Topper's Seventieth Anniversary

You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart. ~Author Unknown

Meet And Greet  (Page One)

(October 21st 2016) Last Updated: 09/11/2019 10:38:AM

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Dancing Quote: - "Dancers are among the most passionate and dedicated of artists and rarely take their work for granted."

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Happy Anniversary Topplers!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
The table decorations are fantastic.... Thank You Neal and Nita!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
The new roster is now available - Thank you Donnis!
It is also available on-line

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Irene introduces Alice to Sue... Alice Smith was President of Topper's in 1986

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Bob and Mike wonder what all the comotion is in the back of the room?

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Bernie is ready to dance!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Sue and Pat turn to see what is going on in the back of the room!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Our "Creative Whizard" (Vicky Kuhn) decided it would be fun to have members submit old photos of themselves (most not dating back to 1946) and see if we could recognize them today!

Vicky posted the submittals on the back wall and provided every table a  package containing the picture and a list of who was posted on the wall. Whoever gets the most correct wins the prize.... Del! No No! Not Del!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
What a charmng set of pictures...

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Perhaps a modern day "Rogues Gallery"??

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
The walls were searched, scanned, examined, and giggled at for quite a while!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"I think you are up there twice...

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"I shall now use my cheaters to examine the photos"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Perhaps anothet glass of wine might help?

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"I'n not up there so I am safe!"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Bob and Donna, Co-Presidents of Starlighters, hit the floor

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Leon and Marcia Brander, previous members of Topper's and current
Starlighters join us this evening

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
The cake is warming up....

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Meeting old friends

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Brigitte and Mike show us how it is done!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Cute couple!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Who is who now? Great amounts of discussion are underway!

Did You Know Than In October 1946.....

  • October 1 – Mensa, an international organization for people with a high intelligence quotient (IQ), is founded by Roland Berrill, an Australian-born lawyer, and Dr Lancelot Ware, an English biochemist and lawyer, in Oxford.
  • October 2 – Communists take over in Bulgaria.
  • October 6 – Sweden's Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson dies in office of a heart attack.
  • October 10 – Commencement of the Noakhali genocide of Hindus in Bengal at the hands of Muslim mobs.
  • October 11 – After a few days of vacancy, the Swedish premiership is taken over by Tage Erlander.
  • October 13 – France adopts the constitution of the Fourth Republic.
  • October 14 – International Organization for Standardization (ISO) founded.
  • October 15 – Nuremberg trials: Hermann Göring, founder of the Gestapo and recently convicted Nazi war criminal, poisons himself two hours before his scheduled execution.
  • October 16 - The remaining ten Nazi war criminals sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials are executed by hanging in a gymnasium in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.
    The United Nations' first meeting in Long Island is held.
  • October 19 - Topper's held their first dinner dance.

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
I think I found one!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Del got a hoot out that!

Did You Know? - The coining of the word "photography" is usually attributed to Sir John Herschel in 1839. It is based on the Greek φῶς (phos), (genitive: phōtós) meaning "light", and γραφή (graphê), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light".

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Irene and Bernie take to the floor!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
John and Makiko are remembering names from their earlier dancing days
with assistance from Neal

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Makiko remembers! The light went on!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
The guys get a few minutes to rest between dances...
Maybe they are discussing cars!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
The 1946 Ford was hot!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Meeting and Greeting is well underway!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"Mike... What is this delicious looking liquid? Is it safe to drink?"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"I will now call that happy juice"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"Wine.... Really... I drank wine?"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
All smiles


One of our members flew this puppy! Who was it?

Did You Know? - It's the world's biggest bomber!

The new B-36: Photographed during its third test flight out of Fort Worth, Texas

You're looking at the gigantic new B-36 in flight — the biggest land-based bomber in the world!

Designed and built by Consolidated Vultee and the US Army Air Forces, the B-36 dwarfs any other bomber now in existence. With its 6 "pusher-type" Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major engines of 3000 horsepower each, the B-36 is designed to carry 10,000 pounds of bombs a distance of 10,000 miles.

If this country should ever be attacked by an aggressor nation, this mammoth plane, operating from bases available to the United States, could drop an atomic bomb on any city in the world.

In the mighty B-36 America can seek and find assurance that the US Army Air Forces are constantly striving to maintain this nation's position of leadership in the air.

Consolidated Vultee workers are proud that they were selected to work with the US Army Air Forces in designing and building this great new addition to America's strength in the air. They have a right to be!

With its crew of 15 men, the B-36 has a maximum bomb capacity of 72,000 pounds. Two tank cars are needed to carry the 21,000 gallons of gasoline to fill the fuel tanks of the B-36. This giant bomber has six engines with a total of eighteen thousand horsepower. The tail fin of the B-36 stands almost as high as the average 5-story apartment building. The 230-foot wingspread of the B-36 is 10 feet more than that of two B-24 Liberator bombers.

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"One more drink and I will come back again!"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
They must have found themselves! They look happy!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Lucky is helping!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Too bad we don't have the audio from the discussions!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"What do you think Leon??? Is this correct"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
"Here's to Alice"

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Meanwhile the pre-dinner dancing is underway!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Neal is busy getting ready for the table centerpiece announcement!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Richard explains how his picture got on the wall!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Let us know if your eyes see dots

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Tearing up the floor wth the fast turns

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Gary tells Marion that he is not devine....
She obviously disagrees!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Dinner is coming soon!

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach
Days gone by ... Dinner dancing in 1946...

Did You Know About These 1946 Musical Events?

  • January 6 – A somewhat revised and streamlined revival of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat opens on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre, the same theatre at which the original production played back in 1927. This production features newly designed sets and costumes, new, more extended choreography, and a new song, Nobody Else But Me, by Kern and Hammerstein.
  • January 24 – Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements premièred by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by the composer.
  • February – Kathleen Ferrier's recording contract with Columbia Records expires, and she transfers to Decca.
  • February 8 – Béla Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3 is premiered posthumously by György Sándor with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra
  • August - Singer Doris Day leaves Les Brown's band and begins solo career.
  • September 11 - The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra holds its first rehearsal.
  • Al Jolson rerecords his old hits for the soundtrack of his Columbia biopic The Jolson Story (released October 10 in the United States), and becomes a superstar to the post-war generation as well B. B. King begins working as a professional musician in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • Chet Atkins makes his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry.
    Georgia Gibbs signs with the Majestic label.
  • Bill Haley's professional musical career begins as a member of The Down Homers. His earliest known recordings are made during a Down Homers radio performance, but will not be released until 2006.

Topper's Dance Club 70th Anniversary 10/21/2016 at the Petroleum Club in Long Beach

Dancing Quote: - "Set yourself up for success and anything is possible."