If any one had asked me before this article, I didn’t know where the word sock hop came from. Now what does hopping have to do with the fact that one is wearing socks? I guess there might be another reason why the word sock hop is used, but I can’t think of one. So in trying to figure out how socks got associated with hops - meaning dances at schools - I did some searching on the Internet and came up with some really interesting information.
There must be at least a million other reasons why sock and hops were associated, but then again, maybe there aren’t and I’m just flummoxed. It must be quite the stretch of the imagination to even begin to figure out why and how socks, schools, dances and music all came together as a dance.
I bet if many of you who went through school in the 60s will recall those sock hops, the Friday after school tradition where almost the whole school assembled in the gymnasium and rolled out the records for a dance. I remember that just about everyone in my class, socks and all, headed for that huge old gymnasium to start hopping and bopping to the rocking music.
Man alive that place just boomed with sound and some of the greatest hits of all times, while the floor was packed with kids having a riot. It didn’t matter how the gym looked so long as there was a dance and you got to mingle with the coolest dude in the world - the captain of the basketball team, in his socks.
We couldn’t go in to the gym without making sure we took off our street shoes and boots and left them by the door with the teacher on duty. It was ok if we hit the floor wearing socks or even nylons, but anyhow, that is where the term sock hop came from, kids wearing socks to hop to dance music.
You’d hop into the gym on socks to have fun and you’d hop to the music as well, since 60’s music was groovy dude. Isn’t it great how some of these expressions get started? What a colorful history for socks, the quiet hard working tubes of various materials that we slap on our feet and expect to withstand the rigors of what we put them through. So, do you think this is true?