Sock Hoppin' With 19th Ward Seniors

About 240 residents attended the event, which was organized by the 19th Ward Office.

This is only one of four events a year the 19th Ward puts on for senior citizens, according to Ald. Matt O’Shea. “It’s important to keep seniors involved, and that they know how important they are for the community,” O’Shea said. 

Katie Diana, a party server at Bourbon Street, agreed. 

“It was a great experience to see how genuine and generous the seniors were today,” she said. 

According to O’Shea, all of the Bourbon Street staff that were involved volunteered their time.

While some residents came just to get out of the house, others came to celebrate milestones and meet new people. Jack and Peggy Hogan, commemorating their 64th wedding anniversary, reminisced about their previous dancing days.

“In our day, dances were at St. Sabina’s, usually with a big band of 10 to 18 people,” Peggy said. Jack remembered going dancing at halls such as the Aragon Ballroom and Willowbrook. “Every neighborhood had two or three dance halls,” he said.

“It used to be that you’d go to hear bands, to meet someone,” Peggy said. “Kids today don’t have a place like that. They go to bars.”

According to Jack, “there’s no real rhythm in songs today.” His dance of choice was “any kind of a jitterbug, and waltzes.” Now, he fulfills his dancing feet by watching Dancing With the Stars. Professional dancer “Derek Hough is the best,” Jack said. “When I first saw him on the show, I knew he was a winner.”

Why did Mrs. Vinnie Makar, as she prefers to be called, and her husband come to the sock hop? “I just retired last week—I had nothing else to do!” she exclaimed with a laugh. She worked for an architecture firm for 28 years.

She was looking forward to getting acquainted with other seniors in the area: “We’ve lived in the neighborhood 45 years, but when we came [to the sock hop] we didn’t know anybody!”

In her younger years, roller-skating was bigger than dancing. “There was no smoking, no drinking, no drugs,” Makar said.

At the sock hop, guests were treated to a lunch of salad, mostaccioli, garlic bread and mouth-watering root beer floats for dessert. Staffers from the 19th Ward gamely dressed up in period clothing.

Matt O’Shea and State Sen. Bill Cunningham led a game of trivia, which ranged from brands of clothing to golf to census data. After each answer, triumphant cheers and disappointed sighs erupted from the crowd.

The majority of the attendees probably agreed with O’Shea’s sentiment when he read the question, “What disability did Thomas Edison have?

“No, Thomas Edison did not invent Facebook,” O’Shea quipped. (The real answer? Hearing.)