"If I hadn't been a square dancer, I would not have been President"

In April of 2005 and 2006, The Tune Dogs played a square dance for President Jimmy Carter in Plains, Georgia. Here was part of his Sunday sermon the next day:

"When I came home from the Navy, Rosalynn and I wanted to reach out and get to know things about our past life - I had left here (Plains, Georgia) when I was 16. I came back after 11 years and we wanted to learn the people around here. So, we joined a square dance club in Dawson at the American Legion Post - the group was called Merry Legs. . . and we had about 50 people that met every Friday night. . . and they were from about 10 local counties.

Later I ran for the Georgia senate. . . at the spur of the moment, I wasn't planning on being a politician. The election was stolen from me - 126 people voted alphabetically - down to the third letter in their name, some of them were dead, some of them were in prison - they all voted against me. But eventually, I won by 66 votes. So you see, if I hadn't had those 50 people, you see in 10 counties, I would have lost my election, I would never have been state senator, I would never have been Governor - and if I had lost that first election, I would never have run again.

So you make an innocent decision to have a good time, and when you look back on it, it is the kind of a thing that changes your life."

HAVE A SQUARE DANCE PARTY!

Discover the old-fashioned fun of a community square dance.
Your church, neighborhood, school, or office group would love a mountain square dance.

Our caller will teach the dances- no experience necessary- our live string band will provide the music. Let us help you plan a memorable party.

The TUNE DOGS and friends are available for booking- contact us

John (770) 409- 1404
Jan ( 404) 377- 3540

fiddlesmith@bellsouth.net
tunedogs@bassbox.org
bassbox@comcast.net

Mountain Dancing: Good music, good people, good fun
December 27, 2001 — Everything in the mountains is laid back. Even the dancing.

Nine-year-old Katie Kelley "shoots the arrow" at a recent mountain square dance at the Folkways katie kelly Center of the Georgia Mountains in Dahlonega. The dances are held at 7 p.m. on the second Saturday of each month. Call 706.867.6710 for more information.

"You don't have to know anything," John Kelley said to the crowd in the basement of the old Dahlonega Baptist Church two Saturday nights ago. "You can't make any mistakes."

Advertised as "an evening of old-timey mountain dancing," the monthly gathering had the feel of a friendly town meeting, where chairs and politics are pushed aside to make room for what really matters — the dancing.

Everybody knew everybody there. And if they didn't, they did by evening's end. Holding hands has a way of bringing strangers together.

caller "I have a friend who calls it an 'egalitarian full participation folk activity,'" said Scott Russell, of Atlanta, who took turns calling out the dance moves with his wife Susan Davis. "It's not like a night club where you pay your money and take your chances. People usually help put up chairs and take them down. It's much more of a community thing."

The dances — sponsored by the Folkways Center of the Georgia Mountains, which purchased the church in June — feature figures and forms as eclectic as America itself.

We covered a mishmash of cultures.
A little Irish. A little English.
They all crossed the Atlantic, headed down the Appalachian Mountains and somehow ended up in an old church basement in Northeast Georgia.

Everyone had a different name for what we were doing: Southern figure dancing, American folk dancing, Appalachian square dancing, even something called contra dancing.

But I believe Katie Kelley, John's 9-year-old daughter, characterized it best. "It's fun," the fourth grader from Norcross said succinctly.

"I like a lot of dancing," added Katie's 11-year-old friend Rebecca Van Galder. "I just like meeting new people and switching partners and doing the different dances."

Some folks, however, just come for the music, played live by the Potluck String Band. Sixty-five-year-old George Alexander, of Tucker, didn't leave his seat for a second.

"I love this music," Alexander said. "It's the dancing I never cared for. I play senior softball and I play golf. I do all sorts of things, but dancing ain't one of them."

Alexander's friend Pat Rachels, of Conyers, lamented, "I just can't get him out there." That didn't stop Rachels, however.

"This is the first time I've ever square danced," Rachels said. "It's much easier than I thought it would be. Of course, I wasn't too good that last time."

That's OK. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody seemed to care.

"It's a dance of little organization," Russell said. "You're not coming to develop a skill. You're coming to enjoy yourself. It's a social thing. You just want to be good enough that you're comfortable."

Russell and Davis explained each dance before it happened. It never got too complicated.

"OK," Russell said at one point. "Too much practice isn't good. Let's dance. If you don't get it on the first go round, you probably will on the second or third or 37th. It's pretty repetitive."

Then the Potluck String Band started strumming, and Russell started calling:

"All together now right hand star,
Back by the left hand not too far,
Face your partner do-si-do,
Face your corner do-si-do,
Swing your partner round and round,
Now find another couple and circle up four,
Go find another couple and circle up four,
Brand new couple and a brand new four."

Forgive me if I didn't get all the words exactly correct. Sometimes it was hard to hear Russell over all the laughter.

"It's a great way to meet people and have fun," Dahlonega's Suzanne Berninger, who attended with her husband and two teen-age sons, said. "Good exercise. Great music. It's a great community thing. That's what I would call it."

And it's relatively easy.
Even a rangy sports writer can get the steps down.

"If you know your right hand from your left hand, you can learn to dance," said John Kelley, who played the banjo when he wasn't dancing. "It's more homemade, more old-fashioned than what your gym teacher would have done. It's very relaxed social dancing."

Relaxed is just what Tom and Mary Cissell, of Ball Ground, were looking for. Years ago, they gave Western square dancing a try. It burned them out.

"Western is a lot more intricate," Tom said. "You've got to memorize a lot of stuff."
And if you happen to forget something?
"Everybody gets mad at you," Mary said. "It's very stressful. That's why we quit."
There's no stress at the Folkways Center, that's for sure. Just good music, good people and good fun. Oh yeah, good cookies, too.