Saturday afternoon, my wife and I sat together on the couch, switching back and forth between the two rivalry college football games that absorbed our interest. I was delighted to see my Golden Bears beat Stanford for the fifth straight year (something that hasn’t happened since the Harding Administration.) My beloved was heartsick, as she watched her alma mater’s eleven fall to the UCLA Bruins. A happy “date night” followed, and lifted much of her gloom.
Since I care about all forms of football, I note that Anson Dorrance’s Tar Heels won their 18th NCAA women’s soccer title in 25 years; Dorrance may have a checkered record in terms of his relationships with the young women he coaches (it’s amazing that in this day and age, he’s held on to his job), but no one denies he’s superb at every aspect of the game, from recruiting to teaching. And my father, who taught at UCSB for nearly forty years, would have been vaguely pleased that the Gaucho men pulled off a surprise win in the championship game of the men’s college cup, knocking off heavily-favored UCLA.
Anyhoo:
My wife did some competitive ballroom dancing in her teenage years. I, on the other hand, have two left feet. She’s very patient with me, even as I trod on her feet while trying to pull off some cumbia moves at our wedding reception. Still,on occasion my exuberant clumsiness makes her laugh. Somehow, last night, as I was doing the dishes, I started singing to myself (not uncommon) and doing some solitary dance moves as I rinsed the dinner plates. My wife walked in to the kitchen, stared at me in wonder, clapped her hands in glee, and asked “Where did you learn THAT?”
So, a story about my first dancing experience.
It was early August, 1979. I was twelve years old, and I was spending four weeks at a summer camp in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was a riding camp, and though I had grown up in a Western saddle, this was my first experience learning “English” style. (It took me the entire time I was there just to grasp the different way of holding the reins and the strange phenomenon of “posting.”) Anyhow, at the end of our first week at this large, co-ed camp for junior high and high school aged kids, we had a dance.
The camp’s brochure had promised a dance. I was prepared, having brought some nice slacks and a button-down shirt. I was also terrified. I had never been to a dance of any kind, and I had no idea how I would ever summon the courage to ask a girl to step on to the floor with me. Equally worrisome, I had no idea how to dance; I had seen other kids gyrating and bouncing on television (disco was ubiquitous in 1979), but I had two left feet and had no sense of how to begin.
I confessed my worry to a guy in my bunk house named Dominic. Dominic was a year older, and to my eyes, a paragon of physical and verbal sophistication. Dominic was eager to tutor me, and on a Saturday afternoon, we had a brief dancing lesson. It’s difficult to describe, but I’ll try. Dominic said:
“Rock from side to side. Every once in a while, take your left foot and bring it behind your right one. Then bring it back, and take your right foot and put it behind your left. If you want, you can also take one or two steps to one side, and then the other. But mostly” — and here Dom was adamant — “mostly you just watch what the girl does and try and do the same thing.”
Twenty-seven years later, those same moves constitute the majority of my dance steps. Oh, I’ve had folks try and teach me more formal dancing. I was an escort to a Charity League cotillion in college, and tried to learn then. Utter failure. At my first two weddings, I tried to prepare for the “first dance” as best I could, and I suppose I didn’t embarrass myself too much. (Oh, FYI, at my first wedding, the first dance was to Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt’s “Don’t Know Much”; at the second, to Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You.”) And of course, my lovely wife has tried to teach me the basics of salsa many times. Mostly, I end up standing still and rolling my hips in a fashion that tends to promote hysterics. My wife’s Colombian relatives find my attempts at rhythm to be bizarre, tragic, earnest, and, apparently, touchingly captivating.
While I’m on the subject of that first summer camp dance, let me say it was a great success. It was a mixed dance for high school and junior highers; I was among the younger kids there. But several of the older girls took it upon themselves to ask the shy younger boys to dance, and after I had only been watching the hopping and bouncing for a few minutes, one gal — perhaps sixteen — suddenly took my hand and led me on to the floor. She was patient and immensely kind, and we danced two “fast” songs together. I don’t remember the second, but the first was Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded”. I did as Dom had instructed, noting that my generous and pretty partner was doing more or less the same. I felt extraordinarily satisfied with myself.
At the end of the second song, the gal who had taken me to the floor thanked me — she thanked me! — and went off to dance with a handsomer, older fella. I didn’t care whether she had taken my hand out of pity, or kindness, or because her counselor had told all of the older girls to get a shy junior high boy to dance. All I cared about was that this nameless brunette with the warm smile had taken my hand, done the hard work of asking for me, and had stayed with me through not one but two songs. She’d be in her mid-forties now, whoever and wherever she is. But whenever I hear “Hot Blooded” on the radio — and I know every word, of course — I think of that foggy August night in a large cafeteria in the Santa Cruz mountains. I think of a long-haired cover band, who in my memory were magnificent. I think of the girl in the grey sweater who made me feel as if I belonged on a dance floor, who made clumsy, shy, inarticulate and chubby me feel wanted, if only for a few precious minutes. (God of infinite wonders, continue to bless this woman and her family.)
And I think of Dominic’s voice in my head, telling me to rock back and forth and slide one foot behind the other. Last night, I found myself doing the same moves as I washed and dried the dishes. And I know I looked silly, and I didn’t give a damn.
The real question is, will my ballroom-dancing, salsa and merengue-mastering wife let me pass on Dominic’s suggestions to our children? The early word on that isn’t promising, alas.
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