Learning to Dance, Part 1

Thank you, John Browne '61'. Your vivid memory of learning to dance the first two weeks of PE in 7th grade left me standing out there on the Chief Jo gym floor in my sock feet—Andy Williams' "Moon River" or Patti Page's "Allegany Moon" playing on the record player that was set up on the lower bleachers over on the girls' side.

Yes, the box-step fox trot—although it was more of a slow shuffle than a trot.

We learned a lot during those two weeks. Oh, we'd most of us done a little slow dancing at grade school patio parties with Marion Perkins '65' and Laura Parker '65', but this was different. Very different.

These girls were SEVENTH and EIGHTH graders, and there was a whole bleacher-full of them—30 or 40 of them—and most them from over at Jefferson, with names we'd never heard of before: Bushnell, Glover, Goslin.

Oh my!

And we'd have to walk all the way across that polished gym floor in our socks and ask one of them to dance. Everybody had to.

Everybody WANTED to. As soon as the Andy Williams record started, we'd sort hustle across to the girls' bleachers and approach.

"Would you like to dance?"

Those were the magic words you had to use.

"Would you like to dance?"

And they had to say "Yes." Or nod an assent. They couldn't say "No." Those were the rules.

"Would you like to dance?"

Or later on in the hour-long class, when we were more comfortable, "Wanna dance?" was enough.

Unless she was an eighth-grader and you were in seventh. In which case "Would you like to dance?" was still what you said.

Those were the rules.

TDK '65''

• Last Time Around
  
• Charlie Nevins
  
• Young Men And Fire
  
• Austin Healy
  
• Cathy
  
• David River's Birthday
  
• Han's Pavilion
  
• Muscles, Our Neighbor
  
• John Browne, Learning to Dance
  
• Your Brother Mark Browne
  
• Buster
  
• Celluloid Lies
  
• Nuked
  
• Learning to Box
  
• Dog and Goose
  
• Buses and Such
  
• Stealing
  
• Hookybobbing
  
• Stiles Old Upstairs Apartment
  
• Sign Of The Time
  
• Learning to Drive