By Kailee Shores
MTSU Seigenthaler News Source
Christmas lights twinkle and a disco ball hang from the ceiling. By day it’s the Franklin County Senior Citizens Center’s community room, but on Friday nights the all-purpose space is transformed into a dance hall.
Men and women of a certain age arrive from miles around to Winchester for the weekly dance. Bob Young’s Band plays live music while groups of people line dance and pairs are two-stepping.
The band plays classic after classic, from Elvis to George Strait to Al Green, timeless music from when the attendees were young and spirited and were up and comers in their small towns. When the band plays the standard from the 1970s, “Ride, Sally, Ride,” the crowd joins in on the chorus, enthusiastically shouting out “Ride Sally Ride!” as they groove to the music.
A cover of “All My Exes Live in Texas” gets the crowd on their feet once again. Paul Arp of Cowan, the resident charmer who loves to two-step, makes his rounds, dancing with any woman who will take his hand. He hardly skips a song throughout the three-hour dance, while line dancers, mostly women, take turns on the floor.
The night is filled with smiles, laughter and music, a lively interruption in the center’s routine schedule of bingo, brain games and yoga.
Kailee Shores is one of nine Middle Tennessee State University journalism students who recently spent two and a half weeks in Franklin County writing stories for the Herald Chronicle. More of their work can be found at www.theroadtripclass.com.