The 50's Sock Hop Dances.

By Dave Bartens

I remember the Sock Hop Dances in the late 1950's at the Capitol Theater Ballroom when Don Caldwell was spinning the platters. These dances lasted into the early 1960's but the name changed to "Close-in". I can remember those big columns around the perimeter of the 2nd floor Ballroom dance floor. The Ballroom was always packed with teenagers. There were the clean looking crew cut and flat top boys and there were us, the greasers with our duck tails from the East Wheeling neighborhood. The prettiest girls were a blend of Scot/Irish, Britt, German and Polish. Most of the boys would walk around the outside of those big columns on the dance floor in a counter clockwise circle. The girls danced the latest dances like the twist, the pony, mashed potatoes, etc. with each other out on the dance floor. The slow dances, strolls and cha chas would bring the boys out onto the dance floor. Picture that scene...with the boys walking in that big circle might seem stupid or corny, but it was a lot of fun. The dances weren't as innocent as it sounds, there were those occasional fights between boys. The dances were not chaperoned like the school dances. The fights were always over the girls and the sexual tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. If you could bottle and sell estrogen and testosterone, you could have made a fortune in there in just one weekend. In the early 60's after the name was changed to Close-in the Saturday night dances became so popular that sometimes you couldn't even get in. They had a maximum capacity for the Ballroom and once they had sold enough tickets that it maxed out, they had to stop the line trying to get in. There were times when you had to wait until the dance was half over and some of the couples started to leave before you could get into the dance. It was all worth the wait because the dances were so exciting. All in all, it was good clean fun. I'm so glad that I got the chance to experience it. The other dances that would follow in the 60's and 70's such as the Blue Caboose at the old train station, The Elbow Room downtown and The Swing Club in Fulton were all a lot of fun too but could never compare with the Sock Hop and Close-in dances with it's blend of 50's innocence and the excitement of the early 60's, what a great time period! Glad I was there.

The Wheeling Park dances at the White Palace were much like the Capitol Ballroom dances but they brought in more of the live stars that had the hit records at the time. I feel kind of sorry for those lost generations that grew up in the 70's and later they don't know what they missed. It was so simple when boys were boys and girls were girls. Today it seems like girls want to be like boys and the boys want to act like hip-hop artist and a whole sub-culture of both boys and girls are stuck in the middle and can't figure it out at all...with everything influenced by narcotics and goofy rap music. I like things a lot better the way they were in the 50's and 60's. It's really sad how far we've slid since those good old days. I know that we've been to the moon and the medical and technological advancements over the last decades have been amazing but overall I think that the atmosphere and culture that our parents and grandparents handed over to us was much, much better than what the baby boomers are passing on. These generations over the past 40 years so really got cheated. Give me that old Doo-Wop music and let me dance.

Submitted by Dave Bartens