Clear the Floor, Ma, The Kids Might Be Doing Some More of That Crazy Jazz Dancing

how to dance the Charleton - footwork chart My younger brother was a real comic as a teenager. Night after night, doing the dishes after supper, his song-and-dance routines used to get the rest of us just splitting our sides with laughing.

(Notice I’m not telling you my brother’s name? — that’s because I enjoy my life and limbs intact, and would prefer to keep it all that way, even if he finds out that I’m telling about his entertaining teenage years!)

As I recall, he did a great straight-faced parody of different tunes from our parents’ collection of funny old LPs — I can still almost hear him singing the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” in a basement-deep voice, doing a cool little jive step, making goo-goo eyes at his dish-towel dance partner.

And there was a sort of Russian-inspired squat-kicking dance routine he did sometimes, and an Al Jolson (“Swanee River” era) impression… but my all-time favourite After-Dinner Show was when my brother danced the Charleston.

See, he’s a tall man, my younger brother.

And he was one of those tall skinny impossibly-long-legged teenagers.

So you can just imagine how that whole Charleston loose-jointed, leg-sliding, knee-crossing fast Roaring Twenties jazz-baby style llooked when those long legs got flying!
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Real-World Renovation: 1920s Prairie Box: Painting the Living Room

Renovation adventures make for lively reading — it’s all the fun of a full-blown home makeover, only someone else does the work and pays the bills!

1920s house living room paint color scheme Somewhere out there in rural Indiana, USA, a 1920s foursquare house is getting a major makeover.

Although is is in very good shape structurally, the previous previous owners (PPOs) had very bad taste and strange ways of making improvements. The last owners started to straighten things out, but were forced to relocate before they got very far. My husband and I are working on finishing the job and restoring our home to as much of its original appearance as is possible and practical.

The homeowners are DIYers with ambition, fair skillls, and a good sense of personal style — but even with a clear idea of what you like, aesthetically, and what you want to achieve with your home… sometimes it just comes down to trial and error.

Case in point, redecorating the living room.

Here, the planned colour scheme is just lovely — rich and home-feeling and appropriate to the vintage and character of this old house. But when the gorgeous copper-red paint paint went on the walls, something just didn’t feel quite right about it.
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