Dancer shakes up council meeting

It was the funniest night in the history of the Rockland City Council. There was no No. 2.

Naturally I got blamed for it, although I was (partially) innocent.

It was 20 years ago last week and the 30th birthday of hard-working reporter Larry Ouellette, an employee of the Portland Press Herald. Since I was a Bangor Daily News reporter, Ouellette was a bitter rival until deadline, when he became a pretty good friend.

At several municipal retirement dinners during the 1980s, a belly dancer (not a stripper) was employed to keep the audience awake.

Inspired by this trend, an employee of another newspaper (who shall remain nameless forever) suggested hiring a belly dancer for Larry’s birthday. When it was determined that his birthday fell on the date of a City Council meeting, a certain state employee (who shall remain nameless even longer) suggested having the dancer dance at the City Council meeting.

A little history: Rockland City Council meetings were usually endless, dreary affairs which were held at an abandoned railroad station and attended by a few civic pests and the long-suffering reporters of various papers and radio stations.

Both the city manager and mayor (also nameless) passed on an offered veto of the festivities. “I know nothing,” they both agreed.

When the night finally came, there was a serious problem. City Council member Richard Warner chose this night to air legislation on his pet issues, banning dogs on Main Street and the misuse of grocery-store shopping carts. Warner, it was reported, intended to ride these burning issues all the way to Congress.

If you know a dog owner, you know how passionate they are about their pets. When the birthday-council night arrived, it appeared that every dog owner in town was in the council chamber.

With the complicity of agents in City Hall, a chair was kept for Ouellette at the front of the chamber. But when the dancer arrived, she insisted that someone put a special hat on Ouellette’s head so she would know whom to dance for. If the prank was to continue, someone had to walk into the crowded room and deliver the headdress.

I should have run screaming from the room. But no.

I was dumb enough to wade through the crowd and place the headdress on Ouellette’s rapidly balding head. It was one of the dumbest things I have ever done.

When the dancer slithered into the room, accompanied by that weird belly dancer music, the crowd erupted, screaming in laughter. One woman said, “I never knew council meetings were so much fun!” Warner’s own mother said, “I am going to come to the meeting every month now!”

A little more history: Richard Warner had the best sense of humor I ever witnessed, even better than his former friend, Rockland Police Chief Alfred Ockenfels. But on this night, he failed to see the humor. Warner was furious. When I saw the look on his face, I laughed so hard, I thought my head would explode. He later told the Courier Gazette reporter that the incident was ” a violation of the sanctity of the municipal process.”

Naturally, I was blamed for the entire left-wing conspiracy. I was warned by the editors never, ever to do anything that stupid again, and I did not, at least in public.

But it was too late. The Colombia Journalism Review got wind of the council session. The esteemed trade magazine gives out laurels and darts for newspaper work. The mag gave me, by name, a “dart” for a “lapse of occasional judgment.” The one time I get in CJR, and it was for a belly dancer.

We celebrated Ouellette’s 50th birthday on Saturday night. There was chardonnay on his deck in Portland, there were a few laughs, there was some pretty good food. But there was no belly dancer.

I just hate getting old.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.