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I played in a "country dance band" for seven years. We played a circuit in Eastern North Carolina. This was back when "line dancing" was just hitting it's popularity. During those seven years, the members of the band learned an awful lot about people in general if they were paying any attention like I was, and we learned just how awful the lot of us could be without even trying.

I ran into one guy who insisted that he had been addicted to line dancing but he finally kicked the habit thanks to a two-step program.

The lead guitarist of the band must've been a clone of Robert Preston's character Harold Hill from the movie "The Music Man". In fact, Eddie could recite the whole "Trouble, that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool" routine as if from the heart.
Eddie was knocking on fifty at the time, and he was a slight, skinny little bugger that could play the heck out of his Les Paul. One night during a break at a club in Jacksonville, NC (which was frequented by members of the US Marine Corps who were stationed at Camp Lejeune) Eddie decided to go and play pool with a few of the Marines.

Eddie'd put on just as innocent a face, and as he looked up at the towering fighting machines, he asked, "So, you fellas with the Marines?" The "jar heads" chuckled and said, "Yeah, of course!"

Eddie then said, "I tried to sign up for the Marines but I had to join the Air Force instead. The Marines said they didn't want me 'cause my parents were married", and continued his deadpan look, but then let out just the slightest, slyest grin which probably saved his life and the reputation of the band. I think Eddie won two pool games during that break, and the respect of a few Marines to boot. But I'll never forget how I was shaking in my shoes waiting for their response that never came.

The lead singer, Lee, sad an incredible voice, and his interpretations of songs such as "Keeper of the Stars" and "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" would have the crowd up and on the dance floor just as fast as you could blink. But there were a few synapses that weren't firing I think, because he'd introduce songs like "Brown Eyed Girl" and tell the crowd it was originally done by "Michael Jackson", then correct himself - incorrectly - and say, "I mean Jackson Browne". (Of course, it was Van Morrison's song). But the funniest thing the singer ever did to me was when one of the few, the proud Marines actually bent on his knee there in the nightclub and asked his girlfriend to marry him. The awestruck

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