Let's Dance

Clare and Chris came over for a Memorial Day barbeque, during which we watched the White Sox cough up a four-run lead in Cleveland.  (Suggestion:  Either make Daniel Palka a dh or encourage him to open a butcher shop.  Palka wields a glove like a meat cleaver.)  During dinner, Clare mentioned that she hadn’t picked out a song for the two of us to dance to at her wedding, now a little over a month off.  “We can’t do ‘I Fought the Law,” my daughter joked.  Oh, would that we could.

In seventh and eighth grade, Clare entered a hitting contest at Stella’s, our batting cages of choice.  Both years she was an independent while virtually everyone else belonged to a travel team (ironically, one she’d belong to come high school).  The first year, Clare was one of twenty hitters and finished second.  She might have slipped to third the next year.

When you don’t know anyone outside of your father (and that’s of debatable worth), you may need help to stay calm and focused; music can definitely help.  In my daughter’s case, it was “I Fought the Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four.  My guess is Clare heard it in the car once and went nuts, more or less.  “I’m breakin’ rocks in the hot sun/I fought the law and the law won/I fought the law and the law won.”  Clare just had to have the song, and, before long, she did.

On the way to every session (the competition went on for several weeks, November through December), I played the song, and Clare did a little cowboy pantomime when Bobby Fuller sang, “I’m robbin’ people with a six-gun.”  Or just hitting a rubber-coated baseball.

But you can’t dance to a lyric like that, so Clare will have to find something more appropriate.  Lucky for me I can tell the story as part of the toast.