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A country bumpkin who can’t dance

As children we are taught not to covet other people’s things. I had cousins who had an electric train setup. I wanted it. That’s coveting. Come to think of it, I wasn’t coveting. I wanted one like it!

By the way, I could covet all I wanted but I didn’t get that train set or one like it.

Fast forward to today. At my age, there isn’t much I want anymore. I have been richly blessed and the things I don’t have I don’t want. Well, there is one thing I still kind of covet. It sounds silly but I covet guys who can dance well. I don’t want to be a Fred Astaire, I just want to not make a fool of myself.

You see, I grew up in a family and in a church where dancing was frowned upon. No one ever said it in so many words, but I was led to believe dancing was somewhere up there on the list with fornication. As a result, I never learned to dance.

I was the personification of a country bumpkin. A country bumpkin who couldn’t dance.

When I was a teenager, I went to school sock-hops but sat on the bleachers envying the guys who could dance and who had the courage to ask a girl to dance.

I faced prom times with anxiety. I got dates for the proms and bought corsages and washed my car and all, but I knew when it was time to dance I’d be a disappointment to the young lady.

My friend, Lyle, gave me some good advice prior to one of our proms. “Just hug to the music,” he said. Frankly, that seemed to suffice. At least none of my prom dates said, “You’re a lousy dancer.” Out loud.

Our small junior college had a fall picnic early in the academic year with a live band and all. Most of the students were enjoying the dance. I sat on the sidelines. Lyle called me one afternoon and explained that his cousin from Oklahoma was visiting and he needed to line up a date for her so she could attend a nearby college homecoming dance with him and his date/soon-to-be-fiancé. Would I escort his cousin? he asked.

I declined his request but he insisted that his cousin was pretty, smart and very nice. With that kind of ammunition he talked me into it.

Turned out that she was prettier than I had imagined and charmingly intelligent. And she was very nice.

Yes, we danced. Or rather, we hugged to the music.

When I dropped her off later that night, she thanked me for a wonderful evening and said she had a good time. Very charming, indeed. This country bumpkin began to understand why so many Oklahoma girls became Miss America.

Life goes on and I was not planning to go to any more dances. I had retired from the mere thought of dancing. Then, at age 20, I fell for a young lady who was a senior in high school. Call it robbing the cradle if you wish, but she was a fine young lady.

Indeed, a fine young lady who still had one more prom on her schedule. So here I was hugging to the music one more time.

I eventually married this fine young lady and some 25 years later she came home from work one day and told me she would like to sign us up for dance lessons at the local community college where she was employed. After some discussion and persuasion, I agreed to go.

Actually, the dance lessons were interesting but at the same time they were frustrating. I have no natural sense of rhythm so I had to verbally count out the tim — one, two, three, one, two, three …

When the petite young dance instructor saw me struggling she pulled me away from my wife, grabbed me and said, “It goes like this, Arvid.”

Suddenly, after some 25 years of marriage (and behaving myself,) I’m dancing with a woman who was not my wife. She was good; she didn’t dance, she floated. My younger years and trepidation about dancing came back to haunt me.

Here I was in my mid-40s and I was a country bumpkin all over again.

The instructor’s advice helped and my wife and I completed the series of dance classes. In the ensuing years we put those lessons to work only a few times.

I don’t covet much these days except the guys who can do more than hug to the music.

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2024 by HuismanCommunications.

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