Top Four Highlights in My Dance Career

Highlight #4

1981
Mary Ellen M. and I make make it from beginning to end in an all-night dance marathon at Xavier University. During one of the few bathroom breaks, I'm approached by some guy who remarked snidely, "You dance like a fag," to which I responded, "Some of the best dancers in the world are homosexual." I'm not exactly sure to which of my "moves" (and I use that term real loosely) he was referring, but I'm fairly certain that my response wasn't what he had hoped for, but, hey, I still had hours of dancing ahead of me and had no time to address concerns regarding my masculinity...and, in any case, maybe the men's room ain't the best place for such a discussion.

To quote an Ira Gershwin lyric: "I'm dancing and I can't be bothered now."

Highlight #3

1985
My future wife and I win a dance contest at a fundraiser in Cincinnati. While that may sound impressive, I'm fairly certain that, since we knew one of the organizers and she knew I very soon would be heading off alone to begin my doctoral program at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, we were, shall we say, the "sentimental pick." The dinner we won, however, was fine, even if it had not been squarely won.

Highlight #2

2008
After a Sinatra talk that I gave to the Lions Club of New Britain at the YMCA, one of the lions stopped me and, due to how smoothly I glided around the Y's upper dining room during my presentation, asked if I were a dancer!?!

Highlight #1

Tonight
At tap class at the Hartt School Community Division, while we were practicing some step (nota bene, one of my many weaknesses as a dancer is that I can't remember steps), and while our instructor, Darlene Zoller, roamed the room offering individualized advice, she stopped to watch me, told me to relax my arms, started doing the same step next to me, and said, "Look, you're dancing."

It can't get any better than that, can it?