Royal Oak Social Club elects Bob Bahlow and Lee Houck as homecoming queen and king

By GLENDA SANDERS, DAILY SUN

THE VILLAGES — Karma caught up with Lee Houck on Thursday, when she was named queen of the Royal Oak Social Club’s homecoming dance at Mulberry Grove Recreation Center.

Back in the day, as they say, Houck was in the homecoming court at Redford High School in Detroit. Tragedy of teenage proportions struck at the dance when the front-runner in the contest spilled punch all over the front of her dress.

Houck, who didn’t expect to win, offered to exchange dresses with her. Sure enough, the front-runner won, and was crowned wearing Houck’s pretty, unstained dress.

“I saw the girl 23 years later and she still remembered that I had loaned her my dress,” Houck said. “She was still grateful.”

After winning the crown, which came with a paper crown and box of chocolates molded in the shape of hairdressing utensils, Houck said. “Isn’t this the funniest thing that ever happened? I’m shocked. You’re 65 and you’re old — it’s fun.”

Houck’s king, also elected by popular vote of the attendees, was Bob Bahlow.

“He sprayed his hair black for tonight and everyone loves it,” said Bev Bahlow, Bob’s wife and president of the club. “It’s normally a beautiful silver.”

“That was my secret,” Bob said, referring to the colored hairspray. “A dollar 59 at Wal-Mart.”

Bob was attired in the requisite jeans, loafers and white socks inscribed with “Bob’s Sock” and “Bob’s Other Sock.”

Bev wore a poodle skirt and black-and-white rah-rah shoes that began life as white Keds before she added “trim” with a black marker.

Kathy and Russ Stehle wore white shirts embroidered with “Royals” 1965. The couple graduated from Ridgefield Memorial High in New Jersey where the team was, befittingly, the Royals.

Ruth and Roger Dickinson won the rock ’n’ roll dance contest by a landslide.

“My husband could care less about dancing,” Ruth Dickinson said. “To me, it’s my favorite pastime. He’s learned to hop while I dance all around him.”

The Dickinsons met in Brooklyn, where they belonged to the same church, and have been married 42 years.

Swing dance lessons Jim and Carolyn Hernandez took after moving to The Villages paid off for the couple. They won the jitterbug contest.

Carolyn Hernandez indicated that the dance lessons were merely a refresher course.

“We always jitterbugged,” she said, “but there weren’t a lot of opportunities to dance like there are here.”

Jerry Carter added a comic touch to the evening when he donned a long blond wig and — he claimed — got pulled onto the dance floor.

“My wife, Diane, went and got the wig. They forced it on me,” he said.

His dance was met by admonitions from the crowd to “Take it off. Take it off, Jerry!” followed closely by, “Put it on, Jerry. Put it back on!”

The homecoming theme was carried through in the decorations, which included goal posts on which comical sketches of cheerleaders and football players hand-painted by Irene Behounek were hung. Throughout the evening guests tried to guess the identities of their neighbors by looking at high school pictures mounted in a special display.

Glenda Sanders is a features writer for the Daily Sun. She can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 9245, or at glenda.sanders@thevillagesmedia.com.