We were stayin' alive

Monday we visited a new flea market. I thumbed through a large book of CDs and found several of the music I so loved in high school.

Music is amazingly evocative. Listening to “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack took me straight back to McDonald’s, where I worked when I was a high school junior. The movie had debuted the year before, but its soundtrack was then the biggest-selling album of all time. “Fever” stayed on top of the album charts for six months. And we loved it.

As soon as customers emptied the dining room after closing, we turned off the detested Muzak and plugged in our music into the stereo system, cranking the volume as high as we dared.

Closing time was “Disco Grill” time. We danced while we worked.

We sang:

“Burn, baby, burn!
McDonald’s inferno!
We are on fire
100 stories high…”.

I was often assigned to close “dive”, which meant washing dishes. The combination of a high-pressure hose and disco made for a very enjoyable evening. The hose became my dance partner and I slid and glided across the wet floor, while singing loudly.

The rest of the crew was doing the same at their posts, although the grill cleaner was sliding on grease instead of soapy water.

How we laughed!

“We were a dancin’ crew
And we just couldn’t lose
We knew it’s all right, it’s OK;
The manager looked the other way.
He could surely understand the music’s affect on man.
Yes, we were younger and they sure were older
But we were stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
We could feel the windows shakin’ as the speakers were breakin’
And we were stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive.”