The Hokey-Pokey

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:45:51 EST

Spring 1997. The junior-senior prom. For those educators at the secondary level, this annual rite of spring is all too familiar. Black seemed to be the color of choice this year for a majority of the young ladies.

Some of the young men came up with new steps and a few even had whole routines which no one had seen before. But after living through the Twist, The Swim, The Watusi and a whole host of other dances whose names I cannot remember and whose moves are indescribable, nothing is very unusual or shocking. However, I do admit that I really do have a problem understanding slam-dancing.

Late, that evening I did get one surprise. In fact, it was such a big surprise that it could be classified as a shock. I heard a familiar tune and saw familiar moves on the dance floor. I felt as if I were in a time warp. They may have been doing it as a novelty, but there, right before my eyes, were these present-day teenagers doing a dance that we had done in the late 1940s at a small high school in Mississippi. I wondered if these kids knew that they were doing a dance that their grandparents had done fifty years ago. But there was no mistaking it. They were doing the Hokey-Pokey and appeared to be enjoying it.
For those of you unfamiliar with this exotic dance, let me explain. The Hokey-Pokey is best performed in a circle.

The participants not only dance, but sing the lyrics for the dance, which is a roll-call for various body parts. We always began ours with "right arm" and the lyrics went:

You put your right arm in.

You take your right arm out.

You put your right arm in
and you shake it all about.
Then, you do the hokey-pokey,
And you turn yourself around,
That's what it's all about.

Then you would repeat with the next body part. Our sequence after "right arm" was "left arm, right elbow, left elbow, right leg, left leg, right hip, left hip, head, backside, and whole self."

It was a rather repetitious dance, but a person could be very creative on the "shake it all about," "do the hokey-pokey," and "turn yourself around" parts. In fact, I think we raised this dance to an art form in my high school. We didn't just do the dance-we specialized.

There were no formal contests or rules at the beginning. Kids just began to develop special moves with certain body parts and before long there was general recognition that Bobby did the best left arm, Sally had the best right leg, etc. The girls seemed to have the best hip moves, a fact that was both recognized and admired by most of the young men.

The craze spread rapidly through my small high school and soon we recognized a boy and a girl champion for each body part. As the interest grew, challenges began to be issued to the champions. This resulted in a set of rules for champions and challengers alike. Although not in written form, they were known by all and enforced by the entire dancing community.

Most dances were challenge dances, with the Hokey-Pokey being performed three or four times during the evening. If you were a champion, you had to be present to defend. An absent champion's body part was up for grabs and went to the best performer at that particular dance. A challenge was issued by stepping into the circle next to the champion and announcing such. The winner was determined by applause from those present. A dethroned champion could not ask for a rematch that same evening. He had to wait at least until the next dance. The last Hokey-Pokey of the evening was a dance for champions. Only they performed, there would be no challenges, and it was generally a sight to behold.

The Homecoming Dance, the Christmas Dance, and the Junior-Senior Prom were all non-challenge dances. Everybody wanted to be reigning champion going into those dances. If you were, you could really show off in front of a large crowd without the worry of being dethroned.

After many hours of private practice, I mounted a successful challenge and became boys' backside champion early in my senior year. During the year, I successfully fought off all challenges due mainly to the facility I developed of shaking each cheek independently of the other. No other boy was able to overcome this rather distinct advantage. A few years later I noted that this talent was possessed by any number of female exotic dancers, although I doubted that they had learned this while doing the Hokey-Pokey.

My senior year really went well. I had good grades in all my courses and I successfully defended my backside championship at every dance. However, little did I realize that a catastrophe was lurking just over the horizon, poised to strike at the worst possible moment.

It happened at the last dance before the Junior-Senior prom. This was the last Hokey-Pokey challenge dance of the year and every champion knew there would be numerous challenges. And to the winners went the spoils. The champions at this point could really say that they were the best of that school year. They got to perform without challenges at the biggest dance of the year. Since senior champions would not be back the next year, they got the honor of retiring as champions.

There were a few successful challenges for other body parts, but no one came close to knocking me off my throne. By this time I was getting a little cocky, and not only attempted, but also made some moves that even I did not think I was capable of.

Then the last Hokey-Pokey of the evening was announced-the dance for champions only. When the music started, we all hit the circle with a great sense of pride. We would be the main attraction at the prom in five weeks and, at this point, nobody could take that away from us. At least we thought nobody could.

The dance was a spirited one, as these champion dances usually were. Every body part garnered a significant amount of applause. My body part was close to the end, and energy seemed to be building inside of me as we neared this point. On the second "put your backside in" line, all this pent-up energy seemed to explode. Although I was not familiar with the term at that time, I may have experienced an adrenaline rush of epic proportions.

Anyway, I jumped high into the air, turned 180 degrees,
and landed in the center of the circle. Unbeknownst to me and without any prearrangement, Ora Jean Caldwell, the girls' backside champion, who was directly across the circle from me, did the same thing. There we were, back-to-back. Neither of us knew the other was there until we bent over and our backsides seemed to fuse. And when we "shook it all about," I felt tingling sensations running down my legs and up my back. I thought I was in love for the first time, but when we began a new unit in physics the next week, I discovered that it was only static electricity. The lights were dim and some who were in the right position swore they saw sparks. I can't speak for Ora Jean, but for me it was a transcendent experience.
Before the dance was over, the two main chaperons, Miss Adams and Miss Jefferson, were on Ora Jean and me like two ducks after June bugs. We called them the founding mothers. They were both old maids of considerable years. They seemed to live for two things: teaching English and guiding the moral development of all teenagers. They were at every dance to ensure the latter. Neither approved of slow dances, when couples tended to get too close together, and they had banished dipping some years earlier. The Hokey-Pokey was on their approved list because there was almost no contact between the two sexes. At least there was not until Ora Jean and I got ourselves into such an outrageous position.

We were both chided severely that evening and we thought that would be the end of it. But it was not so. On Monday the founding mothers took us to the Principal's office and proceeded to get us banned from the Junior-Senior prom. If that wasn't bad enough, they also succeeded in getting the Hokey-Pokey banned as well. It was now an outlaw dance that could not be performed at any school function.

The Hokey-Pokey ban affected a lot of people. And they all seemed to get angry with me and Ora Jean. Our class practically ostracized us for the remainder of the year. The prom was a flop without the Hokey-Pokey and its champions. Ora Jean and I were miserable for the rest of the year. We both thought that all this was a big price to have to pay for a little static electricity.

Yes, watching our kids do the Hokey-Pokey brought back a lot of memories, some good and some bad. The best of them all was of Ora Jean Caldwell and that transcendent moment when sparks flew and time stood still.

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The Hokey-Pokey