Dances – My Top Ten

Saturday night’s barn dance was not quite a rip-snorter. About a hundred folks packed into the upstairs of the Hockett Barn. Some lounged on fairly cushy strawbale seating under the eaves, others busted their moves, arms twisting like octopuses, skirts flying, boots stomping. The local talent belted out some rowdy western-swingable tunes and everybody from sleeping babies to slightly deaf great-grandmothers had a great time. Even though we live in a pretty small-town kind of place, we put on some of the best shindigs ever. Most of the great dance parties on my top ten list have taken place right here in good ol' Wallowa County.

#10 Hale Family Living Room Dance – what WAS the occasion? We rolled back the rug, shoved the furniture out of the way, I called standing on the piano bench

#9 Cox Wedding Dance, Dug Bar, Hells Canyon – I called standing on a chair next to the squash patch

#8 Norse Hall, Portland, Oregon – old time dance with “professionals”

#7 All Night Latin Dance Party, Iowa City with Rueben from Guadelajara, okay it wasn't live music, but we were still smokin hot

#6 Skip and Pam 25th Anniversary Old Time Dance – Oddfellows Hall, sweet and wild

#5 Callie and Luke’s Eastern Montana Wedding Dance – crazy wagon ride to the "dance hall" tent, get drunk enough to break your leg and win a prize

#4 Cammie and Gabes’ Out in the Pasture Wedding Dance – on a “real plywood” dance floor built by cowboys

#3 Imnaha River Grange Hall – old time dance with whiskey in the bushes by the outhouse and midnight supper with mountains of sandwiches and pies

#2 First Cowboy Poetry Gathering Dance, Elko, NV – with Ian Tyson and people who know what counterclockwise means

#1 First Cowboy Music Gathering Dance, Elko NV – Texas Playboy style with my all-time favorite cowboy dance partner

From the Magpie Ranch - home of Bunchgrass Beef