After the Ball Is Over

Yesterday, it rained. The day before yesterday it rained. The day before, the day before…

Today, it has rained a total amount of 0.54 inches since Midnight.
Our creek is beginning to race and to rise

Looking upstream west to east                                                    Looking north, behind the house toward bend to west.               

Looking north, downstream toward our property line. Image on right is blow up of image on left.
All images from 1045 today.

We left for Asheville about 1615 yesterday. The large concentration of rain had shifted eastward during the early afternoon. We drove over the passes with the wipers on intermittent and the defroster blowing cold air into the passenger cabin. As I mentioned, one of the few faults I’ve noted with the Pathfinder. The trip went smoothly. The mountain sides are spectacular in any light but sunlight would have made them much more so. At several points we were above the cloud deck and glad for tail lights on other vehicles. But still, not a bad drive. We managed to find a parking garage near our target restaurant. We were a few minutes early but decided to go ahead and begin a leisurely dinner. Our hope for guest, David Gans, was unfortunately delayed and didn’t get to Asheville in time to do anything but sound check before performing.


The restaurant “Wasabi” http://www.ichibanwasabi.com/pdf/wasabi_go_menu.pdf was nearly empty when we walked in just before 1800. We joked about not needing a reservation after all; but were assured we had done the right thing making one. We were quickly seated and began the always fun process of choosing sushi and sashimi. We settled on a house special roll, “main street roll,” that was beautifully presented. We ate it slowly, commenting on how great it tasted and how well presented it was. Neither of us recalled that we were carrying cell phones with cameras. By the time we added some sashimi – tuna & yellow tail, a spicy tuna hand roll, and a piece of sushi with uni for each of us, dinner was well underway. We kept a lookout for David but by this time didn’t really expect to see him walk in.


We knew we had a long night ahead of us and were still hungry. The restaurant was filling up rapidly by 1830. We ordered dinner, shrimp and vegetable tempura for me and nabe yake soba for Gloria. In a classic loss of situational awareness, when the waitress asked if I wanted soup or salad, I asked, “What’s the soup?” Quickly realized that there was no option but it was too late to say anything but “Oh, yeah!”

Dinner was delicious. We did realize we could photograph it and even on a cell phone camera image it is obviously well presented.

 

We brought home about half of each dinner. We’ll dine on leftovers quite happily tonight.


From the restaurant to the dance location, our trusty Garmin GPS took us through Asheville. Both of us read maps quite easily and quite well; but I must admit that a GPS can really cut confusion in unfamiliar cities and towns. We arrived in time to find parking within a short walk, paid our admission and Gloria left to change into her new skirt and the shirt she had chosen for the evening. We managed to find a place to sit along the wall beside the band. Changed shoes, stored our gear, and waited for the beginner session to end and the dance, proper, to begin. Gloria took the opportunity to see if her friends in the band, “Wild Asparagus,” would recognize her. It pleased her no end when they did. She started the dance with a huge smile on her face.

She also ran into an old friend from her DC dancing days, Bruce Henderson, which made it even more fun for her. She has always had fun introducing me to old friends. With rare exception, I’ve always enjoyed meeting her old friends.


To save her knee from too much damage she’s only dancing every other dance. It’s hard for her to sit out a dance but she did well last night. My knees are not much better than hers so I took advantage of the off dances to pay close attention to the band

“Wild Asparagus” http://www.wildasparagus.com/about.html is a great band for Contra dancing. They bring tremendous energy to the dance, are master musicians, and routinely improvise while playing traditional Celtic and other Contra dance music. A band that plays only a predetermined set list in exactly the same manner each night – akin to playing an album of tunes for dancers to dance to – will suffice to fuel a dance. The ability to improvise and to bring other musical elements to the performance can supercharge a dance, move it from a common to a seemingly living event. Some of it depends on the dancers. They provide feedback to the band. But the band can ignore that feedback or use it as a catalyst. That’s what I saw happen last night. I’d never heard “Wild Asparagus” play before, had only Gloria’s opinion of their caliber and merit. After the first dance, I wanted more. I’ve written of my inability as a dancer. So, for me, any good band would suffice to try to dance to. As a musician, I was treated to a superior performance by a band of immense talent and capability. Even I felt as if I might be a bit closer to being able to dance.


Of course, that was the music talking to me. I’m still the same middle-aged male who can only call himself a dancer if the phrase is never uttered out loud or written, as herein, for any and all to point and laugh. But sometimes the music is worth the ridicule. Sometimes it can make you loosen up enough to not really care how little grace of movement one possesses. We’ve all seen the tripped out guy in tie-dye and dreadlocks on the rail at a Grateful Dead concert. He’s hearing something no one else can hear, dancing to something Garcia’s playing “just for him,” in a spasmodic epitome of “white boy dancing.” Well, that’s never been me and it still isn’t. But I’m learning, just a bit, perhaps, that I can risk looking a little bit like that. And it helps that in 16, or 32 measures, I’ll be shoved or handed off to another neighbor, who along with my partner for the dance, will try to coach me into some semblance of a dancer for the minute of two in which they are stuck with me.

We left for home when the dance ended at 2300. When we left the venue there was a fine mist in the air, intermittent wipers were too frequent and noisy to leave on. It was hand control time until we hit the highway. Then the level of misty increased to really annoying. There was the perpetual streak directly in the field of vision that no wiper blade ever removes, that no window cleaner can eliminate. I spent the entire trip home to the intersection of TN 81 and I-26 changing the frequency on the intermittent wiper controller. Traffic was nearly non-existent once we left Asheville until we turned on to TN 81 at Erwin. The Nolichucky gorge is narrow, winding, rock on one side, river on the other, no guard rails, no shoulder, and had more traffic, all oncoming, than I expected. 12 miles from home it began to actually rain. We pulled into the drive at 0100.

The dog was happy to be let out. We were happy to be out of the car. We drained and emptied the dog, had a bite to eat, and watched enough television to de-wire. Off to bed at 0200 and the sleep of the just, righteous, and exhausted.
Woke up to rain, decided I’d gotten sufficient exercise last night, and have enjoyed a very quiet day to this point.

Tomorrow: reality television – no survivors.

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