Delray Beach Dog Walk
© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 26 May 2005
This evening, I wrote a story about Loretta Young and posted it to my blog. As I was trying to decide whether to print it, I heard heavy panting. This is Peanut’s way of letting me know he thinks it would be a wonderful idea to go out. Peanut is my kids’ Bichon Frise dog. He likes to stay with me. When he wants to go out, he gets so excited that he pants. Power of suggestion, I guess (“Look how much fun we will have! Pant! Pant! Pant!”).
So, I snapped a collar and leash on Peanut and we headed out the door for downtown Delray Beach. It was Thursday, about 10:00 pm, and I knew that Elvis would be performing at Elwood’s Dixie Barbecue.
Elvis, a.k.a. Scott Ringersen, performs twice weekly at Elwood’s
Elwood’s is a former gasoline service station converted into a bar/restaurant. It has a pool table, a stage, a bar and several dining booths and tables. It doesn’t have many exterior walls. The bar and stage and dining area are under a roof, but they have no exterior walls. They are in what was once an outdoor area where the gas pumps stood. The waitperson t-shirts still say “eat our food and get gas.”
Scott Ringersen has two careers. By day, he is a Delray Beach police officer who has been granted a special exemption that allows him to have Elvis Presley sideburns, which he needs for his other job – an Elvis impersonator.
I have seen Scott patrolling Atlantic Avenue on a Segway HT, while on his day job, and that is worth a second look. Here is Dick Cheney on a Segway:
As Peanut and I approached Elwood’s, I could hear Elvis’ throaty rumble. But his voice was accompanied tonight by the singing of two women, who were participating in a call-and-response song with Elvis.
This was not some new feature of his act. This was an impromptu session consisting of Elvis and two young women from the audience. Both women were holding beer bottles as they sang, and it appeared they were not holding them for someone else.
Crossing the railroad tracks with Peanut, I could see that the women were really getting into the performance of Elvis. As they sang with him, they began to shimmy. One of the girls began to shake her black hair from side to side. I believe I saw a few pelvic thrusts and wiggles thrown in too.
Peanut is more of a Beatles fan, so he wanted to keep on walking. We continued a little ways and came upon a young couple and their 14-month old daughter. The little girl was entranced with Peanut and wanted to walk up to him, but she couldn’t quite get her legs to go where she wanted. She would start what appeared to be a high-kicking goose step toward Peanut, but there was no telling where her foot would land. Still she was making some progress. The parents were from Boston, and we chatted for several minutes about some of the Italian restaurants in the north side of Boston. I can usually discuss tourists’ hometowns with them as I have worked in so many places. Also, it is a way for me to keep up with any changes.
I walked Peanut to the Art Gallery on the next corner and then decided to go back the way we had come. I wanted to see how Elvis’ singing/dancing girls were doing. For drunk girls, they could really dance! Presumably caught up in the shouted approvals of their fellow drinkers/diners (as well as the throngs of onlookers who stood along the sidewalk), hair-swinger was now performing a set of moves that would make a Texas cheerleader blush. I am not a dance expert, but I believe her routine consisted of the following choreography moves:
Boogaloo, Chocolate Pony, Get Down Dirty, Tail Feather
Rag Doll, Stuck Zipper, Circle Hump, Hoover
Booty Bomb, Lambada Dip, Full Enchilada, Volcano
Full Nasty, The Otis, Chinese Acrobat, Shiver Shake
Hump-a-lump, Bend-Over, Banana Split, Three-Way
All-night-long, Texas Tommy, Oyster-shucker, Slide-Whistle
Elvis’ only comment was “There must be a full moon out tonight.”
The Boston couple had stopped to gape. Their 14-month old getting caught up in the music too. She was swaying from side to side. Cute. The crowd was becoming divided on whom to watch.
I heard a familiar accent behind me. I turned around and there was a very beautiful young woman who was reaching down to pet Peanut. He gets all the girls. I asked the girl where she was from.
“Rio!” she replied. Uh oh, I had never been to Rio. I asked if she had ever been in Sao Paulo. Yes, she used to live there, so we talked about Sao Paulo for a while. I practiced my Portuguese phrases on her. She was wearing the kind of lipstick that has sparkles in it, jeans, and a tight cotton-shirt. I wished I had learned more Portuguese when I had worked in Sao Paulo.
It was time to walk Peanut back to my apartment. As we walked, I remembered showing Delray Beach to my cousin Tom Wilson and his wife Becky when they visited me here two years ago. They live near Ava, Illinois, population 800. As we walked around downtown Delray Beach, I told them how much I enjoyed living here, and that it was the first time in my life that I had ever lived in a small town. They glanced at each other. Apparently, their definition of a “small town” was not the same as mine, and it did not include any place large enough to have an Elvis impersonator. Delray Beach has a population of about 60,000, but most of the people live west of I-95. I live east, in the old part of Delray Beach, between I-95 and the Atlantic Ocean. There are probably only about 10,000 people in my end of town. It seems pretty small here to me, but then I had gotten used to working in cities like Sao Paulo, where the population is 20 million (about four times the population of Scotland).
Delray Beach girls love Elvis
I have watched Scott Ringersen’s Elvis act many times. He performs it near where I live every Thursday and Friday night – two shows each night. Every time I see him, my thoughts eventually turn to the time that Angela Duffy and I worked in Memphis and made a side visit to Graceland, the former home of Elvis. But, that is another story . . .
Right now, Peanut is panting again. I think he wants to catch the second show. Or maybe he wants a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich?
Oh, and thanks for reading this. Thank you very much.
This evening, I wrote a story about Loretta Young and posted it to my blog. As I was trying to decide whether to print it, I heard heavy panting. This is Peanut’s way of letting me know he thinks it would be a wonderful idea to go out. Peanut is my kids’ Bichon Frise dog. He likes to stay with me. When he wants to go out, he gets so excited that he pants. Power of suggestion, I guess (“Look how much fun we will have! Pant! Pant! Pant!”).
So, I snapped a collar and leash on Peanut and we headed out the door for downtown Delray Beach. It was Thursday, about 10:00 pm, and I knew that Elvis would be performing at Elwood’s Dixie Barbecue.
Elvis, a.k.a. Scott Ringersen, performs twice weekly at Elwood’s
Elwood’s is a former gasoline service station converted into a bar/restaurant. It has a pool table, a stage, a bar and several dining booths and tables. It doesn’t have many exterior walls. The bar and stage and dining area are under a roof, but they have no exterior walls. They are in what was once an outdoor area where the gas pumps stood. The waitperson t-shirts still say “eat our food and get gas.”
Scott Ringersen has two careers. By day, he is a Delray Beach police officer who has been granted a special exemption that allows him to have Elvis Presley sideburns, which he needs for his other job – an Elvis impersonator.
I have seen Scott patrolling Atlantic Avenue on a Segway HT, while on his day job, and that is worth a second look. Here is Dick Cheney on a Segway:
As Peanut and I approached Elwood’s, I could hear Elvis’ throaty rumble. But his voice was accompanied tonight by the singing of two women, who were participating in a call-and-response song with Elvis.
This was not some new feature of his act. This was an impromptu session consisting of Elvis and two young women from the audience. Both women were holding beer bottles as they sang, and it appeared they were not holding them for someone else.
Crossing the railroad tracks with Peanut, I could see that the women were really getting into the performance of Elvis. As they sang with him, they began to shimmy. One of the girls began to shake her black hair from side to side. I believe I saw a few pelvic thrusts and wiggles thrown in too.
Peanut is more of a Beatles fan, so he wanted to keep on walking. We continued a little ways and came upon a young couple and their 14-month old daughter. The little girl was entranced with Peanut and wanted to walk up to him, but she couldn’t quite get her legs to go where she wanted. She would start what appeared to be a high-kicking goose step toward Peanut, but there was no telling where her foot would land. Still she was making some progress. The parents were from Boston, and we chatted for several minutes about some of the Italian restaurants in the north side of Boston. I can usually discuss tourists’ hometowns with them as I have worked in so many places. Also, it is a way for me to keep up with any changes.
I walked Peanut to the Art Gallery on the next corner and then decided to go back the way we had come. I wanted to see how Elvis’ singing/dancing girls were doing. For drunk girls, they could really dance! Presumably caught up in the shouted approvals of their fellow drinkers/diners (as well as the throngs of onlookers who stood along the sidewalk), hair-swinger was now performing a set of moves that would make a Texas cheerleader blush. I am not a dance expert, but I believe her routine consisted of the following choreography moves:
Boogaloo, Chocolate Pony, Get Down Dirty, Tail Feather
Rag Doll, Stuck Zipper, Circle Hump, Hoover
Booty Bomb, Lambada Dip, Full Enchilada, Volcano
Full Nasty, The Otis, Chinese Acrobat, Shiver Shake
Hump-a-lump, Bend-Over, Banana Split, Three-Way
All-night-long, Texas Tommy, Oyster-shucker, Slide-Whistle
Elvis’ only comment was “There must be a full moon out tonight.”
The Boston couple had stopped to gape. Their 14-month old getting caught up in the music too. She was swaying from side to side. Cute. The crowd was becoming divided on whom to watch.
I heard a familiar accent behind me. I turned around and there was a very beautiful young woman who was reaching down to pet Peanut. He gets all the girls. I asked the girl where she was from.
“Rio!” she replied. Uh oh, I had never been to Rio. I asked if she had ever been in Sao Paulo. Yes, she used to live there, so we talked about Sao Paulo for a while. I practiced my Portuguese phrases on her. She was wearing the kind of lipstick that has sparkles in it, jeans, and a tight cotton-shirt. I wished I had learned more Portuguese when I had worked in Sao Paulo.
It was time to walk Peanut back to my apartment. As we walked, I remembered showing Delray Beach to my cousin Tom Wilson and his wife Becky when they visited me here two years ago. They live near Ava, Illinois, population 800. As we walked around downtown Delray Beach, I told them how much I enjoyed living here, and that it was the first time in my life that I had ever lived in a small town. They glanced at each other. Apparently, their definition of a “small town” was not the same as mine, and it did not include any place large enough to have an Elvis impersonator. Delray Beach has a population of about 60,000, but most of the people live west of I-95. I live east, in the old part of Delray Beach, between I-95 and the Atlantic Ocean. There are probably only about 10,000 people in my end of town. It seems pretty small here to me, but then I had gotten used to working in cities like Sao Paulo, where the population is 20 million (about four times the population of Scotland).
Delray Beach girls love Elvis
I have watched Scott Ringersen’s Elvis act many times. He performs it near where I live every Thursday and Friday night – two shows each night. Every time I see him, my thoughts eventually turn to the time that Angela Duffy and I worked in Memphis and made a side visit to Graceland, the former home of Elvis. But, that is another story . . .
Right now, Peanut is panting again. I think he wants to catch the second show. Or maybe he wants a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich?
Oh, and thanks for reading this. Thank you very much.
posted by Tom Shawcross | 1:16 PM
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