FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) - When Nick Nichols was young, he used to claim stomachaches to get out of having to dance with girls at school get-togethers. And Emma Nichols says she was too studious as a high school student to have time for dancing.
Now that they are older - he is 70 and she is 69 - the Spotsylvania County couple tries to go out dancing once a week. They hit the dance floor right away and often don’t stop until after midnight.
“I look for the best dancer and try to dance him off the floor,” Nick Nichols said.
“It’s hard getting to church some Sunday mornings,” Emma Nichols said with a laugh.
They’re not just dancing at Moose lodges. They were at the recent Kool and the Gang concert at Busch Gardens and the Earth, Wind and Fire show in Washington.
And they were at the Ludacris concert at Celebrate Virginia After Hours on July 29, when local DJ Tony B warmed up the crowd by playing the J-Kwon song “Tipsy.” Their coordinated booty-shaking moves were filmed by a fellow concertgoer, posted to Facebook and promptly went viral.
The video has been viewed 2.5 million times and has been covered by media outlets across the country and in the United Kingdom.
“I made ’Southern Living’! I’m into their recipes!” Emma Nichols said. “All of this has been such a surprise.”
Nick, who grew up in Caroline County, is the one who started dancing. After being a self-professed “shy guy” for years, he finally got up and did the twist at a sock hop and has never looked back. He’s danced on stage with Chubby Checker six times.
“I never had a lesson and I never will,” he said. “I’m original and I want to stay that way.”
Emma, who’s from King George County, started dancing after she married Nick in 1969. They met at the Hardees on Princess Anne Street in Fredericksburg - now the site of Mason Dixon Café. She was there with a friend, and Nick and one of his friends got into her 1968 Chevy Camaro. They drove around Fredericksburg - Nick in the back seat with her friend.
“At one point, my friend asked me if I wanted to switch girls, so we did,” Nick said. “At the end of the night, we got all smoochy-faced and the next night, that Camaro was in Bowling Green looking for me. Love grew.”
The two have been married for 48 years.
“All my slow dances are saved for her,” Nick said. “If we’re dancing and some girl wants to cut in, I go to the other side of Emma and say, ’I’m with my baby.’ “
Their daughter, Michelle Nichols James, said she used to tease her parents for their constant togetherness.
“I’d say, ’Dad, you do everything with mom,’ “James said. “Now I know why. It’s amazing to me, the love that they have. I feel like I was blessed with that as their one and only child. It’s something to live up to.”
She said her parents were always dancing, a particular challenge because her father was the track coach at James Monroe High School when she was a student.
“At times, it embarrassed me, I won’t say it didn’t,” she said with a laugh. “My dad would always try to bust a move at high school dances. But as I got older, I got used to it and I was kind of proud of it.”
James was a fan of Motown, R&B and hip-hop, and she’d keep her parents abreast of the popular music scene, she said.
“We like everything Top 40,” Nick said.
The couple says they don’t choreograph their routines.
“We listen to the beat and ad lib,” Emma said.
For many years, life got in the way of their ability to dance together. Both worked full time. She worked as a labor and delivery nurse and he worked for Safeway.
He also coached track and field at Stafford and Courtland high schools and at the University of Mary Washington. Some of the records his students set still stand, he said.
For 20 years, the Nicholses also operated a weight-lifting room for local students in their Spotsylvania home. Nick saw it as a community service effort, a way to keep kids off the streets. The cost was $5 a month - or nothing.
“And we treated everybody the same, whether they paid or not,” Nick Nichols said.
They used the money to buy plaques and trophies for lifters of the month and year.
But in 2006, Nick Nichols decided it was time to retire from all his endeavors.
“Emma allowed me to be myself for 43 years,” he said. “Now I want to spend more time with her.”
Now, every week, they look in the newspaper to see what bands are coming to town. If there’s nothing in Fredericksburg, they’ll venture out to Colonial Beach, Fairview Beach, Richmond or even Petersburg.
“The best band around that week, that’s where we are,” Nick said.
Their favorite local band is En’Novation, a Richmond-based group that plays classic R&B and soul.
“They’re the best local band around,” Nick said. “It takes a lot to wear me out, but this band does it.”
The last weekend in July, the best show around was Ludacris.
“I know rap has a good beat,” Nick said. “If it’s got a beat, we’re in the street.”
Fredericksburg resident Jaimie Ashton was at the concert with her husband celebrating their fourth anniversary. She noticed the Nicholses dancing behind her and started filming them. She said she wouldn’t normally have done something like that, but she was touched by what she saw.
“It got me in a bunch of different ways,” Ashton said. “I was there for my anniversary and I want to have (what they have) with my husband when we’re older. There’s a time when she gives him a little side look with a grin - I give my husband that side look with a grin. At one point, another guy tries to dance with her and Nick grabs her hand and gently pulls her closer to him.”
She was also impressed to see an older, white couple enjoying themselves at a hip-hop concert.
“I’m a biracial family, and the whole irony between the stereotypes of older white people and this is a Ludacris concert,” she said. “There was so much specialness there.”
Ashton uploaded the video to Facebook and changed her privacy settings to enable sharing, figuring that a few of her friends from work would want to share it. She had no clue that it would take off the way it has.
“My phone has been nonstop since I posted it,” she said.
“I think people respond to it because there’s so much negativity going on right now. And they just brought so much light to everything. So many of the comments and messages and stuff that we’ve gotten have been along those lines. The same sentiment has come from everywhere.”
James said she’s also been overwhelmed by the positive response her parents’ dancing has received.
“I just love it because of the hateful world we live in right now,” she said. “I’m very grateful for this kind of situation happening at this time. It’s definitely amazing.”
The Nicholses said they’re grateful to Ashton for sharing their video with the world.
“I think people see the loving and caring we have for each other,” Nick Nichols said. “There’s not enough loving and caring.”
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