Do The Hustle

I was five years old when Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony released the disco classic “The Hustle”.[1] That song has been stuck in my head ever since.

Apparently there is actually a dance called “The Hustle” with real dance steps that you are supposed to follow, but my friends and I thought the hustle had something to do with taking a few steps forward and then kicking your leg up and clapping underneath it, and then bumping hips with the person next to you. Forgive us. We were in kindergarten. We had no videogames or cable tv. Just 45 rpm records and a crappy turntable that skipped if we jumped too hard, which we often did. We balanced pennies on the arm of the record player to hold it down over scratches.

But enough nostalgia.

I think one of the reasons why “The Hustle” has not left my head since Elvis was alive and kicking is that in the intervening half-century I haven’t stopped hustling. Hustling has changed over the years: it no longer looks like graceless elementary school children going wild. Hustling in my fifties can look like wearing uncomfortable clothes at a cocktail party and trying to make small talk with important people. It can look like driving several hours to set up my books on a folding table and trying to catch people’s attention to buy my books amongst a sea of others.

I’ve hustled for business, I’ve hustled for sales, I’ve hustled for connections, and you know what? I’m tired of hustling. Merriam-Webster defines this kind of hustling as obtaining by energetic activity[2]. In fact, all the definitions involve speed or hurry or energy of some kind.

Which is all well and good, but as someone who automatically qualified for the Senior Division of the Georgia State Bar, I think I’ve earned the right to slow my roll a little bit. I’m tired. I’ve paid dues to so many clubs I ought to own the buildings by now.

Three years before Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony told me to Hustle, the Eagles advised me to Take it Easy.[3] Granted, I was two at the time, and it is the rare two-year-old who can take anything easy, but time changes all things.

Even if you save it in a bottle.[4]

[1] https://youtu.be/4fBQHzMumlo?si=Zyk_QDhmAJMRuki-

 

[2] HUSTLE Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

[3] https://youtu.be/5igDtWadYms?si=mO8w5XyjZjTOUuYj

 

[4] https://youtu.be/Q29sOLG8xGE?si=l7S5y5VMfBm6fkLO

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