The Dan Dan Convention

It was August of 2005 when Kacie, Debra and I attended our first Dallas Longhorn Club meeting. We had no idea what to expect, but were certain that any club with the word Longhorn that had meetings about football was probably right up our alley. We figured it would be a nice excuse to meet some nice Longhorn boys, talk a little football and have a few drinks.

With a bit of trepidation, we rolled up to Andrew’s Distributing, near the medical district in Dallas. This should have been our first clue that we were about to embark upon something…special. We spend a little time in the parking lot trying to decide if we were in the right place, so by the time we arrived at the meeting, it was already in progress. 

In other words, we were late. This didn’t bother us terribly, as in our experience; this type of event generally would begin with mingling and cocktails.

Wrong.

When we rolled up to the proper room, the door was closed. This was a bad sign, and before entering, we felt it necessary to do a little recon. Understandably, this is difficult in a closed room. As designated information-getter I opened the door, just a crack to peek inside.

This was a terrible mistake.

The door squeaked loudly as I opened it. Too loudly. “Looooook Aaaaaat Ussssss” it squealed. All action in the room stopped as every person in the room obeyed it’s command. As every head swiveled in my direction, I had about two seconds to evaluate the room. At this point there was no turning back, we had to go in.

In those brief seconds I discovered the room was arranged in such a way that a quick slip into the back was impossible. Before pushing the door open all the way, I turned to Debra and Kacie and gave them a look that said “we’re doing this, get your game face on.” Being brave Longhorn soldiers, we did just that.

Did I mention the room was not forgiving of a late-person slip in?

Once we were in the door we had to proceed to the sign in table. We were really trying to be quiet. I desperately tried to think ahead to the next move. There wasn’t really standing room in the back, and there was not enough room between featured speaker, former Longhorn Head Coach David McWilliams and the bar to get to the random empty seating behind him.

As I mentally executed our next steps, the gentleman taking our money handed us our name tags said “Welcome! We could use some pretty faces in here.” It was at this moment that Debra had a chance to really size up the room. This timing was unfortunate as it caused her to reply “yeeees.” It wasn’t until a bit later that I understood this slightly offensive answer.

Let me show you the awkward room layout:

On our way to the random seating detailed in the crude sketch, we had to cross directly in front of featured speaker, former Longhorn Head Coach David McWilliams. He glared at us as we walked between him and the punctual portion of the crowed. It was at that moment featured speaker, former Longhorn Head Coach David McWilliams decided to hate me. I would continue to aggravate this hatred every August at the Dallas Longhorn Club Football Kickoff for the next several years. But that’s another story.

One good thing about our random seating was that it provided us very easy access to the bar. It was also handy that we were at a perfect vantage point to size up the crowd. My hopes of meeting a cute, single future-husband Longhorn were dashed as I did a mental inventory of the 60 attendees: 3 women, 1 young man and 56 Dan Dans.

You ask me “What is a Dan Dan?” In this case, a Dan Dan is a grandfatherly aged man in a Longhorn polo shirt and khaki shorts. Still confused? Dan Dan is also what my sister and I call our own grandfather – a grandfatherly aged man often seen wearing a Longhorn polo shirt and khaki shorts. Our grandpa has always been known to us as “Dan Dan”, and our particular Dan Dan lives in Austin and loves the ‘Horns. Turns out the Dallas Longhorn Club consists of mostly Dan Dans.

Obviously this is not information we had beforehand.  But it is the reason why, from that day on, we have referred to this annual event as "The Dan Dan Convention."

When featured speaker, former Longhorn Coach David McWilliams had finished his presentantion, the Dan Dans and three Nan Nans (I’m assuming you’ve put together that the Longhorn loving wife of Dan Dan is my grandma Nan Nan) got up and began to mill around.

It was at this point that the one young man in the crowd (we’ll call him “Uncle Art”) started barreling across the room at us, knocking over several Dan Dans and a Nan Nan in the process. Poor Uncle Art. He wanted to make sure he was able to talk to the “pretty faces” in the room before we bolted.

Uncle Art, Debra, Kacie and I chatted well into the evening as the Dan Dans headed home. To this day, he remains a friend, and we owe it all to the Dallas Longhorn Club and featured speaker, former Longhorn Head Coach David McWilliams.

And of course, the Dan Dans.