DUCKTAILS AT DICKS

I am not sure  exactly when ducktails emerged in Pawtucket

I can remember that when I was only 6 years old I would watch my Aunt Anna get  dressed for her Saturday night dance.  She went to a place called the German Club in Pawtucket or Warner's Dance Hall on Broad Street with her girl friends. In the summer she would go to Rhodes on the Pawtuxet and to  Crescent Park or Rocky Point. Dancing was what people did then. That is how they met up--no MATCH.COM, not  texting--they got dressed  up and went out dancing.

Sometimes ANNA would  complain when she came home about the greasers who had asked her to dance. And describe their slicked back long hair : their constant combing and touching of their hairstyles
 Or even comment  on the  ZOOT Suiters swinging their long chains and walking along the line of women waiting to dance and then making their pick. Anna always refused--or so she told me and my mother as we sat listening with breathless excitement.
When ANNA was not home,  I was not allowed to go into her room -- she would come out screaming like a BANSHEE after work when she discovered something disturbed in her fragrant kingdom. 

And yes, we would wait up for ANNA to come back from the  Saturday night dance,  Anna was a  real beauty--I  adored her clothes and her make up and her fabulous jet black hair, long and curly.

I hope that  my readers know that this is one thing that I am absolutely sure of--whatever was in style in 1949 --- was showing up on the streets of  Pawtucket.  Just as it does today.  Sometimes driving down  Newport Avenue I am amazed at the local adaptations of current styles 
And the teenage versions of the latest  styles actually showed up at Dick's.
But no one was asking anyone to dance.
They were more often looking for a fight.