in the 1920s (I can't explain it; you'd have to be there). Anyway, this was my third attempt to learn it, and I just may get the hang of it. Not bad for a one-hour crash course before I take extended lessons in the fall.

But hell, enough about me. My son was having even more fun, being left in (and around) the car after driving there directly from his appointment. He was left to explore the nightlife. When I called him on his cellphone later that night, he had made contact with the natives; in this instance, a group of street musicians. I went back to dancing, and a heated discussion on politics with a young couple who could not have been farther apart from one another.

Paul was right where he said he'd be when I returned to the car. We compared our adventures for the evening as we drove to our home away from home.

Saturday

Paul rested much of the day, then he went downtown on his own to seek his fortune once again, not to mention check out the foretaste of heaven that we passed by on Pike Street known as GameWorks. That evening I went to a dance uptown. While not heavily attended, I did manage to see a few of my dancing pals from last December.

Overall, I've done more dancing than I expected while I was here. Seattle has a lot to offer in this area, although where zydeco is concerned, there aren't as many live bands as on the East Coast, particularly coming up from Louisiana. This is where being along I-95 and within a few hundred miles of four or five major cities comes in very handy.

Sunday

Stay tuned...