I was thinking of some old fiddle tunes my dad played at square dances when I was a very little kid, and they'd have these country dances in a one-room country schoolhouse somewhere in the farming country outside town, and I'd be put to sleep on the benches of the schoolroom furniture, pushed back against the walls, so the main part of the floor was clear for dancing. This was in the nineteen thirties, when I would be maybe three, and the car we had was 1933 Frontenac 3-window coupe with a rumble seat out back that I dearly loved. I'd sometimes be allowed to ride in that rumble seat on our way to a dance, sharing it with a guitar case and violin case, but on the way home, I'd be too sleepy, and would be up front, on mom's lap. It wasn't unusual for it to be getting quite light in the east as we drove home in the wee small hours of the morning, with dad driving very carefully, because he'd had a few with the boys around the old outdoor water pump in the schoolyard before we started for home, while the womenfolk cleared away the refreshments table and the dishes and all that.
And a lot of those old dance tunes were either Irish jigs and reels, or based upon those, I suspect.
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