Boogie Oogie Oogie

Back to the 70s

I was particularly exhausted today, for a lot of different reasons, so I gave myself what I intended to be a nap break. I put on the 70s channel on Sirius XM and, at first, drifted in and out of a light sleep. But then……

Boogie Oogie Oogie came on and looped me back to a simpler time when, in my personal experience, people were more accepting of each other and politics weren’t so prevalent and divisive. My new husband and I lived in a low rent, federally-funded apartment while he was attending college on a scholarship and I worked as a clerk in a pharmacy. Upon graduating with a degree in Petroleum Engineering, he had several job offers in several different cities. The oil boom was still happening at the time with PE’s being in high demand. Of course, we selected New Orleans. We were on cloud 9. We could finally breathe.

It was an exciting time for us, moving to the city, being real adults, meeting new people, seeing and doing new things, exploring the city. It was a fun time, too, when disco and disco dancing was still happening. I know people like to make fun of disco but there’s no denying it was free-spirited and fun and unserious and who doesn’t need a little of that in their life? Yeah, I know - cocaine and rampant drug use was happening in disco clubs and elsewhere but none of us were into that scene. Disco wasn’t my favorite music but it was my favorite music for dancing.

One of the greatest thing about being in the oil bidnez was the diversity of people we met who worked for the company and in the oil industry in general. Our best friends were a first generation Irish-American guy and his wife, a Chilean woman who spoke very little English. They had the. best. parties. ever. and is where I first ate empanadas and learned to dance disco. My teacher was Cuban and he was an excellent dancer and very patient and encouraging. Before long, I wasn’t too bad! This couple always had an array of people from several nationalities at their parties and we became friendly with them, too. Other friends in our close circle were an Iranian engineer and his American wife and an American engineering assistant and his Lebanese-American wife. We went out together, socialized at each others homes, and worked together.

So, while listening to Boogie Oogie Oogie I reminisced about those days in the late 70s - early 80s, those parties, those people. As happens in the oil industry, all of them moved to other states, other countries and we lost touch over the years. We passed on moves to California, Nigeria, etc. because we wanted to stay close to family, in the South, and the money/promotions weren’t as important to us. We have never regretted it.