This entire post came about after Grandson PJ created a writing competition involving any of the 78 National themes of the month for January that he presented as prompts.
I am quite confident in betting that the polka is not on the life skills resume of anyone else in this writing competition. But it is on mine along with the schottische and other partner dances I have forgotten the names for. They were all a routine part of every PE class. We would line up to get paired off which was the most agonizing part as you had no say in who your partner would be.
This might sound like I am talking about cotillion classes but trust me this is basic PE class. While cotillion is an activity strung out over months where participants do learn dance steps these steps are more along the lines of the waltz or fox trot with the cha cha and a few other Latin dances thrown in for good measure. My corner of the teen world did not involve such high class opportunities as cotillion so it was left to PE classes for us to learn dances with specific steps.
Now my best friend since kindergarten (when I lived in Richmond in a little house which we actually called The Little House behind my grandmother’s house which we called The Big House) whom I kept up with even as my family moved to Texas, Guam, back to Texas and finally Ohio was very much into cotillion with all the social attributes (which went beyond dance steps) as a life skill, or rather her parents were. And so it was that I too got to participate in cotillion.
I feel the need to add an aside here as to how Patsy and I got to be friends because it is a story unto itself. We were in kindergarten together but not in the same classroom. We however did ride the bus together and she decided that we needed to be friends and with her mother’s permission knocked on every door of the huge antebellum houses that separated our homes until she found me. And we became fast friends. I asked her the how of it when we reconnected as adults because I knew that our mothers so vastly different would not have been the common link and she told me the charming story.
Back to the main story. No sooner had our suitcases hit the floor at The Big House than I claimed possession of my grandmother’s one phone to dial AT8-7637 to let Patsy know I was in town for Christmas. Patsy was never one for leaving me behind and she included me in every social activity that came her way. “You are going with me to the cotillion Christmas dance,” she announced. The dance was the culmination of all the weeks of learning dances and manners. I agreed but I had nothing to wear. Mom dug into my Christmas presents pile and brought forth a poodle skirt and dressy blouse. It would do. Patsy let me use her practice nosegay made of ribbons and lace (apparently cotillion had a practice dance before the real thing) while she had a real flower one. And so off we went. It was fun and I could hold my own having learned most of the dance patterns in PE class. But the best part was going to the Clover Room for ice cream afterwards.
And finally back to PE classes. Square dancing with do-si-dos and other complicated moves to music played the faster the better was my favorite. Many of my classmates moaned and groaned over learning these partner dances but I knew that one day the skill would come in handy.
As indeed it has quite nicely filled a need for picking a theme to write about with National Polka Month leading the way.
