Wednesday morning April 28th, I received a phone call from Speedo. Speedo is a very close friend that I have made through country dancing. Speedo explained to me the tragedy that had befallen Bill Siebe a long time member of our country dance family. Bill had passed away the night before, and I am sure you will read several articles about Bill & Linda Siebe’s dedication to country dance.
Speedo explained the Bill & Linda and family had worked all year to promote the Cape Cod Classic. The event was to start Friday & run through Sunday. Jerry, Bill’s son, was to DJ the event and of course would not be there. Linda Siebe had told Speedo that she wanted to make sure the event went on for Bill. Everybody wanted to make this the very best event they could under the circumstances. I could tell Speedo had a lot on his mind and needed to call a lot of other people so I told him that I would call him back later. A quick call to American Airlines produced 1 of the last two tickets left to Boston. I called Speedo back and said I would be there sometime early Friday morning and would meet him at the Cape. Another friend met me in Boston and drove me to the Cape arriving about 3 am Friday.
There were still people working to get ready for the event! The whole dance family was pitching in and coming together. Friends brought in the sound equipment, Kenny & Darlene Nelson were working on getting everything else set up, JG 2 was there, T E Mayo, Max Perry, Linda DeFord Speedo & Pedro as well as countless other friends. They were all there to help and work together!
As I laid down to sleep a few hours Friday morning I asked the power above that leads me to give me the help, guidance and energy that it would take to make this as special event as it could ever be. I think my prayers and those of Bills friends were answered! Everybody worked so hard at working together that this event was truly one of a kind!
On Saturday night while working my way through a set of songs and dances dedicated to Bill we reached the last song and dance! T E Mayo had asked if we could do a barn dance for Bill. So I took it one step further and asked T E& his partner to come up in front of the DJ booth & that we wanted everybody to join in this barn dance so that everyone could meet each other as Bill would have wanted. I stated that I had made up a long dance mix of the Wild Wild West and that I would play it non stop until everybody got back to their original partner. Please understand that I made this mix in my computer by cutting and pasting it together, it was over 12 minutes long and that I had never played it all the way through before.
I started the song & counted in Bills barn dance. The floor was so crowded that you could hardly move. It went on for ever. I kept watching T E, he was 1/3 then 1/2 way around the room, the song never stopped playing. When he was 3/4 the way around the room I got worried & didn’t think the song would be long enough. I wasn’t worried if it was too long I was going to fade it out after everybody got back to their original partners. But not wanting to disappoint anybody I quickly found my Escape Club CD and cued it up as best I could so that I could start it up if my mix ran out early. Boy was I wrong. As T E got closer & closer to his partner I got this feeling to move away form my equipment so I walked to the back of the stage and toward T E. I watched as T E got closer & closer! T E was looking at me too & I could see it in his eyes that he too heard the song coming to its final ending. As the LAST BEAT OF THE SONG PLAYED EACH DANCERS HANDS TOUCHED THEIR ORIGINAL PARTNERS HANDS! T E & I slapped hands.
Now skeptics you can calculate the odds of first making a song long enough to perfectly match the phrasing of the dance as well as where I counted it in down to the last beat. Then consider having exactly the right number of couples on the floor to match the exact length of the song!
Truly no matter what religion you believe in a power greater than all of us had a hand in this Barn dance for Bill.
My heart and the hearts of all of our country dance family go out to Bills family. Bill will be greatly missed.
