Lost in a world of his own - a Haibun

                                                                         Credit: Imperial Swing Orchestra 
                                                                                                   - The Girl With The Crimson Hair
Image: Image Courtesy of Tran Quoc Duong (here)

The Prose
He trudged along. Glassy-eyed, looking down. Not entirely focused but lost in a world of his own, aimlessly. He had alighted from the bus, walked a few blocks and was now hungry. He liked that part of the neighborhood. He quickened his pace. He aimed for the seat at the corner, his favorite spot. The same spot. Strangely enough it was always available even when other seats around it were taken..

How he loved to watch the crowd walking by, the beauty of an ‘al fresco’ with the fresh breeze that tousled his hair lightly as he sat sipping his ‘cuppa’

The dance hall was right there across the road. Its entrance that led to a lobby was wide open in early evenings. He could eye everyone who made a bee-line for it. He could not help but reflected on how it had been. He had been around. Those were the good old days still vivid in memory. He just loved to look across with thoughts far away.

A swinger himself once and proud to be one. How he held others spell-bound with all the moves for which a swinger was held in high esteem

He considered himself lucky, he was lucky! Could not have been a better environment growing up. He had an elder sister whom he used to tag along . She turned out to be an accomplished dancer in her teen years. That was the time when he too began to be interested in girls his age.

“ I used to hear loud music from your room and you were jumping
   around apparently” he quipped one day.
“ What! She retorted! I wasn’t jumping around. I was swinging”

That opened the Pandora’s box and he had been swinging ever since. Elder sister ought to be ‘tickled’ in a way that she would like to ‘show-off’ her prowess on the dance-floor. He got his free lessons on the jitterbug routine blended into the Charleston all at home.

He also learned a valuable lesson too which he used liberally in life. The way to a man’s heart was the stomach so he had heard. Likewise there was a sure-fire way to a girl’s heart. It was ‘appreciation coupled with compliments and doses of innocent flattery’ liberally extended. He had been so advised. Sure enough. It worked on his sister. That way he got her to be ‘his dance teacher’ at no cost. It worked all the time with the other girls just as well!

He remembered fondly his idols those that kept him company on the floor. Those whose names were on everyone’s lips. The evenings would have dragged on otherwise. These were the ‘sixties’ more ‘roaring’ perhaps than the ‘roaring forties’

There was Frankie ‘Blue Eyes’ Sinatra, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald  Elvis ‘the Pelvis’ (a handle he abhorred) Satchmo with his faithful trumpet belting songs with ‘the frog in his throat’ They were all riding on the popularity of ‘pop music’. The 'carry-over’ from music established by the band-leaders of the Swing Era the likes of Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
(531 words, 2923 characters)

The Haiku
Never been so good
The privileged generation
The Swinging Sixties

For MLMM's Music Challenge Friday Prompt #20
 - to respond in any form inspired by the video