By Karen Middleton
ATHENS — As we approach another New Year’s Eve and as I approach the next set of stairs I am reminded of welcoming in 1964 with a knee the size of a basketball.
I haven’t had much occasion over the intervening 46 years to think of New Year’s Eve 1963. Sometimes when I would arise from sitting cross-legged on the floor, the knee in question seemed reluctant to obey, but that’s about it.
I’ll preface this story by boasting that I was one of the all-time great twisters in early 1960s Mayville, Mich.
Recording artist Chubby Checker unleashed the Twist dance craze, which entailed, as one might expect, a twisting motion from the knees upward to the midsection.
This was on the eve of the so-called British Invasion, in which side-to-side motion moved to the hip region.
The Twist was a very popular dance. So popular, that some folks from that era just can’t seem to let it go. Nowadays, they can most often be sighted in wedding reception videos, feeling no pain, Twisting their brains out.
However, the Boomer Twist requires somewhat more proficiency as Twisters now have to contend with male belt overhang and female backside hang-down, both of which could throw off the center of gravity, sending a dancer with already compromised equilibrium crashing to the floor.
On that New Year’s Eve 1963 I had to contend with neither belt overhang nor backside hang-down. While I was carrying a few more pounds than, say, Sandra Dee or Annette Funicello, the poundage was situated right, if you catch my drift here.
What I did have to contend with that night was new beige living room carpeting at my friend Rita’s parents’ house. She was the one hosting the party. Word spreads in a small town: Party at Rita’s house, parents out of town.
Picture if you will, a Chubby Checker 45 cranked up all the way, a room full of teens—Twisting …
Come on let's twist again like we did last summer
Yea, let's twist again like we did last year
Do you remember when things were really hummin'
Yea, let's twist again, twistin' time is here
And then it happened, a sound more felt than heard — “Pop.” The knee went out of joint and popped back in. And I went down. Carpeting is unforgiving, even to young knees.
I dropped and rolled, grasping my knee, nauseated but determined not to hurl. Other young partygoers, hopped up on Mogen David, apparently thinking I’d added some freestyle moves to my already stellar performance, gathered around, laughing and pointing.
The next morning when I gingerly slid down the stairs from my bedroom in my parents’ home on my backside, my knee the size of a basketball, I explained what had happened — leaving out the part about Mogen David.
My parents were not ones to go running a kid to the doctor at the drop of a hat or a momentarily dislocated knee.
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” they said. “You’ll be OK. It’ll probably stiffen up on you some when you get old and decrepit.”
Well, I’m here to announce as 2009 turns to 2010, I am officially “Old and Decrepit.” Now and then throughout the holidays, a stabbing pain would shoot through The Knee, quick but excruciating.
I am gripped by waves of nausea. White knuckled, I grip the edge of the desk and silently curse Chubby Checker.
