Get Down on It

There's a thrill up on the hill, let's go, let's go, let's go!--Hank Ballard and the Midnighters--1960

In front, the cars would park side by side just off the asphalt on either side of the street on a slight incline. A 100-watt light bulb covered by a green and white ceramic shade hung above the wooden entrance making just bright enough to keep teenagers from slipping into a car with their girlfriend or boyfriend especially on those bone-chilling Kanas nights.

Down the slope, through the woods, near the river and up the hill to the Lone Chief Cabin we'd go. The Lone Chief became party central on Saturday nights if you didn't R. D. and Jim Brown strolling through the crowd saying "You youngsters need to put some air between you," an easy way to let the dancers know they were dancing too close. My dad and Lucky Epps worked the other end of the room. Charles "Moosty" Wilson worked the perimeter of the building breaking lip locks and stopping roaming hands.

Even with the eagle eyes of the chaperones, they couldn't see everything, or, at least thats what we believed. The light would be off with the only illumination pouring from the kitchen connection where the snacks, punch and record player provided entertainment and nourishment. If it was cold the fireplace threw off enough heat to make dancing near it for any length of time nearly impossible.

I usually came with Troy Wilson or Bucket Head Johnson long before the girls showed uo. We hadn't figured out how to make and entrance, so we just stumbled and looked like the idiots we were, but we were cool or so we thought. Although I didn't know how stupid I was, I did understand the arithmetic of adding math of adding a short boy with a tall girl and I liked the sum. That's why you could find me in the shadows near Rosemary Knighten.

The original Lone Chief Cabin, built in 1934 as part of a WPA project, was a real wooden cabin constructed of logs taken from the park area, but it later burned to the ground. The Lone Chief cabin most Indy residents know completed construction in 1948. Like the story of the three little pigs, the new cabin was built of bricks and stones. Today, the grail parking is gone, replaced with an elevated stone retainer and cement parking areas.

Secluded and even romantic, the Lone Chief Cabin still holds memories of close dancing, glittering eyes and stolen kisses in the light of a winter moon despite the best efforts of the parental police--chaperones.

"There's a moon out tonight, let's go strolling . . ."--the Capris