The SOC HOP stories

The plumes of dust from the gravel road boiled across the cow pasture like puffs of thick smoke as the cars turned west off old 69 highway, past the farm pond on the corner and then headed down the rutted road toward the aging white barn. A wooden sign on a post proclaimed the dusty road to be 95th street. The Dickinson farm sat there west of the two lane road now known as Metcalf Avenue. As suburban sprawl began, the farmland was being sold off. The old Angus cattle show barn had long ago been abandoned, empty for nearly ten years. It took our families much hard work, but in early 1960 my uncle, Ed Bowers and my dad, Mike Weaver opened the areas greatest ever dance hall, bringing live music to the old barn they called The Soc Hop. The stalls on the lower floor were converted to dining stalls with picnic tables, though some contained pinball machines or pool tables. The grain bin upstairs was dismantled and rebuilt as a stage. A flexible oak dance floor about 100' X 40' was installed and theater seats lined the walls. Constant cleaning and lots of dance wax kept the floor slick like ice. My Aunt Doris manned the front door, collecting your dollar and stamping your hand with invisible ink that you had to show under a black light to get back in if you went outside to cool off or to neck with your date in the back seat of the car. ( I often went outside to cool off, though my mom or my aunt were always watching to see that I went out by myself.) My mom handled the snack bar, providing burgers, hot dogs, french fries and ten cent cokes to the throngs of sweaty teens who danced the nights away. When I wasn't upstairs dancing, I helped in the Snack Bar, filling cups with ice or manning the grill. I was usually the one who unlocked the door to let the band in to warm up and was usually also the one who locked the door after everyone else had already gone home and after doing some basic clean up. I usually waited until the next day to do the major cleaning, as it took several hours to get it ready after a really good night, which was usually a thousand to fifteen hundred of us really kool kids dancing to some really great music. We were dancing to the sounds of Roger Calkins and The Fabulous Silvertones featuring Frank Plas on lead guitar, Rich Stoy on bass, Mike Weakley on drums or one of the other popular bands of those wonderful days of early Rock. Other great names that come to mind are Larry Emmettt and The Sliders, The Bygones, Gary Mac and The Mac Truque, The Holidays, Danny Gregory and The Roulettes, Jack Nead and The Jumpin’ Jacks and Paul Schlapper and The Night Riders, just to name a few. These were the pioneers of Rock & Roll in Kansas City and many of them live on today, if but only in the memories of those of us who were there. The Soc Hop’s presence in the old barn lasted only a few years, as the encroaching housing developments required quieter Saturday nights than was allowed by the usual thousand or so teens . So the Soc Hop moved to a new home in Lenexa, on the west frontage road south of 87th & I-35, and continued for several years serving the dancing needs of hundreds of teens. When someone says, "Those were the days" it’s the Soc Hop nights that I remember. The first ever Soc Hop reunion is being held on Thurs. August 31 at Knuckleheads Saloon in Kansas City and will feature old timers Frank Plas, Danni Gregory, Gary Mac and others. Hope to see you there. You know, we were kool, when it was really kool to be kool. There are literally thousands of SOC HOP stories out there. If your memory is still good enough to remember yours, please post it here and share it with all so the "The SOC HOP will live forever". Michael Weaver may be sixty years old, but the memory of those times helps keep me young at heart. Special thanks to Joe Sherrick for helping make a very old dream come true. See you at the SOC HOP reunion

# posted by Michael Weaver @ 7:14 PM