60 Plus Omaha - July/August

60 OMAHA plus

July/August 2021

Lyle & Deborah Waterhouse

Page 78

“The “The people that come into square dancing and stay with it realize realize that they're in a community that isn't just their block or or their their city, but they're in a community that expands and contracts contracts based on wherever they want to go.”

-Carol -Carol Weaklend

60+ FEATURE // STORY BY CHRIS BOWLING PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

Ferris Wheels, Squares, & Spinning Tops ONE AMERICAN TRADITION KEEPS US CONNECTED he love affair started six years ago. Familiar red, white, and blue Fourth of July parade floats promenaded through Lyle Waterhouse’s small town of Missouri Valley, Iowa, about 20 miles northwest of Omaha. Then, the dancers arrived.

Music blared as the couples stepped to the beat, swung each other around, and swapped partners. All the while a man held a microphone, announcing moves in time with the music.

A lightbulb went off—the Waterhouses needed to become square dancers.

The 58-year-old Waterhouse said, “My wife and I just kind of looked at each other and thought, “well, that’s totally us.”

While most people wouldn’t use “irresistible” to describe square dancing, that’s exactly how diehard fans like Waterhouse see the organized blend of music, dance, and socializing. And he’s not alone.

Across America, clubs gather in churches, schools, and performance halls to socialize and continue the tradition of this authentically American dance. In Nebraska alone, the state’s square and round dance association lists 28 clubs, including the Sandhill Twirlers, Prairie Promenaders, and the Heartland Singles.

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Music today ranges from the aforementioned fiddle tunes to songs like “Live it Up,” a synth-heavy pop song by Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez. hile many of those dances satisfy the stereotype of cowboy boots, swishing dresses, and country western music, modern square dancing has come a long way.

There’s clubs for families, grandparents and their grandkids, singles, and couples.

There’s clubs around the world, gay and lesbian clubs, and even more, said Carol Weaklend, an Omaha native and square dancer.

“That’s all it is,” she said. “It’s truly an activity for everybody.”

Weaklend, 71, got her start square dancing in 1968. She was a freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her roommate in the Selleck Quadrangle asked if she wanted to take a trip. There was going to be a square dance in her roommate’s hometown, Odell.

Like a lot of people, Weaklend remembered square dancing from awkward school events. She still gave it a shot, driving in her Dodge Dart 50 miles south of Lincoln to Odell. Nearly a half century later, she’s still dancing.

Across the world, organized and traditional dances are essential cultural touchstones. Square dancing dates back to English quadrilles brought to the North American colonies. As the dances spread, regions such as Appalachia and the West added their own flavor. By the time Weaklend was dancing in Odell, square dancing had its own music, standard moves, and structure.

Today, modern “mainstream” square dancing follows many similar rules. A caller announces from a repertoire of about 70 moves to dancers organized in squares of four couples. Dances usually last a few hours and take place in community spaces.

Waterhouse found the activity instantly clicked with him and his wife, Deborah.

“The more that we did it, the more that we got into it,” he said. “The more that we learned of the actual dance...it was the thing that had us hungering for a little bit more.”

Waterhouse considers it an art. The caller directs a crowd of people through movement and sound, piecing together the dance knowing full well it could break down at any minute.

Still, no one’s going to be upset if someone is learning and breaks the square.

That’s part of the fun.

“There’s something so nuanced about it,” Waterhouse said. “It’s a little bit different for each individual who’s participating, but it really is something that you come to and create something [special] together.”

Through it she met her husband, traveled, and made close friends. And even as square dancing changed, the root of what makes it so fun remained.

While many in grade school learned to do-si-do to “Turkey in the Straw” or “Buffalo Gals,” music today ranges from the aforementioned fiddle tunes to songs like “Live it Up,” a synth-heavy pop song

by Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez, of which a square-dancing friendly version is available on the site musicforcallers.com.

“The people that come into square dancing and stay with it realize that they’re in a community that isn’t just their block or their city,” Weaklend said, “but they’re in a community that expands and contracts based on wherever they want to go.”

Golf polos are as common as pearl buttons. Clubs that once only allowed couples are now usually open to everybody. Conventions have become increasingly more diverse as square dancing continues to be popular in countries such as China and Japan.

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Even the way folk dances are taught is changing. Whereas Weaklend learned to square dance for Nebraska History Month back in the ‘60s, today’s kids learn dances from around the world.

Tom Michalek has taught music in schools for more than 30 years. The 52-year-old teaches kindergarten through fifth graders in Hastings with a curriculum that includes playing instruments, reading music, and folk dancing.

Because music and dance connects us in a way other things can’t. Especially in an age where everyone is simultaneously more connected and disconnected, creative expression reconnects us to a collective identity, or lets us find a moment of calm.

That’s the common thread, whether it’s folk dances around the world or the square dancing taking place in a local school gym. While it’s fun to dance, sing, and laugh off each other’s mistakes over a momentary water break, what keeps people coming back is the sense of belonging to something greater than themselves.

Waterhouse is excited to get back to it, especially as dances return in the Omaha metro area. A lot of other people feel the same way, he said. And while he doesn’t foresee square dancing ever rising to the prominence of another cultural phenomena, all that matters is that for the people who love it, they know it’ll still be there.

“I don’t foresee the time in Omaha that we have, you know, 50 squares going at whatever venue downtown,” Waterhouse said. “But to have those opportunities continue and to have six or seven squares on at a social hall, or in a church someplace…I perceive that as something that would exist in this area for a good long time going forward.”

Visit squaredanceomaha.org or squaredancene.org for more information.

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A Look at Rich History of The Music Box

Psychedelic Godfathers and Punk-Rock Gods Nils Erickson recalls looking up in awe at famed harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite.

Erickson was getting ready to run sound for the burgeoning blues legend during a packed show at The Music Box in downtown Omaha.

Then, Musselwhite did something Erickson didn't expect. He pulled the youthful sound technician aside. "He told me, you know, some of these kids run sound, but you look like you know what you're doing.”

Erickson said.

“Get the sound...then go dance."

That's what The Music Box was for so many people, a chance to stand mere feet away from rock idols and blues gods—and it was a place that so many countless Omahans used for that purpose exactly.

It was a place, and a chance, for a young kid to run sound for a man who would become an icon, and—above all—a place where you always, always could dance.

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“It was considered kind of an underground, hippie place in the early ‘70s.” - Nils Erickson

recorded him. You would have a little tiny tape deck, a little reel-to-reel tape deck. And Jerry was kind of moping around, afterwards, because he thought he had done a really terrible job. And he and my buddy actually sat there and listened to the show, and then Jerry was like 'oh, that's not so bad.'”

Erickson recounts the mid-week shows, giving thanks for the central location of The Music Box and crediting the Lincoln Highway and its Omaha through-line that cut from Chicago to Denver as a big part of why such massive acts would come to town on a Wednesday or Thursday night.

“Almost every week,” Erikson recalled. “A lot of bands would just pick up a date at The Music Box to get gas money. Where someone else was paying them a couple grand, we might be paying them a hundred bucks.”

Ask anyone over the age of 70 who’s from Omaha about it. Or, look it up online with just a few quick words in the Google search box: “The Music Box, Omaha, NE” and you’ll see how the place served as more than just a place to listen to Glenn Miller’s latest hits.

When Jimmy Carter was president and a comic-strip cat that hated Mondays as much as he loved lasagna was only a couple months old, there was one place to be on a frosty, pre-Thanksgiving night for those who wanted to rock out.

That was when people like Omaha native Nancy Neurohr attended shows at The Music Box. “It was considered kind of an underground, hippie place in the early ’70s.”

She said. Remarking that the signature atmosphere was very different than what you’d see at a show today. “It was smoky and dark.” She recalled.

The fabled Omaha concert hall loomed large in Omaha’s early days of rock, roll, and all the rest.

That was the first Music Box. The OG before anyone used the term OG; a ballroom located in downtown Omaha where big bands played and military boys, who were soon-to-be-men, would find themselves staring at a girl and all that war-honed bravado would suddenly melt into the shiny shoes they were swaying in.

It was a place to find young love; a place where young people of a certain age could forget about the bleak, uncertainties of a war raging across the ocean and instead focus their glowing eyes on the person they were about to ask to dance.

It was a place where many, many young couples met and you’ll see it in their wedding anniversary notes from local publications, gilded remembrances of a place long gone but a moment never left behind.

Erickson, owner of Rainbow Recording Studios and resident historian of The Music Box has a few stories of his own.

Not from the big band days. But from days when The Music Box was landing big bands.

He’ll tell you of packed houses and wild moments. He’ll mention nights spent with Frank Zappa’s band, The Mothers of Invention, and casually drop tales of interactions with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead.

“Jerry thought his guitar kept going out of tune,” Erickson said, recounting one of the two times the world-famous group played The Music Box. “So one of my friends actually loaned him his guitar to play. And then another friend of mine

He remembers asking for spare change in front of the building and, when that didn’t work, digging deep into his bag of teenage tricks.

“You’d get your hand stamped and then your friend would lick their hand and you’d put your hands together and get two for the price of one!” he said, laughing about the old ways they used to monitor the entrance to shows.

As the years progressed, so did the music, even if the building and its patrons remained the same age.

In the late 1970s, the Ramones would stomp out onto the stage at The Music Box, wearing their patented leather jackets and dark glasses, and sneering with the perma-smirk glower of the too-cool punk-rock bad boys.

Soon one of the Ramone boys would shout out a wild, staccato, four-number countdown, and they would rocketlaunch into the opening strains of their hit song about Rockaway Beach and the simpler times before they became rock sensations and front-line fighters against “the man” and disco. That was on Friday, Nov. 17, 1978—one of the last times people danced at The Music Box downtown. In the early 2000s, another venue called The Music Box brought to Omaha the neo-beatnik sounds of bands such as Grateful Dead cover band Dark Star Orchestra and Donna the Buffalo at 77th and Cass Streets, but that closed in 2004.

The hand stamps may be long gone, but the memories are indelible.

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60+ ACTIVE LIVING // STORY BY KARA SCHWEISS // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY

ike many natives of Omaha, Susan Henshaw remembers visiting Joslyn Art Museum as a gradeschool student. Her father told stories about seeing Sarah Joslyn out and about near the neighborhood he grew up in, not far from Sarah and George Joslyn’s Gold Coast mansion. The Central High School alumna enjoyed the daily view of the museum’s Georgia pink marble facade throughout her teen years.

“I’ve always been drawn to it,” Henshaw said. She became a regular visitor to the fine arts museum as an adult, and as a member and supporter, even during her busiest working years in the insurance and banking industries. In 2001, an ad in the members’ magazine for weekend volunteers caught her attention.

“It was kind of like an epiphany,” she recalled. “And the rest is history.”

“If you think about the number of visitors she’s assisted and the number of people she’s helped connect with the museum, her reach in 20 years is kind of limitless.”

KATIE HERRING “The time Susan has spent with us has been shared amongst a variety of different positions previously, and she’s actually holding five different volunteer positions at the current time,” Membership Manager and Campaign Assistant Katie Herring said.

The contributions of volunteers like Henshaw are essential to the nonprofit Joslyn Art Museum, Herring said.

Henshaw serves as a Joslyn Information Assistant, the same position in which she began volunteering 20 years ago. Her other work includes development volunteer, Hitchcock Museum Shop volunteer, ticket-taker volunteer, and volunteer trainer. Herring likens her to an “auxiliary staff person.” // 84 //

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“She has such a passion for the museum and is so willing to help with anything we can think of asking her…The help from her as a volunteer is completely unmeasurable,” Herring said. “Her volunteerism has assisted us in more ways than we can count, and that’s just for the staff. If you think about the number of visitors she’s assisted and the number of people she’s helped connect with the museum, her reach in 20 years is kind of limitless.”

Henshaw’s volunteer training was scheduled shortly after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, a period when people were staying close to home following the shock and uncertainty of a national tragedy. She recalled that the museum was nearly empty when she arrived for volunteer training and that her conversations with the trainer echoed in the open spaces. “It was almost kind of eerie.”

Before she retired from her 27-year career at First National Bank (“If I like something, I stick with it.”), Henshaw primarily served at the museum as a weekend JIA. Once her schedule opened, she was able to cross-train into more positions.

Henshaw said she’s been able to apply much of her professional experience to her volunteer work at the museum, with attention to detail that long ago became second nature. “Working for a bank, you have to be awfully careful what you’re doing,” she explained.

Henshaw said she has also enjoyed the opportunities that allow her to reach outside her comfort zone, such as working in the Hitchcock Museum Shop.

“I’d never worked retail, so I was hesitant to try,” she said. “But I’ve learned so much.”

Henshaw said she especially enjoys her interactions there with the youngest patrons. She’s become acquainted with the museum regulars, and when Joslyn gets busy during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting or the College World Series, Henshaw looks forward to making new connections.

“You would not believe the people that I have spoken to from all over the world,” Henshaw said.

“I can’t draw a straight line. I have taken the art classes [at Joslyn] and the instructors are always very kind, but I have no artistic talent whatsoever.”

SUSAN HENSHAW She enjoys the constant exposure to the museum’s artworks in its permanent collections, and Henshaw said she has also seen so many impressive exhibitions over the years that it’s impossible to choose a favorite. But she leaves the creation of art to others.

“I can’t draw a straight line. I have taken the art classes [at Joslyn] and the instructors are always very kind, but I have no artistic talent whatsoever,” she said.

As a former volunteer, Herring said she understands why Henshaw keeps giving her time and talent to the museum.

“There’s a certain level of satisfaction to be able to help engage people at the museum, to see that excitement on an adult’s or child’s face alike, when they see something they’ve never seen before or they’re genuinely excited about something,” she said.

Henshaw said her volunteer experience has enriched her life.

“They always tell me ‘thank you’ when I leave, but I’ve learned so much about the inside workings of a nonprofit from them and the staff is just amazing.” she said. “I have made great friends there, and I have learned so many new things.”

Visit joslyn.org for more information.

Drawn To it Headline Volunteer Celebrates Subhead 20 Years at Joslyn

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Steve Yonedas f Happines o s nt

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ife’s W o is L rk

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Talents y n a M

60+ Profile // STORY BY LEO ADAM BIGA // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY decade ago, Steve Yoneda found himself stuck in a midlife crisis. It took surviving stage-four colon cancer for this Hawaii transplant to reorient his priorities.

“When I look back, I was just a miserable human being, obsessed with, well-whatabout-me, what-about-what-I-want,” Yoneda said. “It sounds weird, but cancer really saved my life. I realized the only thing I want is for my wife and kids to be happy.”

Cancer-free now six years, he’s free, too, of the negativity that once cast a shadow over everything.

“Unless you actually go through something like that, it’s hard to really take to heart changing your mindset,” Yoneda said. “You realize all that space in your head those negative thoughts take up.

Now it’s like my mind is clear.”

“If making someone else happy makes you happy, then that’s all there is , man.”

-Steve Yoneda “If making someone else happy makes you happy, then that’s all there is, man,” he continued. These days, part of what is making him happy is dedicating himself to wife Deb and daughters Elyssa and Lindsey.

Yoneda, 62, is a craftsman with the heart of an artist. “My eyes tell my hands what to do.” He owns SY Construction, where he creates custom carvings and murals for clients that often draw on the cultural palettes of Hawaii and his Japanese heritage. Water, sky, and floral imagery abound in his work that graces homes and businesses.

A musician since youth, the acoustic guitarist and singer performs solo and with his band The Coconuts.

He came to Nebraska when classmates left the big island to attend Creighton University in the 1980s. He followed, not for school, but to hang out.

“I always was attracted to the mainland,” Yoneda said. “I like the difference. I like the change of seasons.”

There’s a sizable Hawaiian contingent in the metro, where he found a laidback culture not unlike home. He met Deb, an Omaha native, here. She’s Jewish and he grew up Buddhist. The couple’s daughters made a birthright trip to Israel.

Within the Yonedas' circle of friends, he said, “In true Hawaii style Deb and I are ‘Auntie’ and ‘Uncle’ to all of their kids, as they are to ours.”

He was a teppanyaki cook at the former House of Genji and a display artist for J.C. Penney’s at Westroads Mall.

Yoneda and two island bros he reconnected with here, Mike Baysa and Eric Ramelb, formed the original Coconuts.

Their public debut came at the annual Creighton Hawaii Club luau. They played at Mai Tai Lounge and Mai Tai West. More recently, Vino Mas and Ono Pinay Kitchen became the band’s home base. They’ve also played weddings, private parties, and backyard concerts.

Ramelb has since departed the band but still drops in to harmonize. John Kreifels sometimes plays congas and cajon with the group.

A typical Saturday night Coconuts gig features Hawaiian music the first set, with the rest of the night devoted to covers of singers such as Jimmy Buffett, or Ed Sheeran. “Just good times,” Yoneda calls the intimate gigs. His solo sets on Thursdays feature the darker tunes he personally gravitates to.

“I am drawn to any song that tells a story,” Yoneda said. “When I sing, I close my eyes and actually try to live the song. I don’t have any illusions about having a great voice. but I know I can get to what the story of the song is and relay it to people.”

Vino Mas owner-manager Deanna Albertson said, “Steve’s warmth and personality shine when he’s playing. He and his group make you feel like you’re sitting in their living room and they’re just jamming out. There’s a little island flair to everything they play. We’re eager to have Steve and The Coconuts back this summer.”

“I am drawn to any song that tells a story. When I sing, I close my eyes and actually try to live the song.”

-Steve Yoneda As Yoneda’s matured, he’s taken his music more seriously. “I’m only now concentrating on the musicianship part of it. I think it's good I'm doing it so late in life. I'm not jaded and burned out.

Everything is new and exciting.”

Creative pursuits run in the family. His daughter Lindsey is an artist who has designed and sold T-shirts and is a musician (her dad taught her guitar) who plays in the band Ghostlike. Daughter Elyssa is an interior designer. A niece is an architecture student and Yoneda collaborated with her in designing and building a garden bridge.

As “an old guy,” Yoneda can’t relate to much new music. He eschews high-tech devices for pen and paper to curate songs.

“I enjoy writing a song’s lyrics down word by word because as I do it I get to know the song. You’ll find a phrase you never noticed before and it makes the story clear to you.”

In the throes of crisis, he followed that ritual for the Colin Hay song “Beautiful World” and was struck by how a subtle shift in verse—“perhaps this is as good as it gets” to “yeah, this is as good as it gets”—offered “a totally different perspective.” “And now this song is like my life anthem,” he said.

Yoneda’s artwork can be viewed at @ Stephen-Yoneda-Art.

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60+ e Prim e T im KAREN FITZGIBBONS // 71 STORY BY DAISY HUTZELL-RODMAN PHOTO BY BILL SITZMANN

Fitzgibbons wore white during her career as a nurse, but her personal sense of style dazzles with many colors of the rainbow.

She became interested in fashion as a teenager in Dedham, Massachusetts, where she realized she could expand her clothing options by sewing her own clothes. She credits her high school home economics teacher for this interest.

Fitzgibbons gained a sense of fashion from that time period by watching models on TV, who wore dirndl skirts with matching belts and blouses, or long-waisted jumpers with a belt on the hips. Fitzgibons particularly recalled a favorite pair of bright yellow T-strap pumps that she coordinated with an orange-and-yellow jumper and orange tights to match her sunny personality.

She said she loves to stay in fashion but wears different clothes than her daughters, who are in their 30s. She stays active by working out a couple times a week, particularly with her stationary bike.

Also influencing Fitzgibbons’ style is the travel she has done with her husband, Robert, a surgeon in Omaha.

Fitzgibbons said her favorite place has been Buenos Aires, Argentina, and she is fond of the suede items she has picked up there.

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