Let me be plain - I do NOT think I can dance, regardless of how much I drink, who’s company I’m in, or — let’s face it - I know I cannot dance. :)  Last month, ironically while on a strange and all-too-short family vacation, I was contacted by our pals over at RocketXL, a web-based promotional group that we’ve worked with since the inception of 2GuysTalking and they asked us if we wanted to participate in a great new promotion that Snuggle was tossing through.  Being the ever-interested online Barnum & Bailey folks that we are, we said “yes” and jumped in - with both feet so to speak.

Having never seen the show, “So You Think You Can Dance” and only having used Snuggle long enough to know that I liked the original’s smell better than most of the other stuff I could smell at the food store, we ventured forward.  How on EARTH could I tie in something like “Snuggle” and “So You Think You Could Dance” to my life, television and our audience.  Then it hit me…

STORY TIME!  Ahh, the web-based bliss of yet another Wilkerson tale.

As you’ll recall I was up north in Wisconsin (20 minutes outside of Milwaukee in Brookfield to be specific) attending my 20th High School Reunion from Brookfield Central, Class of 1988.  I have to tell you I was totally jazzed to get to this event, and had even procured a domain name (Planet88.Com) 12 years ago to prepare for the 10th Reunion which I completely forgot about.  But this was the one, the big TWO-OH, a total of 5 generations of high schoolers had passed through the hallowed halls of BCHS and it was time to commemorate and visit with friends from long ago.

The only time I remember dancing in high school was during one of the many fall dancing events that I and friends attended (of course, I had no date, so meh, it was a slow Friday nite on my social calendar ) and I remember seeing a fellow classmate there that evening, Ken Dippold.  Ken was gooney, had a voice 7 octaves lower than mine, and was also wandering the cafeteria-turned dance hall aimlessly that evening.

The yellow, green, orange and blue lights circled everyone in the room, as the voices and spry guitar riffs of 80’s music that was too loud pounded everyone’s ear drums.  It felt as if the entire room was gyrating, circling, striding and hullabalooing, except of course, my friends and I.  Ken Dippold, he who couldn’t possibly put his arms down at his side because of his mighty upper torso, strode in front of my friends and I, like a butcher encircling some soon-to-be-lopped-off ham hock.  After a short baritoned conversation, he said in his gooney, deep-sea-diver voice “well, are you gonna’ dance?”  I looked to each side of me, hoping he was talking to someone other than me.  Not so surprisingly, all of my friends had bailed to avoid the perceived Armageddon that was having a general conversation with Ken, and I realized finally that he was talking to me.

“Naaaah, just shooting the breeze with friends (who had completely deserted me), having a bitchin’ time, y’know, the usual”, I said in a voice that hadn’t really started to change yet.  The bookies in my brain suddenly opened up their ticket gates to take bets - would Ken Dippold continue his question-ridden discussion or would he move off to find the next potential not-yet-dancing prey on the off-white tile floor?  Generously, I doubled-down in hopes that the threat would begin it’s advance toward the group of completely un-attended ladies on the other side of the floor.

“So are you gonna’ dance, Wilkerson?”, his voice becoming something not unlike the initial rumblings of a heinous earthquake, preparing to crumble the very fabric of the universe.  As his verbal onslaught continued, I heard the spiny intro to Billy Idol’s Dancin’ With Myself spool up.

“We’ll I’m gonna’ dance!”, Ken Dippold said merrily, as he grabbed a non-existent pick and Fender electric and started to play air guitar, to clearly one of the best songs of the 1980’s.  Then it happened.

Something washed over me, like the sweet maple-syrup-like icing on a glazed donut.  I could feel my knees buckle as the music seemed to pulse and grow louder - no - they weren’t buckling, they were bouncing.  As Ken continued his faux-six-string electrocity center floor, I could feel my arms rising to just in front of my chest, as if there was an invisible opponent standing in front of me, waiting for me to knock him into next week with my thunderous — punch!  Wham, wham, wham wham, went the punches!  But that wasn’t good enough!  I suddenly added in an alternating kick - left, and right, and left and right and a spin - the guards at Buckingham Palace had NOTHING on me!  Karate Kid?  Spineless compared to the speed of my alternating, Billy-Idol-driven meat sawhorses delivering stinging blows to my transparent prey!

Ken would of course follow the regularly-occurring direction of “sink another drink…” with his invisible “brewski!” each time Billy Idol would charge the cadence of this evening’s destiny and together, we truly were “dancing with ourselves.”  The song was is only 3 minutes and 22 seconds, but the energy, smile, and memories have lasted a lifetime.

After finishing the dance, several young ladies (all of whom  I think I’ve inadvertently forgotten to protect their identities) came up to us and asked us “where’d you learn to dance” to which I replied, “oh, well it was during many years of study in the late 70’s that my Mom taught me when I was a kid, 1-2-3 and rock, step and all that, y’know…”  Thinking back now, I don’t think it  was so much that they were interested in learning where I learned to dance, but how they could avoid sending THEIR FUTURE CHILDREN to the place where they too can learn to have standing, continual, but somehow controlled yet comical seizures in a crowded room to Billy Idol classics.

Over the years, I’ve often thought, “whatever happened to Ken Dippold…”

As I was taking pictures of all the familiar, but now clearly older, more-seasoned and grown-up faces that surrounded me at my 20th high school class reunion, I found out sadly that Ken Dippold died a couple of years ago.   Left behind was his rip-roaring air guitaring, invisible beer-guzzling moments, and baritoned gooneyness asking me “well, are you gonna’ dance?” available now only in my memory, and now - in my blog for everyone else to share, and revel in for all time.

Ahh, the memories of dancing, the memories of friendships long gone, and yet another reason to chock down your own voice when trying to get “excited to do something you would have never tried in the first place” and exclaim - “Well, are you gonna’ dance?”

It’s all part of the spirit, participation and growing cooperation with companies across the nation and world that oozes regularly, from The 2GuysTalking Podcast Network.