[Callers] Wrist Lock Stars - Summary

[Tony Parkes via Callers]

Tom Hinds wrote:
> I thought it was saddle-pack not that it really matters.

Someone (sorry, can't remember who or where) once insisted to me that it was "paddlestack," because it looked like "a stack of paddles." I doubt this very much, as I don't get any Google hits for "paddlestack" in a square dance context. I can't think of any field where a stack of paddles would make sense. A steamboat's wheel is made up of blades that I suppose are called paddles, but they're certainly not arranged in a stack. Everyone else I've heard or read on the subject of stars has used "packsaddle."

The summary of star-forming style is fascinating. It's nice to have a description of dance practice that's based on multiple witnesses. So often in researching dance history, one is confronted by bald statements with no idea whether they represent widespread practice or are solely one person's view of what's done in one area (or even what that person thinks _should_ be done). Example: In 1941 "Allemande Al" Muller, apparently writing in New York's Hudson Valley, declared flatly after describing a couple of allemandes, "There are no other calls involving the word Allemande. You can never allemande your partner." This would have been startling news to the master caller Floyd "Woody" Woodhull of Elmira in the same state, who routinely called "Allemande left with your corner, allemande right with your partner, allemande left with your corner again and a grand right and left."

Tony Parkes
Billerica, Mass.
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