Hagerstown, Maryland and the American Dream

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Every time I get sent out of town to work I get a little excited. I enjoy traveling to different places, and given the nature of my work, these places tend to be random and certainly not ones I would consider traveling to on my own dime. So, instead of thinking to myself, “Well, I will be microwaving dinners and listening to creepy old guys fucking prostitutes through the walls for the next week or two”, I try to turn my thoughts to the possibility of enlightenment in these strange new places.

Furthermore, I enjoy traveling in the United States. I can appreciate the importance of obtaining international experiences, but to me a road trip across the US is infinitely more appealing than backpacking through Europe. That’s just me. For one, I don’t speak any other languages (I ended my career in German on a bitter note: My senior year in High School our class wrote, directed, and acted a stage adaptation of “Back To The Future” which used characters from the founding of Germany thousands of years ago…in one of the most egregious and shameful displays by a judging panel we lost a Massachusetts High School German Theatre competition due to the fact that none of the judges had ever seen ‘Back To The Future’ even though every other person who saw our play unequivocally called it the greatest piece of theatre they had ever seen). So, for better or worse, I appreciate being able to converse in my native tongue when I am away from home.

I will not bore you with the details of my assignment in Hagerstown, MD, I will simply try to capture as clearly as possible some things and experiences that stood out to me during this brief journey south. In doing so, perhaps we will all come to a better understanding of why I have disappeared off the face of the earth for a few weeks now.

On the ride down to Maryland I turned to my Lebanese associate and said, this trip is going to be great, sarcastically, and then added, Man, we are just gonna be living the dream down here. It quickly became our go-to phrase of the trip: Standing around in a line at a Martin’s grocery store waiting to buy yogurt and deli meats behind a 20 year old mother of three with two forearm tattoos of what appear to be a Unicorn and a Panther…Livin the dream. Waking up at 530 am and hacking our way through brush with machetes and finding ticks on our stomachs….Livin the dream. Our initial grabbing onto of the phrase was later confirmed as a prescient move when at Karaoke night at Barefoot Bernie’s (Tuesdays if you’re in town) a guy with a bandana on his head and big black cowboy boots was wearing a tshirt that said, in plain white lettering “Livin the dream.” beneath a tour bus of some sort. He certainly was, and so were we.

Speaking of Karaoke…We unsuspectingly walked into Karaoke night at a bar called Barefoot Bernie’s. As we were walking up to the bar I attempted a Weekend at Bernie’s reference to no avail, my colleague was unfamiliar with the film. What should I expect? He’s from Lebanon. We took a table in the lounge directly adjacent to the Karaoke stage and promptly ordered nachos. I knew that sitting this close to the action is dangerous for several reasons:

First you have to be aware that you may have a strong urge to laugh at somebody who is taking their karaoke experience very seriously. Letting a laugh slip at the wrong time can create a moment of intense awkwardness. I knew I could handle myself if need be, but I wasn’t so sure about my colleague. I didn’t want to end up fighting some local because my associate laughed at his wife while she sang a tone deaf rendition of “Feel like a Woman” by Shania Twain. That is a risk I had to take.

Second, there is the off chance that nobody will come up to volunteer to sing and so the DJ or MC (Is there an official title for someone who runs a Karaoke night at a bar? Should there be? I think so.) will turn to the closest people (us) and insist, publicly, that we take the stage. This sets the stage for chanting and peer pressure at its worst and eventually culminates with me butchering (for the second time in my life) “You Oughtta know” by Alanis Morisette. Being forced to the stage is probably not very likely, but you need to be prepared.

Who the Fuck is Sammy Hagar?

Third, sitting close to the singers meant sitting close to the dancers which can be great, or horrible. Especially horrible if you run into a 40 something year old married woman with a one piece denim short-tanktop combination, the likes of which I have never seen. This woman told us repeatedly that her husband, whom she then pointed out to us in a booth in the corner, worked for Kenny Chesney and Sammy Hagar. By repeatedly I mean every five minutes over a period of an hour or two. She took quite a liking to my Lebanese friend but found, to her dismay, that he had no idea who Sammy Hagar or Kenny Chesney are. Every time she said (slurred) My husband works for Sammmmy Hagrrarrr, My associate would say “”Who the Fuck is Sammy Hagar?” and she would get pissed and shake her little fist at him and then make a strange grunting sound. After about fifteen minutes of this lady leaning on my colleague she attempted to kiss him on the mouth, and when denied showed us both her birthmark; a large brown circle covering the upper portion of her right breast. Awesome. I said. She made the grunting noise again. It was getting uncomfortable but I had taken the seat furthest from the dance floor and our be-denimed acquaintance so I was, for the most part out of the line of fire.

Denim-one-piece-lady had a friend, who coincidentally looked a lot like Sammy Hagar. This came in handy when trying to explain who Sammy Hagar was to my associate, but I still don’t think he fully grasped it. This lady said something or other about Cabo and meeting Sammy, but I wasn’t listening. I was busy taking pictures with my phone to send to coworkers in the office as my Lebanese companion let a drunk married woman lick his face only 15 feet or so away from her husband. We’re going to get our asses kicked I thought, and I’ll have proof that it is his fault.

Over the rest of the night Denim-Jean-one-piece lady was thrown out of the bar after stealing a beer from a bouncer (she had also stolen two drinks from my colleague utilizing a “if-I-stick-my-fingers-in-it-no-one-will-want-to-drink-it” approach earlier in the evening). She had to be physically removed by two men while swearing up and down that she would never return.
A short while later another girl admitted to us that she eats straight peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. I thought I was the only one.

America...FUCK YEAH!

The next night we arrived at Cancun Cantina West excited to see if we could top the events of the night before. The bouncer was wearing a huge cowbow hat. The cocktail waitress who approached us was wearing a bikini and full leg leather chaps. Take my word for it…this is a good look for a girl who has obviously competed in a few Amateur nights at the local strip clubs. (Sidenote apparently there are no strip clubs in this part of Maryland. We asked the girl who ate straight peanut butter if there were any around town and she said that we would have to “go to West Virginia”, although, come to think of it that may have been a colloquialism for “go fuck yourselves”.)

Leather Chap girl informed me that I was the first person who had ever ordered a straight ginger ale from her in her whole life, so I had that going for me. We walked into the main lounge area and there before us was a spectacle the likes of which I have never seen: A huge, fully occupied line dancing dance floor. I’m talking 50’ by 40’ of parquet wood flooring that was packed with every imaginable age of person. There were legit 70 year olds out there in wranglers and Stetsons. Keep in mind that I had just been served by a girl wearing leather chaps conveniently cut away to reveal her ass. There were also younger people my age, and everything in between including a few older men; stragglers who seemed to dance with every woman there over the course of the evening. These lone wolves were all awkward looking at first brush but they could really fucking line dance man, I’ll tell you that. I suppose that women might find a man who can line dance sexy the same way they find an intelligent man, or a man with a lot of money and cocaine attractive. I’m talking sideburns, manboobs, and moustaches doing the “boot scootin boogie” with a hot 26 year old chick. I admit, I felt inadequate.

If you don't know the moves to "She Thinks My Tractors Sexy" you have no chance.

I had seen line dancing on TV before but my associate had never seen or heard of it. Keep in mind he is from Lebanon. He was entranced by the combination of the songs and the dancing. We sat and watched them dance, song after song, for a few hours. I’m not kidding. Just watching it all go down. Every now and then we would laugh, and say things like “Holy Shit”, and “Did you see that twist combination by the guy with the cutoff American flag shirt?”

I came across this video while looking for examples of line dancing on youtube, I find it amusing.

A Couple of points:

1) Line dancing seemed to put everyone in a good mood and created a very relaxed, yet fun atmosphere. As I mentioned there were probably grandparents and their grandkids on the floor at the same time. I would not drink with my grandparents at a line dancing bar, especially with my grandmother because she can pound and I would look like a pussy.

2) No one could explain to me how people knew what dance to do for each song. Apparently there is a specific, unique, dance that goes with every song that they play. People just swarm to the floor and without talking break into a fucking synchronized dance routine for 4 minutes, without any signals or talking to one another. They just know. Crazy, absolutely crazy.

3) While questioning a local girl about the art of line dancing my colleague told her that he was an illegal alien. This did not go over well.

Before the night was over, I admit, I tried to line dance. I do not like to dance in general, but I may never be in Hagerstown, MD again, in a place called the Cancun Cantina West with the opportunity to line dance. I was terrible, but I had a good time.

It has taken me time to process this all, and ultimately I now look back on my week in Hagerstown as a great experience. I had no preconceived notions of what the trip would bring, but it certainly improved my life in a small way. Just knowing that there are line dancing establishments out there makes me feel better about the whole American Dream thing because I am not sure there is a better example of the American Dream than a happy older couple line dancing on a Wednesday night in Hagerstown, Maryland. If there is than I have yet to see it with my own two eyes. Now some random music videos:

Ted Nugent is very American.

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