Running Bare
by Scoutmaster Billy S
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, our old American Legion Scout troop had an Indian dance team. We went all over and danced for just about anybody.
Cecil, our scoutmaster, was part Indian anyway, so he saw to it that we knew what we were doing and were dressed in the appropriate costumes.
Most of the dancers, the older boys, wore buckskin pants, leather vests and headdresses with bells. A few dancers wore loincloth.
The younger Scouts wore their uniforms and were used to beat the drums. I was in that group.
One afternoon we were dancing for a downtown ladies' group. We were halfway through our program of eight dances and everything was going fine. One of our best dancers, Frankie, was doing a Snake Dance. He was one of the two dancers wearing a loincloth. Halfway through the dance, Frankie's loincloth dropped to the floor. Without missing a beat, Frankie continued his Indian Two-Step Dance right out the side door and the other dancers followed.
For all practical purposes that program was over. The next two weeks not a whole lot was said about Indian Dancing. We really did not know what was going to come down on us.
The very next Scout meeting, Cecil started by telling us he got a letter from the ladies' group we had danced for. They wrote that they really enjoyed the program and wished we would come back for their next monthly meeting.
Just then, Frankie turned an Indian shade of red.
Copied from The State Journal, I Remember When, Frankfort, Kentucky, March 12, 2002