Beyond the Byline: To the moon and back

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WILKES-BARRE — As we oldtimers get ready to boogie oogie woogie on Saturday, Aug, 3, for the annual Summer Reunion Dance at Irem Temple pavilion with Eddie Day & TNT and Which Doctor, my thoughts turn to Sans Souci Park in 1969.

As Frankie Valli sang, “Oh, what a Night!”

The pavilion at Sans Souci was packed with kids that night, waiting for the music to start. It seemed like every local high school and college was represented and when the first song started, it was a shoulder-to-shoulder dance party.

This was the scene back then at every local venue — Sans Souci, Sandy Beech, Hanson’s, Wilkes, King’s, CYC — everywhere!

But this night was to be different. It would be historical. It would be inter-galactic.

It was Saturday, July 19, 1969 — the night we danced the night away and the night of the first lunar landing.

Yes, Apollo 11 landed on the moon as we danced and Neil Armstrong became the first human being ever to step foot on the moon, saying those memorable words: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

And then Buzz Aldrin became the second person to walk on the moon. While Armstrong and Aldrin were frolicking on the moon, Michael Collins flew the command module.

As hundreds of local kids danced to the hits of July 1969, we all stopped when the time came to watch history.

Sans Souci had a closed circuit broadcast of the moon landing set up in the dance hall. We all stood wide-eyed and amazed at what was happening some 238,855 miles away.

Did we think for even one second that this all as fake? A movie production? Absolutely not. We knew we were watching history.

We cheered when Armstrong took that first step. We were proud Americans, for sure. Every time there was a space mission, America watched and marveled.

Now here we are 55 years later and we are still dancing. Buzz Aldrin, 94, is the last surviving member of the Apollo 11 crew.

A couple of years ago, Eddie Day Pashinski related why he enjoys these reunion dances so much.

“I see the joy on people’s faces,” he said. “And they forget their age. They only remember those good old days.”

And another sold-out crowd will be there again to relive those glory days of Sandy Beach and Hanson’s and Sans Souci dances that brought many of these same people together forever. Many couples who met 55 years ago remain together. They have children, grandchildren and, in some cases, great-grandchildren.

The Irem Summer Reunion dances were started by Eddie Day and Joe Nardone — two icons of the local music scene for decades. Both were among the first to be inducted into the Luzerne County Arts & Entertainment Hall of Fame last year.

The “youngsters of yesterday” will seize the chance to re-live all the fun they had for so many years. And they will swing and sway the way they used to back in the day.

”When you hear music you first heard as a kid, somehow the years seem to melt away — and it’s a good feeling,” Nardone told me last year. “They have no other place to go to dance to the music of their era.”

On Saturday, Aug. 2, for four hours, attendees will hear their favorite songs and they will forget about those aches and pains. They will renew friendships. They will tell stories. They will laugh and at times, they will cry.

“We absolutely feel blessed that at this time in our lives, we’re still together, making music and seeing people we haven’t seen in decades,” Pashinski told me last year. “We’re all reliving our youth — and that’s what this is all about.”

Those Sandy Beach and Hanson’s and Sans Souci dances always come up when we gather for events or dinners. The stories never get old and they seem to become even funnier the older we get.

For the kids in Plymouth, on Friday or Saturday evenings, we would meet in front of C. Matus News on West Main Street, to hold up the parking meters and watch the world go by — passing time until we headed out to the dances.

We would jump in the car and head over the mountain. We would arrive at “the Beach” as hundreds of other kids just like us were arriving and walking up the steps to the second floor dance hall.

As we walked up those steps, we could hear the music — Eddie Day & the Nightimers were wailing away and the dance floor was packed. “Gimmee Some Lovin,” “Louie Louie,” and “I Got a Line On You,” were our favorites.

We would work up a sweat and at intermission, we would run down the steps, onto the beach and into the cool waters of Harveys Lake. We would still be pretty damp when we returned to the dance floor, but it didn’t matter.

This was fun, fun, fun til my dad took the Plymouth Valiant away.

Sandy Beach no longer has the large public beach area with its white sand that was home to hundreds of beach blankets and transistor radio-listening kids tuned into WARM, the Mighty 590.

We learned so much. We grew up socially. We found answers to many questions we were afraid to ask about — well, about a lot.

We didn’t have much back then, compared to today. But we had it all where it counts most — in school, at home, in church, in the neighborhood.

Whether it was on the street corner, in the pool hall, in the school yard, or at the dinner table, we learned about life in the best of ways.

For kids just out of high school and still trying to figure out what the world had to offer, these were the best of times.

We really did have fun back in the day. And we were just trying to figure out the world. We were always well-behaved and we always had fun.

And we all turned out pretty darn good. We all went on to live full lives and we have enjoyed the ride.

Even if we didn’t make it to the moon.