***The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through The Great Depression And World War II…

 

 

…she was just as patriotic as any other of the young women of Olde Saco, no question. The USO was sponsoring a series of Friday night dances at the Starlight Ballroom over in Old Orchard Beach for the servicemen stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Station and other military posts. So when the call for young women to act as hostesses went out in that town from the USO in Portland she volunteered. It was the least she could do to show her support for those, like her brothers, who were oversea fighting the night-takers, fighting those who wanted to make the Jacques and Jeans of the world, of their French-Canadian-etched world, sit down and take it, take it quietly.

That first Friday night she dressed herself in her best dress (from her high school graduation party), and fixed herself up to look very nice indeed (ever younger brother, Jean-Paul, did a double-take and he, that funny age of thirteen, barely recognized her existence) and left the house escorted by two other female patriotic friends.

Now the idea of the dance, from the distaff side, her side, was to mingle and dance with as many young soldiers and sailors as possible without letting any one young man monopolize her time. This was not a pick-up situation, or at least it was not supposed to be and she respected the idea of mingling and dancing with one and all. Frankly she, and her two friends, while they were always talking about men, well, about prospects and sex mostly, had very little actual experience, had not dated much in high school so they were not prepared for the mad rush every guy in the ballroom would make their way. And then she spied him (or he spied her depending on whose story you wanted to believe fifty years later), him all dressed in his Marine blues, all beautiful and manly. He, or she (again depending on who you wanted to believe later), walked toward her, they talked a bit and then what would become “their song” came on and they headed to the dance floor. That night she, they, mingled and danced with others per the protocol of the evening but that was the last time either would do so. No more going away alone after the dance ended …