Skating and Dancing

While we were in Charleston some of the snipes (enginemen) when they were going up for their next rate would come over to our house and Chuck would help them study. One night Chuck and Rocky were talking about skating after study was over.

Rocky was a little shy and I asked him if he liked to dance, he said he had never learned how to. So I made a deal with him if he and Chuck would teach me how to roller skate I would teach him how to dance.

A Roller Rink

And every time he came to study afterwards we would practice dancing later. He did learn to dance! They took me skating, and they both tried to teach me how to skate, but I never got the hang of how to remain upright even with them holding me up one on either side and I finally called it quits, there are only so many bruises that one body can take!

To celebrate Rocky’s learning to dance we decided to go out on a double date to the old Fan-Tan Club, and if memory serves it was on King Street. We met him and his date for the evening there.

Jitterbug

He was doing a jitterbug with the young lady who was his date for the evening and when he swung her, somehow the heel of her shoe caught in the cuff of the man’s pant leg of the couple dancing next to them on the dance floor.

It happened so fast, the man fell and she fell on top of him, Rocky still had hold of her hand and he snatched her up, up and away so quickly. 

The poor guy gets up and is totally dumbfounded as to how he fell, and the lady he was dancing with never missed a beat. I don’t think she even realized that he had fallen.

It was so funny and I still chuckle about it after all these years! And he will kill me if he ever sees me again for telling this story.

Rocky was a powerhouse of work muscle, there was a guy on the Boat who kept asking him what course, what course?

And one day Rocky asked Chuck, “C B what is he talking about?” Chuck said, “He is asking you what kind of body building course you took to build all of those muscles.” 

Rocky answered, “The only body building course I ever took was moving rocks around, following the backside of a mule on the hills of Tennessee.” And this was how he got the nickname Rocky!

Rocky had a plan to invest in pig farming and did a good deal of research, and the other thing he did was save as much of his pay as he possibly could. 

When his hitch in the Navy was up he went back home and he eventually realized his dream and became one of the largest pig farmers in the State of Tennessee.