The Blue Moon. The Lyndwood. Don’s Ballroom. The Showboat. All those places and many others like them still have the power to bring back memories.

The mid 20th century was a time when car culture was new. The open road was a pleasure rather than an inconvenience.

Many people took to the highways, traveled more often to other towns in rural regions. One of the most popular evening destinations was the dance hall.

When I was growing up they were places for the younger adults and for some older ones as well. By the time I was old enough to drive, dance halls had already started to face a lot of competition for people’s time.

My own life centered first on high school, then college, then work as a young professional. I missed out the twilight of the dance hall. I have some sense of what they represented, however, because of square dancing in elementary school, the tradition of wedding dances and the dance movies of my teenage years.

The square dancing was an interesting part of physical education class. It started before boys and girls began to like each other, back when you had a boys line and a girls line.

With square dancing you had to dance with the opposite gender. It seemed awkward in some ways, but the teacher just pointed out that it’s something grown ups do. That made sense. We learned a good lesson in socializing.

Wedding dances had the same kind of value. It was a chance to learn to dance in the company of family, and the family of the other half in the wedding party.

No one really cared if children didn’t dance all of the steps correctly. It was just fun to see them out on the dance floor having a good time. They were part of what made weddings an event to remember.

The pop culture of the 1970s and 1980s had a healthy dose of dancing. I was a little too young to fully appreciate Saturday Night Fever and the movie Fame, but the 1980s dance movies are among my all-time box office favorites.

I still have the record album for Footloose, as well as cassette tapes for Flashdance and Dirty Dancing. They were all great examples of youth culture in America.

They had young people coming of age, young couples discovering themselves and the meaning of life. They also had the older generation, characters such as John Lithgow’s Reverend Moore and Jerry Orbach’s Dr. Houseman.

The youth and enthusiasm shines forth. It outlasts the conventional wisdom of the establishment. Dancing became a valuable form of self-expression rather than just a youthful pastime.

When the different cultural influences are added together, they demonstrate how dance had a fundamental role in the 20th century way of life. In some respects it’s started to become a lost art. There are hardly any dance halls left. Some weddings have started to feature only a reception.

I had a conversation with some friends last week at a holiday party that called to mind the traditional dance halls. We all agreed that there would be benefits if they could make at least a mild comeback.

The greatest benefit was the social value. They were places where people went to have fun and to meet others. They were for everyone, for people from all walks of life and for those with many different interests.

The dance tradition might never be fully revived, but it’s well remembered. It’s found in stories about how parents and grandparents socialized, how some of them first met their spouses.

They reflect the value of bringing communities together. We shouldn’t just go home at night and cocoon with television and the Internet. We should instead take time to enjoy life with our families, friends and neighbors.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent