This is the third installment in writer Ralph Horner’s newest column, “The Birth of Rock & Roll (and those who brought it into the world),”about discovering Rock & Roll music as a teenager in the 1950s.

A Rock & Roll incident happened in Euclid. Actually, it didn't actually happen—my friends and I made it happen.

It was another dance at an unremembered church hall, on East 200th Street, I think. It was the same type of affair as a previously noted Euclid dance. There was a DJ playing records.

Unfortunately, there were few good-looking girls around, so we were kind of bored. I was with the same rowdy bunch who had acted shamelessly badly at another Euclid dance. The evening was moving along, and the lack of a good time was becoming tedious, so we were about to leave. 

Frankie Avalon on American Bandstand in his White Buck shoesAs we were about to depart, the DJ came on the microphone and said that he had some exciting news. He said that he got word that Frankie Avalon was in town and that he was going to stop in at this dance. 

We weren’t fans of Frankie Avalon and didn’t particularly like that kind of music, but we had seen him on American Bandstand and it would be cool to see someone who was famous.

We hung around for about an hour. All of a sudden, there was a hubbub at the door and some girls started screaming. The crowd parted and in he came. He walked across the floor towards the DJ, looking Italian and handsome, when an insult to us happened. 

He came to the dance that we were attending wearing white buck shoes! This was unacceptable! 

This was an affront to every dark and sinister thing that we held holy. White buck Shoes? Who in the hell did he think he was, Doofus Royalty Pat Boone? What kind of a sissy was he? 

White Bucks represented Pat Boone singing Tutti Fuitti! White Bucks represented all the lame white sissies who ever lamely tried to cover a great Black record! White Bucks were not going to happen here tonight! 

We did the only honorable thing that we could have done: We started to throw folding chairs at Frankie Avalon. None of the chairs hit him, and he was immediately hustled out the door by his entourage. 

We left out the side door because we knew that the Euclid Police Department would soon be there. The Euclid Chief of Police was my good friend’s mother’s boyfriend, and he did not like us for another reason, or two.

I did not want to get in trouble in Euclid. We got into our car and drove back to the friendly confines of East 55th and Superior, where outrages like White Buck shoes would never happen.  Ah, civilization!

Why the outrage over White Bucks shoes? Well, as I’ve stated, they were the complete an antithesis of  being cool. Cool was everything in the 1950s.

Believe it or not, my criminal-leaning friends and I were very dapper dressers when it came to being seen somewhere (dances, school, parties). We wore dress shirts and had our pants custom tailored by Mister Rusnak, the tailor on St Clair. Shoes? We wore expensive Stetson shoes that we shined to a blinding glean. You can be poor, but you don't have to look poor. We definitely had to be on a par with the slick dressing Italian boys from Murray Hill who came to our school. 

Most of us had part time jobs. I worked part time at a drug store on East 55th Street and Superior Avenue, where my predecessor advised that I should fill a bag with stuff I had stolen, hide it when I take out the trash, and pick it up after store closed. 

I didn't do that because It didn't seem right to steal from the man who paid me. Yeh, I know I would be criticized by my friends, but they wouldn't know.