Sally Single-Senior
LET'S DANCE
by
Sally Single-Senior (a pseudonym);(copyright 1997 All Rights Reserved)
I live in a Gulf Coast town where most of us are
single, most of us are seniors and most of us are women. It has
been called a community of widows. And most of us are of the
World War II generation.
We grew up jitterbugging in USO Clubs to the music of
Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James. I can't sit still when
that Big Band beat starts. A couple of years ago at a Jazz Jam,
I hopped on the stage and started jitterbugging. I tried to get
someone to dance with me. One man was about ready to when his
wife reminded him he had just had open heart surgery. They
started chanting, "Go! Go! Go!" and pushed me onto the stage.
The horn player put his sax down and got up and danced with me.
The MC said, "She reminds me of a girl who used to come
to Roseland. Must have been her mother!"
Two years later, people were still coming up to me,
saying,
"I was there the day you jitterbugged."
So when a friend asked me if I wanted to go to a
Senior Singles dance where they played Big Band music, I said,
"Take me! Take me!"
At the entrance, I could hear the Big Band beat. I
looked out on a dimly lit dance floor and made out couples
twisting, turning and circling. These "70 somethings" were
jitterbugging! Just as they had in the 40's. Same music, same
dance, same people. Only 50 years later.
We were the last generation that actually danced
together: the fox trot, tango, you know, "cheek to cheek". The
man held the woman close to his body-real close. He danced
forward and she danced back-ward. He looked over her shoulder
with his hand on her back to make sure she didn't bump into
anyone.
Years later, I tried to explain this to my daughter,
but she didn't get the hang of it. By then "rock n' roll" was in
and couples never touched again.
My friend and I sat down at a table. After she danced
off, I was jiggling to the music waiting for someone to ask me
to dance. I noticed a woman sitting alone at the next table.
Now, I don't mind dancing with a woman if she can lead. I had
already noticed women dancing together. So I asked this woman if
she could lead. She turned on me and spat out,
"I don't dance with women!"
Finally, they announced a mixer. That's when the women
line up on one side of the dance floor, the men on the other and
they meet in the middle. You dance off together, then try to
introduce yourselves over the roar of the band.
"Eh," my partner said as he adjusted his hearing aid.
What's fun about this is guessing where your partner
is from. I know East Coast accents, and I usually guess right.
They guess me as being from New England which I am not.
Back at the table, a woman leaned over and said,
"See that man?"
Her head tipped toward a man on the dance floor,
"I know six women he has slept with."
"What," I said, I was shocked, shocked I tell you,
"you mean they don't come here to dance?"
"Some do and some don't," she said.
Finally a man asked me to dance. A few days later, he
called and asked if I wanted to go out for a cup of coffee. I
got all excited. I thought he was asking me out! He quickly
disabused me of that notion when he said he had already eaten, a
can of beans.
He was only the second man to ask me out since my
husband died. I take that back. Neither had 'asked me out'. On
the first occasion a friend had given my name to a widower. He
came to my house one afternoon so we could meet. This was the
year Jesse Jackson ran for president. I had a "Jesse Jackson For
President" bumper sticker on my car.
"I see you're for Jesse Jackson," he said.
"Yes," I said.
I never saw him again.
When I told my friend about my 'date', I said,
"I never got that cup of coffee."
"Of course not," she said, "you silly woman."
"Gosh," I said.,"you mean he was making a pass at me,
and I didn't even know it?"
"You are so innocent, so naive, so dumb," she said.
Then she and another friend sat me down and told me
the facts of senior singles life.
#1. "Cup of coffee" means CUP OF COFFEE.
#2. Some people who go to senior dances don't go to
dance.
#3. When a man asks you out to dinner, find out who is
paying.
#4. If a younger man asks you out, he is probably
looking for a wealthy widow.
My friends started reminiscing and got into a game of,
"can you top this."
"Remember that little bald headed guy who asked me to
dance? I rested my chin on his head."
"And then there's the 'grinder'. He dances pelvis to
pelvis."
When they remembered Becky their humor changed to
sadness. Becky met a man at a senior dance who was a terrific
dancer. People would stop dancing to watch them. He was also
very handsome. They started dating. She fell in love, they made
marriage plans. Before he got her house turned over to him,
(which he was going to share with his wife) she found out he was
a con man with a record yea long.
The next time I am invited out for a cup of coffee, I
have a few questions to ask:
1- Are you a Democrat?
2- Do you drink Pepsi?
3- Do you think the minimum wage should be lowered?
4- Do dogs like you?
5- Do you have a razor sharp crease in your pants?
6- Do you read the comics?
The correct answer to some of these questions is yes,
to others, no. You guess which.
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