On the beaten path

By JACK DOWNS
Design Editor

Global warming and skyrocketing oil prices are the two linked problems of our decade, maybe our lifetimes. These mammoth conundrums, with roots that grow into every part of our daily lives, can seem paralyzingly huge. What can anyone do?

Well, sometimes the most powerful solutions are the simplest.

Drive Easy.

That's the mantra-like campaign started by Fulton "Jay" Hanson, a Minnesota grandfather, homesteader and green activist.

You know the triangular slow-moving vehicle symbol you see on farm vehicles? Well, Hanson took that symbol, turned it green, put a tree in the middle and included the text "Drive Easy Conserve."

Drive Easy is now a national, and international, phenomena.

I learned about Hanson's plan in an excellent report by Todd Moe of North Country Public Radio: http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/archive.php?id=11639

So what is Hanson asking you do do? Nothing specific, just take it easy. Be mindful of your speed and realize that reducing your pace by 5 or 10 mph is better for your car, better for the environment, safer for you, safer for your fellow drivers and probably better for your blood pressure.

I like to think of it as permission to drive like an old man in a hat ... except for the part where your left-turn signal is always on. OK, those of you who are snickering because I am an old man in a hat ... knock it off.

You can get your own Drive Easy stickers and learn more about Hanson's campaign at: http://www.driveeasy.org/

I think of Drive Easy as road-rage therapy. Just say it over and over to yourself ... drive easy, drive easy, drive easy. Feel better already, don't you?

Now, before one of you greenie-meanies comes charging at me in your pious Prius, importuning, "Drive as easy you want in that obsolete rust bucket and you still have a carbon footprint the size of a Yeti," let me say that we can't all afford to junk our 1993 Plymouth Grand Voyagers and take out a second mortgage for a super-electro-hybrid-thingie.

In fact, the Drive Easy campaign has an even bigger impact on cars that are less fuel efficient.

So don't worry. Drive Easy.

Posted by Lois Clermont at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By GERIANNE WRIGHT
Staff Writer

I’ve done my part to contribute to the arts in Clinton County by birthing three daughters, all of whom are either in dance class or will be as soon as the hula skirt fits around her toddler body.

Yes, my girls were hula babies, just like legions of other North Country kids, many of whom have gone on to have children, nay, grandchildren of their own who, in turn, were hula babies as well.

What’s a hula baby, you ask? Why, it’s a barometer against which all else is measured.

“How long have the girls known each other?”

“Oh, they’ve been friends since hula babies.”

“How long have you been taking tap class?”

“Since I was a hula baby.”

“When did you learn to skip like that?”

“I learned the year I was a hula baby.”

Left from right?

Hula baby.

Stage presence? Ability to perform? Transition from toddler to kid?

Hula baby. Hula baby. Hula baby.

The hula babies of the North Country are the product of the iconic dancing Langlois. If you’re a Langlois, by birth, by marriage or some other twist of faith, you donned tap shoes at some point in your life.

The studio of the Nancy (Gerace) Langlois School of Dance, in the basement of the family homestead on Elm Street, has a pictorial history of past dancers, including hula baby Susan (Gerace) Mossy, who now teaches scores of North Country kids how to dance herself.

Among her pupils — yup, you guessed it — two more of Langlois heritage: her daughter, Kyra, and son, Hunter.

The Langlois-Racine school has produced its own branch of the dancing family tree and scores of North Country dancers as well who swayed their hips to that catchy tune. Come on. Sing it with me:

“I’m a little hula-hula baby, from the land of Waikiki;
I can hula and I don’t mean maybe, come with me across the sea;
I dance with my eyes, I dance with my lips, I dance with my hands, and I wriggle my hips;
I’m a little hula-hula baby, from the land of Waikiki.

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).

I dance with my eyes, I dance with my lips, I dance with my hands and I wriggle my hips;
I’m a little hula-hula baby, from the land of Waikiki.”

If you never danced this dance as a 3-year-old yourself, then you’ve endured blisteringly hot evenings sitting in high-school auditoriums watching some other kid dance it at the annual recitals.

It’s iconic; it’s unique. It brings down the house year after year, no matter which dance school your little one hails from.
And it’s gone national in its reach.

I was blogging on my personal blog recently about how my 2-year-old will some day be a hula baby, and I quoted a line from the song. Suddenly, I was inundated by comments from people wanting to know where they could get it because they had danced to it many years before.

I asked Susan and her mom, Nancy, about the history of the little ditty, which has to be 50 years old, and they said it was from a demo record from a dance conference from many, many years ago.

It’s a trademark, and they’re not inclined to release it. And who can blame them? They’ve been doing it since they were hula babies.

Posted by Lois Clermont at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)