Dancing park ranger Deryl Nelson said the grooves that made him a starring attraction at the greenspace destination where he worked featured “no tweaks, no jerking, no nothing,” Chattanooga, Tenn., NBC affiliate WRCB reports.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to convince his superiors. The seven-year veteran of the city’s Coolidge Park was fired late last week for violating two codes of conduct: “conduct unbecoming of an employee” and “inefficiency or negligence in performance of duties.”
Nelson, 51, told the network that he’s been dancing both with park visitors and by his lonesome for six years, since he first caught a crowd doing the Macarena. Since then, it’s been a load of clean fun, he says. “Nothing like doing any bumping and grinding.”
A visitor to the park named Melissa Parsons took issue with the dancing, however, and posted a video of Nelson’s dancing online. Chaos abounded, and Nelson was eventually fired, despite receiving an award for “heroic acts” last year and only being written up twice in seven years on the job.
“It’s all about enjoying what you do, and that’s the way I feel,” said Nelson, who someone should hire to kickstart a boring bar mitzvah quite soon.
H/T HyperVocal | Photo via WRCBtv