The Sunday Memory Drawer - Gotta Dance...or Not

With arthritis now landing squarely on both of my knee joints, I'm already thinking about things that I won't be able to do when I'm 70.  Dancing will be likely be one of them.

Now, looking at the photo above of me as a kid getting whirled around the dance floor of some family party by some faceless chick that I don't even remember, you would think that I wouldn't miss the art of dancing one single iota.

Well, that may not be the case.  I may just long to cut a rug.  Enough to let them cut my knee.  There may be moments yet when I want to dance.

Who knew?  Certainly not me.  Certainly not in the snapshot above.  Certainly not in my teen years when I didn't know how.

When I was a kid, my dabbles into choreography were as misguided as it looks up at the top of this entry.  There was always impromptu dancing at family parties and I provided the perfect photo opportunity/comic relief.

"Here, have Lenny do the polka with __________."

"Put your cheeks together like you're doing the tango."

"Awwww, it's like you're Fred Astaire and _________ is Ginger Rogers.  How cute!"

How f-ing mortifying.

At wedding receptions, it was even worse.  I was thrown together with either a relative that was either much, much younger or much, much older.

"Come on, Lenny, dance with me a little."

You walk with a cane, you're a little drunk, and your dress smells like moth balls.  Umm, no thanks.

I'd sit in a corner.  Feet motionlessly dangling off the chair.  Wondering what the Mets were doing and, oh, yeah, pondering what all this fuss with dancing was all about.

Once I got to high school, I was even more confused.  Dancing was less formal and certainly more gyrations than anything else.  I think there might have been dances in school, but I never went.  I was convinced that I didn't know how.  Was there a right way to do this?  Were these dance steps communicated in back rooms and in alleys?  Did somebody whisper to you in secret just how to dance? 

Self esteem headed to the basement floor.  So, I retreated to my usual comfort zone.

I'd sit in a corner.  Feet motionlessly dangling off the chair. Wondering what the Mets were doing and, oh, yeah, pondering what all this fuss with dancing was all about.

Fordham University followed and the added horror of a college mixer entered my world.  Well, at least, I could be bored and drink beer to ease me through the torture of standing idly around the Ramskeller, which was the name of the Rose Hill campus' flesh co-mingling establishment.
 
And, still, I looked at this dancing thing and was convinced that there was something carefully organized to its every movement.
 
And, then, a visit from an angel.  Well, actually, my good college friend, Lorraine, who was as socially adept and in-tune as one could be. 
 
One Saturday night, I was hovering over the Ramskeller dance floor with some friends.  Emphasis on the "hovering."  Lorraine was out there.  A-bumping and a-jiving to some cover band that had its musical roots in some garage on Katonah Avenue.  Lorraine saw me languishing on the sidelines and waved to me.
 
"Come on and dance."
 
I looked behind me.  Who was she talking to?  Oh, crap, do you mean me?

In pantomine, I let her know that I didn't know how to do what she was doing. 

Lorraine pouted.  And pointed to the floor in front of her.  This was apparently an order to appear.

I gingerly stepped onto the dance floor and waited for buzzers to go off from my mere presence amongst the twisting and turning sophomores.  I told Lorraine that I didn't know how to dance.

"Like I do?  Just move around and do whatever makes you comfortable."

I turned to the left.  I turned to the right.  I turned to the left.  I turned to the right.  I put in a little bit of a sway.

"You're doing great, Lenny."

Oh, really.  Because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

Except, after about two minutes of my flailing like a mosquito dying on a car windshield, I made a startling realization.

I liked what I was doing.

And I was out on the dance floor for the rest of the night. 

Missing out on a campus mixer suddenly became an alien thought to me.  Once I knew there were no rules, I danced like...well, there were no rules.

Of course, becoming a semi-fixture at these events would have its potholes.  Take, for instance, the evening I was dancing with one girl who had a crush on me.  The feeling was not, as one would say, mutual.  But, she was open to dancing so why not?  I could easily be out on the floor, gyrating with her but also looking around and checking out the other "talent" available that evening. 

What do you want?  I was a guy.

Suddenly, the dance of sheer and rapid frenzy morphed into a sudden and unexpected slow song.  Ummm, okay, moving on....

But, before I had the chance to go over the prison wall, her hands were quickly on the back of my neck and her arms draped over me like shoulder pads.  This was the slowest of the slow dances.  My partner had seized the opportunity for some close and personal contact.

Okay, so I need to modify how I do this dancing stuff and make sure that I'm not left wide open for these sneak attacks.

Over the years, there are some dancing memories that samba to the forefront of the supper club in my mind.

There was the best New Year's Eve I have ever had.  Dateless and dancing to oldies at a New York City club with a few friends and a whole lot of strangers.

There was the evening when a friend and I decided to go listen to what is now passing as the Glenn Miller Orchestra.  The whole place was decked out to resemble a dance hall during World War II.  A couple of the folks there even showed up in their old military garb, albeit with a button or two missing.   It didn't take long for us to figure out that this was not the venue for two casual dancers to hit the boards.  We were the youngest people by about twenty years and those dancers were serious about their jitterbugging.  I spent the evening as if I were back in high school.

Sitting in a corner. Feet motionlessly dangling off the chair. Wondering what the Mets were doing and, oh, yeah, pondering what all this fuss with dancing was all about.

Even slow dancing could be tolerated in later years.  Well, as long as it was with the right person.  I remember going to the wedding of a female friend in Connecticut.  I was invited with a "plus one" and this one was legit for a change.  A girl I actually was dating fairly seriously.  Except it didn't exactly become serious until that very day.  In the middle of a slow dance at the reception. 

Once again, I was blindsided by the sudden move of my date.  Oh, we're going to do that?  Here?  In the middle of all these people????

Yeah, I guess so.

I glanced over to the sidelines where the bride's mother sat.  Eyeing me suspiciously and likely wondering why I had brought a brazen hooker to her daughter's special day.

Indeed, though, my very favorite dancing memory was of an evening when I didn't move an inch onto the dance floor.  I zip back to a summer night between junior and senior year in college.

The school year had ended but fun had not subsided.  In the middle of it all once again was my pal Lorraine who loved to organize social outings.  She was a perfect conduit.  Lorraine had lots of girlfriends.  My guy friends and I didn't have a lot of girlfriends.  Mix and match.  Hanging out in a group and there were actually two genders represented.  Ideal for grinding it out to music in some Long Island disco.

As luck would have it, I now was on the offensive line of a crush.  One of those girlfriends struck my fancy.  Like an anvil.  This would be an ideal venue to, umm, get together.

And, going back to the very spot and reference where this blog entry started, disaster!

It was the first ever flare-up of my right knee, which I had originally injured during the very first gym class of my senior year in high school.  Dance?  Shit, I could barely walk.  My jeans fit around my right leg like a watermelon would fit into the eye of a needle.  So much for the disco night.  And perhaps even getting into the car to get there.  I envisioned being strapped to the hood like a dead deer shot on opening day of the hunting season in the Adirondacks.

I should have stayed home.

But, still....

Well, love will do that sort of thing to you.  Actually, in this case, like would do that sort of thing to me.

Somehow, I shimmied into my clubbing clothes and I might even have ridden there in somebody's car trunk.  But, I went.  And, as I lumbered into another world of strobe lights and crappy music, I pondered my next move.  I would be relegated to an evening of watching everybody else dance.

Suddenly, I was back in high school again.

Yeppers.

Sitting in a corner. Feet motionlessly dangling off the chair. Wondering what the Mets were doing and, oh, yeah, pondering what all this fuss with dancing was all about.  Especially when all my friends would be out there doing it while I sat there alone, watching the ice cubes in my drink melt.

"I don't need to dance.  I'll sit here and keep you company."

It was my crush-ee.  The object of my intended affection.

Suddenly, I melted faster than the ice cubes.  And the pain in my right knee disappeared instantly.

Dancing is fun.  Not dancing also had its rewards.

Dinner last night:  Turkey burger at the Pig N'Whistle.