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The Villages
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Fancy footwork has long been part of life of Village of Lynnhaven man

Fancy footwork in clogging shoes, roller skates and ice skates, has always been part of Clyde Hamilton’s life. The Village of Lynnhaven resident is a multi-talented dancer, hotrod builder, handyman, skater, writer and clogging instructor. His friends and neighbors also know him as the first person to call when the garage door stops working or there’s a ‘fix it’ job to be done.

Teaching clogging is Clyde’s passion. Contemporary American clogging incorporates elements of line dancing, tap, Riverdance and other influences accompanied by bluegrass and fiddle music. Clogging arrived in America in the mid-1700s with Irish-Scottish immigrants who settled in the Appalachian Mountains. (http://www.clogon.com/history-of-clogging/)

“As a child I remember families getting together at the community hall, playing music and dancing,” Clyde recalls. “It was what I grew up with.”

J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy describes what life was like in Appalachia when Clyde was born in Portsmouth, Ohio in January 1944. The family was large – Clyde was the middle of 13 children – and times were often tough.

“When I was born my mother told the physician, Dr. Clyde Fitch, that they didn’t have much money and that she would need some kind of terms to pay him,” Clyde recounts. “The doctor told her that since he didn’t have any children of his own, if Mom named me ‘Clyde’ after him, he’d pay for the delivery. My parents had originally decided that I would be named Mark Anthony, but I became Clyde instead.”

Though she died at age 49, Clyde credits his mother as a driving force in his life. “She was my inspiration,” he says, describing her as a small, proper woman who always wore a dress and had never cut her hair. His father, who dropped out of school in third grade to help support his widowed mother and family, “Had elaborate handwriting that looked like John Hancock’s and he could do calculus in his head.”

All of the 13 Hamilton children and their parents were small in stature.

“People used to say that we were small, but there were a lot of us,” he laughs.

In 1957 the Hamilton’s moved to Columbus and Clyde was introduced to roller skating.

“My sister, Ann, had a boyfriend who was an instructor and he got me started.”

Within a short time Clyde was an assistant to the pro, teaching beginner skaters.

The Hamilton family has a military history going back generations, so it was natural that Clyde sign up. “I admired my Uncle Jim who was a ‘brig chaser’ – an expert in judo and karate – who tracked down and captured men who had gone AWOL. And I was friends with a neighbor who had gone into the Marines and I admired the person he had become.” Clyde joined the Marines and spent four years active and two in the reserves.

At Parris Island he became a rifle instructor and rewrote the Corps shooting manual.

After the Marines and a stint as a student at Ohio State, where he took up figure skating on ice, Clyde landed with an insurance company and eventually rose to be Cigna’s national manager of auto physical damage. “I once took an aptitude test that reported that I had a talent for car repair. By that time I’d already built a few hotrods, but I didn’t really want to be a mechanic.”

After retiring from Cigna in 1999 Clyde spent a few years building custom homes in Ohio. His wife, Jeannette, died of cancer and he arrived in The Villages in 2005. Here his calling as a clogging instructor took off.

Clogging instructor Clyde Hamilton, center front,with members of the Clog Club Connection.
Clogging instructor Clyde Hamilton, center front, with members of the Clog Club Connection.

“I had seen a clogging demonstration in the early 80s, loved the rhythms and wanted to learn. I started to learn line dancing and my instructor was also training as a clogging teacher. She entered me in a competition and, to my surprise, I took first place in the clog solo.”

Clyde went on to win many more competitions and danced with all over Ohio, in Branson and even in Austria.

“The greatest thrill was performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC,” he says.

In The Villages Clyde taught clogging at The Learning Academy and teamed up with Jerry Capehart to start The Step Brothers. When women joined the clogging group they became The Step Family Cloggers and performed in competitions and shows in The Villages and throughout Central Florida, raising more than $20,000 for Operation Shoebox and other charities.

Early in 2015 The Step Family had their last dance. “I loved The Step Family and what we had done, but I felt it was time to concentrate on teaching,” Clyde says. He now teaches The Clog Connection weekly at Bacall Rec Center and another class at Recreation Plantation. He’s also a member of the Florida Clogging Council, teaches at CLOG National and is the director of the beginner clog room at the annual Florida Clog Festival in Daytona Beach.

Clyde divides his time between The Villages and a place in Homosassa, “Where I keep my hotrod and tools and have a garden,” he says.

He’s looking forward to spending more time at The Villages Woodworking Club where he’s been a member for the past dozen years.

Asked what the future holds, Clyde says that teaching clogging is still his passion. Then he adds, “I took guitar lessons when I was very young and still play a bit. I’ve been told that I can sing. And I like to imitate country singers. Maybe I’ll take that up.”

John W Prince is a writer and Villages resident. Learn more at www.GoMyStory.com.

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