20 September, 2009


We Went Dancing Last Night.

Easy for you to say! Easy for many people to say. Millions of people all over the Western World go dancing every night.

I never really learned to dance.

In 5th grade, my classmates and I were summarily packed off to square dance lessons one evening/week. The girls enjoyed it; the boys would have rather been anywhere else. A few of the terms stuck with me, little else.

The following year the same dance studio managed to convince most of my class’s parents that ball room dancing lessons would ensure our future success in the world beyond grammar school. Again, the gender-specific developmental patterns applied. The girls dressed up for class, the physical characteristic pecking order determined which girls paired off with those boys already being groomed for the local high school football team. The rest of us, not at all eager to spend the evening in dress slacks and a neck tie, found ourselves arbitrarily assigned a partner for the evening from among the group of girls who weren’t already tracked to be the future cheer leaders.

So, already academically tracked, near-sighted, wearing thick glasses, not destined to become a football hero or interested in the game, not a prized partner for the poor girls who wound up assigned to stumble around the room with me, I learned the rudiments of the fox trot, the cha-cha, and the jitterbug.

I knew most of the music that was used quite well. I grew up in a home where music was valued. Knowing the music doesn’t guarantee the other social skills that make up a successful dancer.

As mentioned, I had, and still have, no interest in football and that town had an unhealthy interest in high school football. Selection started as early as third grade. Red flag teams were organized at every grammar & parochial school. Even at that early age most boys never took the field. Their presence on the team was needed to provide practice and scrimmage opponents for the already select. At official games, the greater number never left the bench.

I wound up reading early, became a voracious reader and learned to take tests well. While my art and handwriting skills were lacking, the rest of my class work put me in the high performance group. Those were the days when self-esteem was supposed to come from achievement rather than from pretending that everyone is equally capable of mastering all skills. Unfortunately, being high-tracked did not necessarily add to one’s popularity or convey social graces. In those days I had thoughts of being a chemist, a physicist, an aerospace engineer. I was also intrigued by the journals of explorers such as Cook, Peary, Hillary, Byrd, and Amundsen... I was reading about the men and women who pioneered the American West. None of this made me a good dance partner as, for the most part; who ever was so unfortunate as to be paired with me usually had little interest in hearing about what I had been reading.

Still, I’d managed to retain enough fundamentals to shuffle through a fox trot or simple jitterbug.

Then the dance party programs hit.

Someone on the east coast was inventing a new dance every week. Each one came with its own 2.5 minute bit of cookie cutter rock music, a bland or mawkish lyric, and these somehow made their way onto top 40 programs. They were featured in beach party and other teen-directed movies, which meant that every town had a group of girls who would practice the new dance and then use the acquired set of motions to prove their status as the most avant garde.

: I liked and like jazz, big band, be-pop, Latin jazz but did not care much for most top 40 music. So I had no interest in watching televised dance programs with lip-synched performances and little interest in watching Mousketeers who had reached teen star status dance and sing on a beach in the stream of morality plays that were being made for the teen demographic by movie studios.

In another few years I learned to play music and perform in a stage/jazz/dance band. When the folk revival came along, I found more music that I really enjoyed and added guitar to my list of skills.

Music, specifically playing music, solved the social skills problem and the need to learn and keep up with the current teen dances. No one expected the band to be engaging conversationalists. Outside of school there was no need to have any concern about the athletes and their camp followers.

Time passed, I made a trip to VietNam and survived. Disco made me even less interested in pop 40 music or popular dances. Line dancing became a popular pass time in rural areas and among people who like popular country music. Since I was living, mostly in rural areas, I had no interest in dancing. Work was an available means of not dancing and I used it as needed. I also have two bad knees that make me less graceful than Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Astaire, Kelley, or anyone too inebriated to drive.

Things changed like a super nova when I met Gloria.

Gloria is a dancer. Most of all, she likes Contra dancing. I’ll provide a link which will explain it far better than I am able. http://www.sbcds.org/contradance/whatis/

Gloria began contra dancing in 1973 or so and had danced all over Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and New England by the time we met. Some weeks she would spend 4-5 nights dancing. She’s serious about it. She told me that when we first met.

How serious?

The weekend I moved in with her, she took me to her brother’s home for dinner. Following dinner, she drove us to a dance. She said she was going to dance and that I was welcome to let her teach me or to watch. With both knees still aching from the trip east, I watched while she had a wonderful time dancing. What impressed me most of all, what stuck out for me to see, was the change on the faces of the men dancing with her. If they looked serious, they began to smile. If they were already smiling, the smile bloomed larger and brighter.

By summer, she had insisted I take a basic class and was teaching me to take part in the local contra dances. Then we moved to Florida and there was no contra dancing within a reasonable drive. Other things began to fill our time.

Now we are in TN and there is a lively contra dance community based in Jonesborough, with other communities in Asheville NC and surrounds. We are attending dances again.

Both of us have undergone spinal surgeries. Gloria has had arthroscopic surgery on one knee. That knee still causes her pain and both of mine are always painful.

How serious is she?

Friday, I drove her into town so an orthopedic surgeon could inject her knee to allow her to dance Saturday night. That’s serious.

So last night we drove into Jonesborough, had a very nice dinner at The Dining Room, a new restaurant with a Cuban menu. Then we went to the dance sponsored by the Jonesborough Dance Society – we are family level members. For several dances, Gloria has danced every dance we danced as my partner, helping me learn the movements and figures. But the custom in contra dancing is to change partners for every dance. Lately I’ve been told that we will follow the custom. To be honest, she deserves a chance to dance with better dancers than me. I guess she believes I’ve learned enough not to need her coaching – someone else’s maybe, but not hers.

So I dance about every other dance to save my knees and because I don’t have the stamina I had at 21, when I could shoulder a 60 pound pack, an aid-bag, a shot gun with ammo, and water, then head outside the wire. I don’t have the stamina I had at 44 when I met Gloria. I figure that by skipping every other dance I’m inflicting less public embarrassment on those women who take pity on me and offer to dance with me. I know, now, why all those smiles changed 16 years ago in Maryland. I know why they change here. I know why I feel my face change when she’s my partner. I know why there’s a grin on my face, today, as I write this.

Last night Gloria wound up dancing the first, the last and two other dances with me. We left after the set break. Both of us were tired and ready to leave for home. The dog was happy when we returned to let her outside.

Dinner tonight is egg plant stuffed with ground chuck, onions, mushrooms, and, of course, egg plant.

Music today has been primarily provided by The Grateful Dead. Other artists will appear after dark.

There’s a CD-R with waltzes loaded and ready to play. I need, desperately, to learn how to waltz. We need to find the time to practice. I can play them; I understand the tempo and the flow. I just need to master the footwork. It shouldn’t be that hard. But it is.

We went dancing last night. Easy for you to say.

http://www.historicjonesboroughdancesociety.org/

2nd row from bottom, backs to camera

Left, Gloria, Right, Stev

Photo David Bruce Wiley 8-15-09