The Chapel Hill weekly., 1957-11-08
Chapel Hill Chaff

been ten2 aboyt The des in beautiful coIors that
he ran If fors neiYhborp1d Qatherng At his home
day last week
From The .ize Of the hDadljne. in of the news
papers yoU nYht think that the question If whether
eancing should be allowed the t"o Baptist college,
in North Carolina more important than Sp1tnlF:
or H-bombs or any international crisis Wei, maybe
the editors who decide what the public - most IN
terested in rght. People have been bombarded 80
cpntinuDusX and 50 ,i0lentjy WITH ne"s and opinions
about the AfJ fate MeatninY the world that they
have acquired sort Of immunity against being fright
ened NJ notion is that the general attitude is some
thinY Ike this: there's nothnY do about It;
We, just Pot T. IcaYe it H. the President and his ad
and the scientists and the military chlettalns
and the preachers and the United Nations, ~ do the
best they ~ protect meanwhile mI2ht we'll
~ on about "ork and pastimes calmly We can
and not worry ourselves half T. d"a'h abp4t "hat may
drop On " from the sky.
When ! vent ont ~ the porch Sunday morning and
picked up the KaIelVh and Durham ne"s papers did
what suppose pretty nearly rHrrybDdy docs that ~,
gave the headlines quick run-nycr beforc reading be-
meath them. Then found myself p1st pDnnY the read
ing the news about &putnik and pDc. and automobile
accidents and murders until had read the story about
what the General Board If the Kapti. church bad
decided to DO about dancing al Wake Forest and Mere
dth.
This brought to mind little volume entitled "From
the Ballroom 10 Hell" which titllaed when
entering upon adolescence in the 1905 q believe Ive
mentioned it before in this column; II So that's moth
inY be surprised al repeat myself often either BE-
cause don't remember that have already published
what ! am writing about because say 10 myself,
Therc are a lot of people reading the Weekly who
were not reading it then if other people spot it repc
tition they may be amused at it again if they weren't
amused but were bored by il the first time they
maybe not any worse bored than they would be by
whatever else might be wrting'D
From the Ballroom TO Hell" was and this il word
YOU rarely hear or see in these daysa tract That is,
a short publication that designed 70 kccp the read
er from taking the path Of sin or if he had already
taken it. to persuade him 10 leave it, The author a
formed dancing master, explained Why the transition
described in the title difficult to escape that it
war practically inevitable.
His purpose was a pious but it not the pur-
pose but the approach thereto, the reae episodes,
that made the booklet extremely popular reading in the
adoescent set. For in II pages like pages in
Holy Writ that contained mixed in with the pety
lines Of decidedly nonretcent character The demand
for the volume az it passed around from youth to
youth in Chapel Hill was-as no doubt 1t was IN many
another t0wn--super eager.
Three or four years ago something reminded me Of
the tract and had nostalgic desire az one has for
textbooks Of his childhood school days 10 see it.
asked Mr. Heguera, who had bookshop then, TO try
TO find 1t for me- Many inquiries made by him were
unsuccessful had forgotten all about the quest when
he teephoned me one day that he had located copy in
San Francisco. II came in few days later
After lapse Of sixty years the for my inter
est in From the Ballroom to Hell" had Of course,
dergone change. | thought Of 1t now as a humorous
volume But / was sorely disappointed couldn't take
more than two or three pages of it. Like oId-timc
textbooks that yearns to see again. II turned out
ha n bore