Blog 3103 – 04.28.2024
The Dance
One of the prohibitions of the sad little fundamentalist cult that I became a teenager in was that dancing was a “no-no.” In my senior year in high school I was determined in spite of the rules to take the girl that I had met in church and held hands with for months to the Junior/Senior Prom. So we devised an elaborate lie to get around the prohibition.
Since my girlfriend attended another school I had to get my school’s permission to bring her to the dance. She was a freshman (ninth-grader). Back then Junior High consisted of grades seven through ninth. I attended a county high school which had grades seven through twelve. I said all that because the fact that she was a freshman meant it was okay with my school that I bring her to the Junior/Senior Prom. We did not have to lie about that only to get a slip from her junior high school stating that she was indeed a ninth grader there in good standing.
My girlfriend lived with her grandparents who faithfully attended the little church where I met her. The big lie was that we were not attending a “dance” but a school banquet. There was indeed food but there was also a band and a dance floor.
It was formal so my girlfriend wore a ball gown and I a tux. She had her hair done at a beauty salon for the occasion and I bought her an orchid and pinned it to her gown. I even had my brother’s girlfriend Linda Haney who also attended our church to secretly give me dance lessons at her parents’ house about a block from our church. We practiced to Floyd Crammer’s Last Date. We practiced till I had the tune memorized and enough steps so as not to embarrass my date on the dance floor. Here is a link to that song. It is great to dance to.
Last Date (Remastered)
Today’s song says, “Our lives are better left to chance. I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”
A year and a half after the Junior/Senior Prom, on leave from the Army and before reporting for a year long assignment to South Vietnam, I married my dance partner, one Barbara Ann Barefield. We lied again about her age, faking an insurance policy in her name so we could get married across the state line in Murphy, North Carolina. The marriage did not survive our almost year long separation. She found another dance partner while I was away.
As painful as that whole experience was I am still glad and grateful that I did not miss the dance. So in the words of another country song my advice to each and all is to steer clear of guilt religions with all their stifling prohibitions and “If you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.”
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
theencouragingword 