Nite Class

"NO STAIRWAY!" is the verse made famous in the movie Waynes World in the scene where Wayne and Garth check out a music store and Wayne picks up an electric guitar and starts playing the first few notes of
"Stairway to Heaven." The guy working scolds him and refers to the sign on the wall, "NO STAIRWAY!"

And what I say to that is.... YES STAIRWAY!!!

"Stairway to Heaven" is the epitome of rock songs;the song that starts as a ballad and ends as a rocking headbanging
dream. And every time I hear it, it reminds me not only of the movie "Wayne's World," which rightfully opened the doors of classic rock music for many new fans, but of a time when I used to go to weekly dances at the union called Nite Class where I went to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the early 1990's.

The best times were when they played a mix of not only the hits of the day(we're talking Cypress Hill, NIN,The Black Crowes) but classic hits as well, such as Beatles and the Rolling Stones and in this case, Led Zeppelin.

When Stairway came on for one of the first times, I managed the courage to ask this cute red-haired girl named Lori to dance with me. While the music was slow and easy to dance to for the first half of the song, when it turned into the faster rocking half, we were lost. We didn't really know how to dance well, but we danced anyways. Awkward steps, weird posing and half-bewildered gesticulations (that we probably didn't realize we were making)all made for what we made into our own little dancefest. And we didn't care. It was fun and that's what we were there for.

We would see each other now and then at the dances and were sometimes even with other people, but when that song came on, I knew I had to find her and get my groove on. She knew it too, since she never resisted dancing with me to that song, and I will always remember it as ours.