Dance

I am not the most graceful person in the world. I've been known to fall down when all I was doing was just standing still. I've fallen off of buses, up steps, down steps, into the house in D.C. where Lincoln died, off the front porch, out of the car, off a merry-go round, you name it I've fallen off of it or out of it. About the only place I've never fallen down is on the golf course
Doc and I were taking Fergus around the block a couple of years ago in the fall of the year and Fergus gave a sudden pull and I slipped on some wet leaves and fell flat on my belly on the sidewalk still hanging on to Fergus' leash. Doc had been a little behind me but he soon passed me up as I lay there and kept on walking. He had long since lost patience with me spending so much of my time on the floor or ground. When some one asked him why he didn't stop he said, "Hell, she is always falling down!"
When my mother realized how clumsy I was she allowed me to join the dance class at school thinking maybe I would become more graceful. I was in the first grade at the time and it was an acrobatic tap dance class. I loved to dance. I used to have my own personal recitals in the pantry and I was the only spectator. For the rest of my years I took every opportunity to join dance classes. I had Modern Dance with Miss Blocavah, ball room dancing with Miss Sheer and in high school we had dance in PE which we called gym class.
Back in the 70's one of my friends asked me to join an exercise class with her that took place at Norma Hellmuller's School of Dance. I promptly signed up.If it was a Dance School it had to be something I wanted to do. We did our warm-up drills at the ballet barr doing plei's and other ballet moves and then began our exercise routines. We did our routines to music. My friend was so crippled up the next day she promptly dropped out but I stayed. There were about ten of us that first night but after that the number varied. New people would come and go. A newly married girl, Toni, stayed and so also did I.
Through the years the instructors changed a few times we had Margo to begin with and Cece in the summer. We went two nights a week and were in great shape in no time! Margo was a tough task master. The routines were arduous. We made a rule that we did not try to memorize names until the new people stayed at least three weeks. They fell like flies. After about eight or ten years Margo left and then we had either Cece, Norma or Natalie. We had also finally acquired a steady group of people that were as dedicated as Toni and I, people that showed up every week (we cut it down to once a week) and we grew to be a very close knit group.
We never lacked for subjects to talk about, music, food, work, food, shocking behavior, recipes, our travels, food, on rare occasions there was a little man bashing, we talked about our pets, mostly Margaret, Norma and Natalie's cats, more food, but remarkably we never discussed politics or religion. That could well be the reason for our compatibility.
We all came from different walks of life, there is probably 35 years age difference between the youngest and oldest. Lesa is a third grade teacher, Toni is an engineer, Toni Lynn is a docent at the zoo, Sherril is a professor , Margaret is a retired banker, I am a retired teacher, Natalie is a dance instructor.
Toni and I were class members for 27 years and the rest have been there long enough to have earned senior status. We would all be in classes still if Norma hadn't decided to retire and not renew her lease on the studio. She and Natalie taught a few thousand children and young teens to dance.
While we worked so hard all those years while speaking frequently of food we make up for it now by meeting frequently and having dinner together and talking about exercises. We meet and start talking immediately, still not at a loss for words. We are still interested in each other's well being and still care for each other. We do a lot of laughing! As the teens would say , we are BFF's. I hate to tell this but I am still clumsy. Just yesterday I fell down in the kitchen. However, I know how to get up gracefully!