Volume 2, No. 18. September 27, 2002
Trade Show Reports
Swinging
with Sally
The first dance
at IAAPA Summer Meeting’s grand finale—the Sentimental Journey Dinner
and Big Band Party in Cedar Point’s 96-year-old Coliseum Ballroom—belonged
to the Peanuts characters. The park’s mascots were gussied up in formal
wear for the evening, and with the introduction of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra,
the characters moved onto the floor, paired up and began dancing.
Suddenly, Jeff Pike of Great Coasters International appeared on the floor. He
tapped Charlie Brown on the shoulder, asked if he could cut in and, with Charlie
Brown’s gracious acquiescence, finished the song dancing with Sally. “She
was always the cutest Peanut,” Pike gushed afterward.
Pike has a history of finding romance on the dance floor. Four years ago he
met a woman named Andrea in San Francisco. “She was into swing dancing,”
Pike said. As they dated, his own appreciation for ballroom moves deepened along
with his appreciation for Andrea, culminating in a romantic proposal at the
Skee Ball alleys of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and their wedding last year.
Now something of a swing dance aficionado, Pike found Sally Brown an adept dancer,
but she had one quality that was just a little too hard to get around. “Her
head was too big,” he said. “I was spinning her and I couldn’t
get my arm over her head.”
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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