As Cedar Falls, So Falls Waterloo

I received an email from Iain Boyd, who lives in New Zealand. 

I had written a Scottish country dance and posted it on the Internet.  Iain had seen the dance, liked it, and wanted to teach it in his dance class.  However, he was sure that his fellow New Zealanders would appreciate an explanation of the dance title.

The dance was written for Lee and Karen Potter, who were celebrating their first anniversary by unveiling a new dance floor they had installed in their house on the banks of the Cedar River in Cedar Falls, Iowa. 

The dance title: “As Cedar Falls, So Falls Waterloo”.

Explaining my title to a New Zealander seemed formidable, but I gave it a try:

DEAR IAIN:

In the USA in the 1930's, it was believed that whatever political party won the state elections in the state of Maine would be the party that won the Presidential elections the same year. Someone came up with the saying "As Maine goes, so goes the nation."

So, the structure “as goes, so goes” indicates a bellwether condition.  The state elections in Maine no longer predict the national elections, but the saying has proved a productive one for American journalists and for headlines.

Looking on the Internet, I see:

     As Alcoa goes, so goes the U.S. recovery
     As China goes, so goes the world
     As Jed Lowrie goes, so goes the Boston Red Sox
     As Verizon goes, so goes metered billing

Using the “as goes, so goes” structure, the dance title contains a pun.  Lee and Karen Potter live in Cedar Falls.  Falls is really a noun, but when you put it in the structure, it becomes a verb.

The dance title also contains a tease.  In the USA, we have numerous instances of cities in the United States that are so close to another city that they get hyphenated. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Fargo-Moorhead, Cedar Falls-Waterloo.

Typically, the people who live in the first of the hyphenated cities do not want to be associated with the people who live in the second hyphenated city. And vice versa.

So, I was teasing Lee and Karen by putting Waterloo in the title of the dance.

Sorry, Iain, it takes much longer to explain the title of the dance than to teach it...

 

SINCERELY YOURS,

Doug Schneider

PS: the dance instructions are on the Internet at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ldfs/8x32/2010/09/250273.html

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com