Middle School Dances and Milking Parlors

I mentioned in my first post that I am an elementary school principal. My dad has been a school administrator for almost 30 years. I had some on the job training from an early age. I grew up in a family of educators and dairy farmers. My earliest recollections of any kind can be traced back to two places - a school or a farm. When I wasn't tagging along with my dad for various events, I was hanging out at the farm with my grandparents and uncles. I remember that my dad would actually take me to middle school dances in the 80s when he would have supervision duty. I also remember that I was completely unsupervised. I wonder how many parents would take their kids to a middle school dance today and just let their 5 or 6 year old just wander around 😃? These dances were held in the 80s, long before R. Kelly had released Bump-N-Grind, so looking back on it - what was going on with students probably was fairly innocent. I remember this being the time of hair bands and somewhat hard rock. Rap/Hip-Hop was still emerging and did not have heavy rotation in a rural setting (mostly just Tone Loc and Young MC). Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Michael Jackson and George Michael seemed to be in heavy rotation. So was stonewash and hairspray. I remember looking forward to these dances immensely as a child. They are something that I will never forget. If you went to Prairie Heights Middle School in the 80s, you may remember me busting a move to "You Shook Me All Night Long".

As for the milk parlor portion of this post - if you've ever been to a farm of any kind, a radio is always playing. It must be an unwritten rule somewhere in the annals of farming. The music usually comes from an old radio secured to a nail via a loop of binder twine. You never really change the station - ever. I remember the radio always being on WRKR - 107.7 out of Kalamazoo, MI. They've always been a classic rock station that you could barely reach in Northeast Indiana unless you had the antenna bent just right. Our old radio was in the milking parlor hung up next to boxes of Mt. Dew (another family love). I'm pretty sure our radio had cow manure on it. This is one of the first times that I can recall falling in love with Bob Seger. I'm not sure if its true, but my uncle used to play keyboard in a band in the 70s (I apologize for vagueness) and they would open for Seger before he was big via regional shows. That certainly added to my love of Seger. My family always jokes that Bob Seger is our family artist/band. I think part of it is that my aunts and uncles all grew up when he was huge (still is huge) and he's from Michigan. In a day and age when we upgrade everything all the time - you reflect upon all of the things you remember as a child that stood the test of time. I'm pretty sure that radio is somewhere still playing WRKR.

Who is your family's Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band?

I'm grateful for those memories growing up in the town of Orland, IN. I'll share in later posts about how growing up in a farming family in small-town Indiana left me at a crossroads in certain situations.