When Ted moved to Maine in 1990 I had the pleasure of working with him at the 4th Friday North Whitefield dance.. That was "his dance" and he called every month and I was doing sound. As a relatively new caller, I also got a lot of "mentoring", Ted always like to share what he was doing up there... I got to dance to his calling a lot as well. The band was "the Usual Suspects" and other Maine bands and they definitely played medleys. Ted would always specify a tune to be played with the dance he was going to call.. He'd pass out a sheet of paper to the band, listing the dances and suggested tunes.. "or similar" he would say. Ted was pretty fussy so if he hadn't liked medleys he definitely would have said so, but we always played medleys.. As far as dropping out, Ted definitely dropped out, though, probably called for longer than is the norm these days.. I can remember him dropping out, turning away from the dancers and start looking at the card for the next dance.. BUT he had a sense about what was going on out on the floor and would chime in to get things back on track, EVEN if his back was to the dance.. I never figured HOW he did that.. Ted ALWAYS called the last time through.. I still do that because I learned from him and to this day it seems weird to me for a caller to NOT call the last time through!!~ Ted's programs pretty much always followed the same format, a couple glossary dances then a circle mixer third on the list. A set of squares in each half, but later on I think he changed to just one set of squares per evening.. I only danced to Ralph a couple times. That was pretty late in his life.. My memory is that he would drop back on the calling as well.. but it wouldn't surprise me if he called all the way through some times. He sort of liked to "demand attention" up there.. bill ------------------------------ *From:* trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com < trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com&gt; on behalf of Sylvia Miskoe sylviasmiskoe(a)gmail.com [trad-dance-callers] < trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com&gt; *Sent:* Monday, October 10, 2016 10:52 PM *To:* trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com *Subject:* Re: [trad-dance-callers] Page & Sannella -- Dropping Out ted Sannella and Ralph Page generally called the whole time. They both used records and live music if available. Their programs contained as many squares, which had to be called all the way through, as contras. Medleys were unknown. You played the same tune all the way through the dance. In the 60's the younger callers began outnumbering the oldsters. A contra would go on forever as the newer callers got things started and then joined the line. In defence, the musicians began using more than 1 tune per dance. Have you ever had to play Rickett's Hornpipe 17 times? Of course Newt Tolman wrote that you were not a dance musician until you could play the tune, at proper tempo, without mistakes, 17 or 18 times. The exception were the Chestnuts that had their own designated tune, NO alternates. Cheers, Sylvia Miskoe, Concord NH On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 5:13 PM, Ridge Kennedy srk3nn3dy(a)gmail.com [trad-dance-callers] &lt;trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com&gt; wrote: