Fifty years ago Chubby Checker invented the Twist. I was a PFC stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and on Friday nights, with my buddies Doyle and Russ, I regularly drove to a dance club some 70 miles north of Bragg. But I was pretty much a wallflower until I tried the Twist.

The concept, moving the top and bottom half of the body reciprocally, didn’t come easy for me. I pretty much stood flat-footed, with my arms crooked like a punch-drunk fighter, and swung my torso back and forth. All of it going the same way at once. After maybe a half hour of this I caught on — above the belt goes counter-clockwise while below goes clockwise. And vice-versa, alternately. It was magic. I could dance and enjoy it, too, all the while remaining reasonably sober.

I’ve heard that “the twist” was a breakthrough in that it was the first time adults became interested in dancing to teenage music. I was nineteen and it certainly was the first time I really enjoyed dancing (although I do remember doing a passable “chicken” during its 1954 heyday).

In the mid-70s, with the proper mixture of Jack Daniels and cocaine, I could get deep into disco. One night at a fancy house party in Menlo Park, I led a group of six men and women — dancing and stripping in unison, fully concentrating on our maneuvers. We were like a naked, sweaty Blue Angels exhibition.

I can’t do any of that now. Disco required drugs for me. I can’t do the chicken, either, because that requires you to plant your toe in a way impossible for a man without a right foot. But I can do the twist. I tried this afternoon and lasted about sixty seconds.

Chubby Checker is still around. And performing. But the amazing thing is that his discoverer, Dick Clark, remains with us. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he can twist for more than a minute.