Well, stomp my grits and call me Betty Lou ‘cause I sure had a good time when I went line dancing. Now for those of you who have not expanded your terpsichorean horizons, line dancing is performed with multiple lines of people all facing the same direction and all doing the same steps at the same time.
I must admit I entered this experience with an uncharacteristic smugness. After all, was not Dale Evans one of my childhood heroines? Did I not spend every day after school and all day Saturday watching cowboy movies? Was not having my own pony at the top of every Christmas list?
So after a hearty meal of pork and beans, I put on my jeans with the belt loops so’s I could hitch them up with my thumbs, tucked in my checkered shirt with the pearl snap buttons and shuffled on down to the community center.
Picture this, if you will – a big room completely lined by full-length mirrors and set off by high ceilings and a beautiful hardwood floor. Add a motley assortment of town citizens of all shapes and sizes – but, to be honest, leaning a bit towards the robust and portly – all neatly turned out and ready to trot. At the head of this herd, add one dance instructor who has a day job with the IRS and wears a whistle around her neck which she blows loudly whenever the class gets too rowdy.
After an hour of intense concentration, I was spinning and slapping and kicking with the best of them and usually facing the right direction. I learned the Step and the Stomp, the Grapevine and the Camel, the Shuffle, the Slide and Smacking Leather (which is not as good as wearing it) and the especially tricky Cha, Cha, Cha step which not only has a going forward and a going backward part, but a shuffle, turn, go the other direction twist, which I thought, in time, I could master. After all, don’t I have that Ricky Martin album and don’t I dance to it when I make beans and rice?
In my estimation, the key to this line dancing is to be careful who you look at. For instance, one time I was doing the Camel when I made the fatal mistake of looking at the Pointy Toed Lizard Skin Boots in the line in front of me. I believe it was the labyrinthine stitching that temporarily mesmerized me and before you could say “about face!” a head-on collision was inevitable with a middle-aged, blond with a tight perm and a T-shirt emblazoned with the American flag on her bosom. After I helped her up, the instructor whistled a ten-minute break and I scurried to the Ladies Room.
Imagine my dismay upon my return when I discovered that the only position left open in the group was in front of the instructor. The music cranked up and we were off! I had a certain difficulty, not permanent I hasten to add, in the Cha Cha Cha department. I had the One-Two-Cha-Cha-Cha down like nobody’s business but then there was the Step, Pivot, Turn, Cha-Cha-Cha and the Slide, Slide, Turn, Cha-Cha-Cha, followed by the Grapevine, Point, Step, Step, Cha-Cha-Cha.
As you may infer, this particular song sure had a lot of spinning and turning and Cha-Cha-Cha-ing and midway through the instructor shuffled off to help some poor schmuck. Suddenly, I was part of the front line with nobody to follow. The old shot-in-the-night, stampede over-the-cliff scenario flashed through my mind and a small tremor arose from my boots.
What followed started out innocently enough. I got a little confused as to what step came next and I thought I might just sneak a peek in the mirror to see what everyone else was doing. But when I looked into said mirrors, I saw a lot of things backwards mirrors being what they are, if you know what I mean. I shuffled and hopped real quick to get back in the swing of things.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of highly imitative students standing in the line behind me. You know how you hear news reports about a third world country has an itty-bitty revolution and the next thing you know it’s monkey see, monkey do and the whole continent is up in flames.
Well, something like that happened last night. What with the music speeding up and the mirror playing tricks, and me trying to get back on the beat, I got my feet in such a tangle that there was no stopping them. I spun and turned and stomped and kicked with such abandonment that you-know-who’s whistle cut through the air like a hot knife through butter.
Obedient to the last, I came to a screeching halt. Panting, I looked through my sweat-clouded eyes to discover two dozen dancers spinning and turning and kicking in every possible direction just like when Johnny Mack Brown would head off the herd just before the precipice and then all the cattle stand around in a turmoil and moo.
Well, to make a long story short, said whistle-blowing instructor plucked me out of the herd and muttered something about being a danger to the other dancers, some of whom were still milling and mooing. As I watched them Cha-Cha-Cha-ing from the wings, I wondered if Dale Evans had been a good dancer.
‘Twas surely the devil that taught women to dance. Thomas Fuller
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