Field Note: 14 February 2020
When I was first starting out as a journalist I went in search of American roots. I found one of the last remaining regular live-music square dances in America. It was in a little stone and timber community hall at a tiny rural Catholic church in Scioto County Ohio, boyhood home of King of Cowboys Roy Rogers. Every other Saturday night dancers gathered, whole families! And the band played. They had a kitchen and baked homemade pizza. There was a roaring stone fireplace. The floor was old wood and built for just this activity–the old world dancing. They even had a cake walk.
Sometimes you experience a thing so rich it gets in your bones. The Pond Creek Saturday Night Square dance is buried in my bones.
I decided to find the dances happening in Nashville. I just knew people had to be doing the old world dances in Music City. And they are.
Last night I attended a dance in Hermitage at the Hermitage Presbyterian Church, hosted by one of Nashville’s oldest square dance clubs, The Barnlofters Square Dance Club.