Dancing the Virginia Reel

Last night I was watching the 1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis, which takes place in 1903 and stars Judy Garland. The movie includes a scene where young people attending a family party dance a Virginia Reel.

This scene reminded me that we pupils at St. John learned to dance the Virginia Reel as part of our physical education. We never danced the Virginia Reel at our own parties in 1963, but I suppose that young people actually did do such dances socially in earlier decades. The movie depicted many interesting details about American life in the early 1900s.

I remember that we learned the Virginia Reel when we were in about seventh grade. Dancing that involved holding girls' hands was creepy to the max, but we all were learning about puberty by seventh grade, so we resigned ourselves to beginning adult lives that did involve some inter-sex hand-holding.

Here is a YouTube video of pupils, grades 5 to 8, dancing the Virginia Reel with a live band. We at St. John sure never had a live band. We used a record player.

The kids in the following video are really bad dancers. We at St. John danced much better than those little dopes.

On the other hand, the kids in the following video dance it a hundred times better than we did at St. John.

Punt, Pass and Kick

I remember participating in at least one Punt, Pass and Kick contest in Seward. In my memory, I was in about sixth grade, so maybe this was in about 1963. The PP&K contests took place at the fairgrounds.

The Wikipedia article about PP&K says that the contests began in 1961, and that sounds about right to me. I remember the contest being a new event in Seward. Here is an advertisement from a 1961 Life magazine:

This advertisement indicates that in the very first year, the contest was for boys, ages 6 through 10. By the time I participated, the age range was changed to 8 through 13. I myself was older than 10, and there were boys older than me.

Since the print is so small in this image, I retype the main text as follows:

Here's what the Punt, Pass & Kick Contest is: It's a program presented by Ford Dealers in cooperation with the National Football League in the interest of youth and as a contribution to the nation's physical fitness program. Competition is divided into age groups, so your son will compete only against boys of his own age. In each age group, boys will compete in punting, passing and place-kicking. Points are based on accuracy as well as distance. There will be 70 regional winners and 5 national champions.  

Here are the prizes: Prizes include official National Football League uniforms .... official National League warm-up jackets ... official National League footballs ... expense-paid trips to the NFL Championship Game and to the White House for father and son ... and many more. 

Here's how to enter:  It's simple. There is noting to buy. Registration is pen to any grade school boy 6 through 10 when accompanied by father, mother or legal guardian. Simply take your son to any Ford Dealer displaying the official Punt, Pass & Kick emblem shown below. The dealer will do the rest. 

HERE'S WHAT YOUR BOY GETS FREE WHEN HE REGISTERS: [Three items] 

A Punt,Pass & Kick instruction booklet with tips by three great football pros -- Johnny Unitas, Yale Lary and Paul Hornung; an official National Football League guide book packed with interesting facts and figures on the professional teams; and a handsome Punt, Pass & Kick participant badge to be worn on your son's jacket, shirt or sweater.

I don't remember ever seeing the above advertisement, although our family subscribed to Life magazine.

When President John Kennedy took office in 1961, he advocated that American children become more physically fit. That's why all the St. John's pupils had to exercise to the song Chicken Fat several times a week.

I definitely remember that the contest was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. I don't remember Dad or Mom taking me to the local dealership so that I could register, but that must have happened. My family owned a Ford station wagon,  so we went to the local dealership occasionally for car maintenance. I suppose that my begging caused my Dad to simply to to the dealership and registered me, without taking me along. Obviously, these contests were an advertising gimmick to get parents to visit Ford dealerships.

I don't remember clearly why I wanted to participate in the contest. I remember vaguely that I thought I might have a chance to win one of those NFL warm-up jackets. I'm sure I fantasized about winning an expense-paid trip to the NFL Championship and to the White House.

Since points were awarded for accuracy -- not just for distance -- I thought I might be able to accumulate a lot of accuracy points. As it turned out, however, I was not accurate either, and so I did not come close to winning anything.

The advertisement that I remember looked like this one below, from 1964. I can't find a larger image.

Below is an advertisement from the sixth annual contest, 1967. In that year the age range was 8 through 13.

This advertisement has the same drawing of the professional adult and the amateur boy punting. I remember that picture. I cannot read the text well enough to type it, but I think the rules and prizes remained about the same as in 1961.

I do remember my Tips Book looking like the 1965 edition below. I read it studiously at least 20 times.

I remember vaguely that my participation badge looked something like this:

Notice that the biggest word on the badge is FORD.

I remember this book -- this is the 1965 edition. These books perhaps were being sold at the dealership or at the contest. Maybe the St. John's library had a copy.

Here is a link to a newspaper article, dated June 25, 1980, reporting that Ford was ending it sponsorship of the PP&K contests.

Punt, Pass, Kick Program Being Dropped by Ford 

By HARRY ATKINS
AP Sports Writer 

DETROIT (AP) -- Rising costs and declining participation have been cited by Ford Motor Co. for dropping the popular Punt, Pass and Kick youth program it sponsored jointly with its dealer association and the National Football League.  

Ford had, at first, intended to drop PP&K at the end of the coming season, but the continuing downturn in the automobile industry led the carmaker to cancel it immediately, said Pat Snook, vehicle sales promotion manager for Ford Division who was in charge of PP&K. 

The deicsion to end PP&K this year caught both the NFL and the dealers by surprise.  

"I had heard discussions," Joe Rhein, NFC coordinator at the NFL office in New York said Thursday. "I guess they (Ford ) felt it would be in their best interest not to try to go through with it this year." 

Ford dealers were to be notified of the decision to drop PP&K on Monday, but word apparently leaked to a few dealers and one, angered by the cancellation, called the Associated Press. 

"It's a combination of things," Snook said. "We originally were going to drop it at the end of the season, but we have decided to end it now. 

"Obviously, rather heavy and increasing costs were a part of the problem. Quite frankly, the automobile business this hear has caused us to re-evaluate many of our promotional programs." 

Snook said declining interest on the part of youngsters also was a contributing factor in the decision to drop PP&K after 19 years. 

In some years, participation was as high as 1 million youngsters," Snook said. "Last year it was down to between 400,000 and 500,000." 

PP&K was a major undertaking for dealers in some areas. Often civic clubs like the Jaycees were enlisted to help run local competitions in six age categories -- 8 through 13. 

Bob Low, a Ford dealer in St. Clair, a town of about 5,000 people 45 miles northeast of Detroit, said he quit participating two years ago. 

"It wasn't getting the participation, plus it was hard to get the people to help you run it right," Low said. 

After several levels of local, regional and state competition, winners from AFC and NFC in the six age groups met during halftime of the Super Bowl to determine national champions.
"Airline costs, alone, are p nearly 30 percent," Snook noted. 

Ford dealers ha to put up about $300 while the carmaker picked  up the rest of the tab. The NFL provided player appearances, television exposure and time. 

"We picked up most of the cost of running it," said Ford spokesman Larry Weiss, who declined to say how much the program costs. 

The NFL now will explore new avenues. 

"We definitely intend to be involved with youth programs," Rhein said. "We'll probably make an announcement somewhere down the road, but not this year."

Apparently the NFL took over the entire management of the program in the following years. Now girls too participate in the contest.

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Sekai Luebke wrote the following comment on my Facebook page.

In 1967 I won that thing and got a trophy. 

Then, I went out to Grand Island and won the next level, too -- and got another trophy. 

The third level was held in Lincoln on a cold day in November and I lost to a kid from Lexington who was pretty good. 

I told my dad, "If it hadn't been so cold, I'd have beat him."

Seward's Clear View of the Milky Way

Patricia Tennesen has followed up her previous message to me:

Something people who live in small towns perhaps fail to realize is the beauty of their stars. In San Diego, even in 1962, it was difficult to see many stars at night due to the abundance of city lights. When summer arrived in Seward in 1962, I recall allowing my brother to make the wish on the first star reciting the very well known poem before making his wish. We both looked up at the most bountiful sky we had ever seen and made his wish together. 

He wanted roads for his Tonka trucks and tractors. Good roads that angry little boys could not create and quiet older sisters had tried to create using sticks of wood. He wanted manly roads with hills and bridges, overpasses and underpasses. 

My brother woke me up prior to the chickens the next morning, telling me,  Hurry, get up, we have new roads." 

We ran out before the sun was fully up to see roads carved into our mostly dirt lot including hills and a small creek with a wooded bridge passing over it and fancy curved overpasses. These roads were beyond our wildest dreams and had us asking everyone in the three houses that had been moved onto the site who had built the roads for his toy trucks to drive on. 

No one claimed responsibility. When we asked our father, he denied it. When we asked why the roads had went a particular way which seemed odd to us, he said, "Not sure, maybe zoning laws." We were left to wonder.

I left Seward in 1968. Since then, I never have seen the Milky Way as I saw it many times in Seward. 

I remember lying on my back on the practice-field plateau east of the football field and looking at the sky. The Milky Way stretched out clearly above me -- thousands of stars. 

I don't know if that view still can be seen in Seward. Perhaps there are too many "city lights" there now. That practice field was essentially a place outside of the town. 

And I remember playing with toy trucks when I was in third grade. I'd go over to Toby Beck's house to play with his toy trucks. In a previous post, I wrote:

Toby had a lot of toy trucks. I think he collected them. He always asked for and received more toy trucks on his birthday, Christmas, etc. In general, I thought that playing with toy trucks was rather lame, but his trucks were really cool, because they were Tonkas.

This photograph matches my memory of a typical truck that we played with.

 Vintage Tonka trucks are worth a lot of money now.

The Internet's Insatiable Interest in Freshman Beanie Caps

In the last couple of days, I've been thinking a lot about why my article about Concordia College's freshman beanie caps has received more than a quarter of a million page views during the past six years.

During the past week (May  27 - June 4) my blog has received 1,144 page views, of which 475 (42%) were on my beanie article.

Did some computer programmer create an application with an endless loop that visits that webpage almost a hundred times a day?

Is my article being used, without my knowledge, as part of some international spam operation?

One simple possibility is that a surprisingly enormous number of people search the Internet for articles about freshman beanie caps. I did a Google search for "freshman beanie caps", and I found that my article was listed as #30. In other words, there are 29 webpages about freshman beanie caps that get even more page views than my article gets.

Perhaps collecting vintage beanie caps is a big business.

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UPDATE (July 19): My brother Peter is a computer expert, and he suggested that the beanie article gets a lot of page views because it includes a photograph of black-and-white saddle shoes. Very few people care about beanie caps, but lots of women still search the Internet for information about saddle shoes. I think Peter's suggestion is the explanation.

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During that same week, my blog received page views from the following countries:

USA = 327

France = 136

Germany = 108

Belgium = 98

United Kingdom = 52

Russia = 33

Czech Republic = 15

Australia = 9

Greece = 9

Thailand = 9

Since those numbers add up to 787, there must have been a lot of countries, with numbers less than 9, that Blogger did not list in order for the grand total to be 1,144. (Or else Blogger cannot identify the country of origin for many page views.)

Blogger does not tell me which particular countries accounted for the page views specifically on my beanie article.

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My articles that received the most page views in the last week:

Concordia College Freshman Beanie Caps = 475

Campus Buildings That Are Gone = 84

The Trampoline in St John's Basement = 43

Reinhold Marxhausen's Sound-Making Sculptures = 28

The Meaning of the Movie "Footloose" = 19

Pledging Allegiance to the Christian Flag = 15

The Meaning of the Movie "Doubt" = 11

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My two articles explaining movies have received a lot of total page views:

The Meaning of the Movie "Doubt" = 1,268  total page views

The Meaning of the Movie "Footloose" = 1,027 total page views

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I have another blog devoted entirely to the movie Dirty Dancing. The last time I posted an article on that blog was in January 2009. During the past month, that blog averaged about 56 page views a day.

In its entire existence, that blog has received 63,884 page views.

The blog's most viewed article, Robbie Gould's Philosophy, has received 11,640 page views.

My Blog's Most-Read Articles

Even though I've neglected this blog for two years, it still gets a lot of page views.

* May 24 = 178 page views

* May 25 = 254 page views

* May 26 = 215 page views

* May 27 = 213 page views

* May 28 = 162 page views

* May 29 = 98 page views

* May 30 = 177 page views

* June 1 (at 6:30 p.m.) = 241 page views

The main reason I still get so many page views is an article I wrote about freshman beanie caps in May 2009. That article currently averages almost a hundred page views a day -- and has accumulated more than a quarter-million page views in the past six years!

If this is some kind of nefarious manipulation of the Internet, I cannot imagine its purpose.

Blogger provides me statistics on page views. Below is a list of my webpages that have been visited most often. In a few of the cases, Blogger provided the number of views I got in the last week -- from May 25 through June 1, 2015.

Concordia College Freshman Beanie Caps = 259,970 page views

 613 page views in the last week.  

Reinhold Marxhausen's Sound-Making Sculptures = 4,717 page views

22 page views in the last week.

Campus Buildings That Are Gone = 4,348 page views

113 page views in the last week.

The Trampoline in St. John's Basement = 4,182 page views

58 page views in the last week.

The Gospel According to Peanuts - 3 = 1,925 page views

The Students of St John School, 1952-53 = 1,532 page views

Pledging Allegiance to the Christian Flag = 1,358 page views

16 page views in the last week.

Bohemians = 1,272 page views

7 page views in the last week.

The Meaning of the Movie "Doubt" = 1,262 page views

11 page views in the last week.

Someone has left this comment:  

No one has commented on this yet? I think this is a great, well-thought out, well explained commentary. Great job.

Moving from the Old Library to the New Library = 1,169 page views

The Meaning of the Movie "Footloose" = 1,010 page views

15 page views in the last week. 

Someone has left this comment:  

This is the most insightful and thorough analysis of this movie I have ever encountered. Thank you for taking the time to create this.

Mike Sylwester's Last Will and Testament = 895 page views

Audio-Visual Equipment = 676 page views

The Settlement of German Lutherans in Seward County = 599 page views

Mark Lemke, RIP = 430 page views

The Weller Family's Move from Indiana to Nebraska = 422 page views

St John Hi Lights, May 1968 -- Part 2 = 397 page views

James Blomenberg, RIP = 387 page views

Deep Reasons for St John's Enrollment Collapse = 282 page views

Memories of Kathy Lange Brakke = 270 page views

Exercising to the song "Chicken Fat"

Recently our television was on in another room, and I was suprised to hear a few seconds of the song Chicken Fat. (Since then, I've read that the Apple computer company included the sound bite in a television advertisement, but I never have seen the advertisement.)  

Here is another video, featuring pretty, exercise-astute cheerleaders. 

As I remember, Mr. Peter made our fifth-grade class do this exercise routine on the school's basketball court a few times every week. We could not do it every day, because it made our muscles so sore. 

We were told that President Kennedy encouraged all elementary schools to institute this exercise routine, because American kids were too flabby. President Kennedy valued vigour in children.

The routine is longer -- almost seven minutes -- than I remembered it.

Now I recognize the unforgettable voice as belonging to Robert Preston, famous for playing the role of The Music Man. 

While browsing through Google for information about Chicken Fat, I came across an amusing blog written by "Retro Mimi", who diets using Weight Watchers recipes from the 1970s. She writes about herself:

I am a Pittsburgh girl with a passionate love for potatoes and carbs and butter. 

For some reason, I recreate long-forgotten Weight Watchers recipes from the 1970's in my own kitchen. Sometimes they are surprisingly tasty. Most of the time they are dreadful. Often my house smells like boiled celery. I get way too excited about buying vintage Pyrex and unmolding gelatine. 

I am a Weight Watchers lifetime member. I am the daughter of a Weight Watchers lifetime member. I am obsessed with all things Weight Watcher.

I am taking over the culinary world... one envelope of Knox Gelatin at a time. 

It all started with one cookbook... Once upon a time, a friend gave me a copy of the "1972 Weight Watchers Revised Program Cookbook" (WWRPC). Coincidentally, 1972 was also the year my mom joined WW and lost a great deal of weight after I was born. I became fascinated by this book, and I started wondering what it would be like to follow the same plan that Jean Nidetch and my mom followed almost 40 years ago. The rest is history. 

Anyway, Retro Mini wrote this article about the exercise song Chicken Fat.  

If you are like me and grew up in the 60's or 70's, you were probably tortured by this song at some point in your life.

Sung by Robert Preston (The Music Man), and sent to every school in the U.S. as part of a Youth Fitness Program in the 60's, it is guaranteed to get you moving.

Plus---once you hear it, you will NEVER GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD.

We had a copy of this record at our house, and I still remember doing the "Chicken Fat" workout with my mom and grandmother on a regular basis. We had such a great time yelling, "Give that chicken fat back to the chicken and don't be chicken again!"

I have posted the entire "Chicken Fat" song for your retro fitness enjoyment. Now get up, get moving and flap those wings!   

Am I the only weirdo that remembers this?

A lot of people commented on Retro Mimi's Chicken Fat article, and I followed links to another blog article written by someone named Noreen Braman.  

The President Kennedy and Chicken Fat Song Connection

Anyone who was in school during the 60s remembers the President's Physical Fitness program, instituted by President Kennedy, and the tests you took to prove how American Strong you were. For me, it was the chin up that was my demise, my flabby arms unable to lift me up more than once, and I am not even sure I did it once.

The program had a television commercial that I have been desperately searching for. It featured a depiction of a human as a head on a TV screen that barked orders to a robot. Where it should be taken, etc. At one point, the robot just wanders off, leaving the TV head person to just keep shouting at the robot whose name I seem to remember was "Z-12." The moral of the story? Use your body, or someday you won't have one anymore. It was an idea that resurfaces in the the Pixar animated film, "Wall E" where bloated, obese humans have every need met by robots and machinery. Cautionary tales meant to inspire us to take care of our bodies and the planet.

I remembered the President's Physical Fitness challenge with a wistful nostalgia, a noble idea that never quite got me to improve my chin-up performance, but did serve as a source of reward for those more athletically inclined, including my own children when they were in grammar school. What I never remembered, until now, was that this program also came with an evil, menacing, demeaning piece of music that has been recently resurrected by a commercial for Apple. 

It appears that the "Chicken Fat" song, which became the soundtrack of my adolescent nightmares, was actually titled "The Youth Fitness Song" and it was commissioned by the President's Council on Physical Fitness. Written by Meredith Wilson ("The Music Man") and recorded by "Music Man" star, Robert Preston. My brain, which has been screaming since I first heard this song playing in the commercial, is now on full about-to-meltdown red alert. Say it isn't so!

Oh yes, we've got trouble, right here in EVERY CITY IN AMERICA. Sure, Apple shortens the torture, it almost sounds catchy. But listen to it, preserved for posterity on the JFK Library website. 

And if you want to sing along, here, via Lyrics Playground, are the words. Every torturous verse. 

Former St John student writing novel about Seward

Below is an e-mail and attached photograph that I have received:

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Hello There,

I  accidentally came upon your Blog about Seward Nebraska. It was along time ago and we were there for a short time as the Atlas F Missiles were being built in the state. We stayed in a motel for what seemed like forever until housing could be located. We found our way to a house that had been moved on to the land at 1542 N Columbia.

In 2011, I was in Omaha to run the half marathon and took a drive over to Seward and was immediately brought back to that time in 1962-63 when we lived in Seward and I attended Saint John's school. 

2011 had been a difficult year as I had just lost my job during the financial crises of the time. I was lost and quite sure that my world was coming to an end. So much so that although we had paid the entrance fee and had our reservations before I discovered that my company was closing my office down, I was not able to train. So depressed that I could not lace up my shoes to train. I preferred sitting, staring at the wall to running along the coast of California. I ended up walking half of the 13 miles in Omaha.

As I returned to Seward and recalled the fun my brother and had living there, my mind was suddenly alive with thoughts. I think my husband was convinced that I was going nuts. I began telling him stories about our time there. We had went from a urban location to what at that time was the middle of a corn field. Our mother hated it, but my brother and I thought it was heaven on earth as we were free to explore our surroundings.

Seeing Seward again inspired me to return to school to study creative writing which I did and now and for the past three years have been writing a fictional novel based on our time in Seward. Please note "fictional." My life did not end, it has thrived and the loss of my job turned out to be a blessing.

I have since been back to Seward in June of 2014 with one of our daughters and stayed at the Liberty House, attended one of the concerts in the Clam and walked the trails that were once train tracks behind our house. This was when we were finally able to figure out which house was the one that we had lived in and the owners were kind enough to allow me a peek inside. I returned again in October of 2015 to meet Ted Koosler at Chapters books and walk the neighborhoods.

Seward is such a wonderful place to raise a family. I am jealous of those who are able to spend a life time there. I will attach a photo of me bundled up in front of our house. It is very poor quality but it is what I have.

Thanks for the blog and what you do for the community, 

Patricia [née Riney] Tennesen

[Mike writing now]

Thanks for your interesting letter about your unusual relationship to Seward.

Your letter reminded me of a strange memory of my own about missiles in Seward. I was a boy -- this might have been in about 1962 - 1963 -- watching a basketball game with some of my friends in the campus's basketball court. A couple of young men (maybe in their twenties) came in and sat in the bleachers near where I was sitting. 

We struck up a conversation, and they told me that they were driving a truck that was transporting a missile (or some missiles) to Alaska. They decided to take a break from their drive, and so they stopped in Seward, heard about the basketball game, and decided to stop by and watch.

My friends and I did not believe this strange story, but the young men insisted casually that it all was the truth. 

"Why would we lie about it?" they asked. 

"Aren't you supposed to keep that kind of thing top-secret?" we asked. 

"Who are you going to tell?" they asked back.

I remember that we continued to talk until the game. I don't remember any more of the conversation. They watched the game until the end, and the Bulldogs won. Then they left. 

I never have forgotten that incident.I wonder if it has something to do with "Atlas F missiles being built in the state".