Shuffling Off To Buffalo

I guess my dear husband thinks that being middle-aged and unemployed gives me ample excuse to indulge in whatever pursuit stirs me. Fretting that the double whammy of turning 55 and getting laid off might send me under a rock for a few months, he decided to encourage one of my more frivolous interests. Inside the nicely wrapped gift box he presented me one day, I found a new pair of tap shoes, dance pants, and a registration form for six months of lessons at a local dance studio.

What fun! I've wanted to tap dance ever since I saw 5-year-old Shirley Temple do it so adorably in The Littlest Colonel!! Within a few days I showed up for my first session, shiny black tap shoes at the ready. My classmates and teacher were all women, and to my relief, I was not the oldest: Two students were in their seventies if they were a day. A good sign, I thought; if little girls like Shirley Temple and elderly ladies like these could learn to tap, surely it would be possible for a newly minted middle-ager like me.

Our instructor was a waif with the form and hairstyle of a Raggedy Andy doll. The top of her head only came to my chin and she probably weighed 95 pounds. She'd been a dancer for decades, as well as a gymnastics teacher, and effortlessly flopped and folded and bounced herself across the floor while we watched, intimidated.

She'd been teaching tap for a long time -- too long, I soon decided. She had forgotten, or maybe no longer cared, about how long it takes adult non-dancers to get their brains and limbs in sync. She expected the six of us to master new steps after only a couple of run-throughs, and if someone wanted another repetition or some special attention, she would pull her tiny self as tall as possible and shake her mop top 'no'. "We are moving on," she'd sternly say.

Since the class only met once a week for an hour, most of us tended to forget nearly everything we had barely been able to mimic the previous week. Our blank stares and tentative shuffling about were sure signs of how much further and further behind we were falling, but our teacher resolutely continued showing us more new steps and combinations we had little hope of conquering. I kept going to class, but at the rate I was learning, it would be many months before I could perform an entire routine.

I needed an instructor who would repeat him or her self endlessly for my benefit, if that's what it took for me to learn, but that wasn't going to happen with my flesh and blood teacher. I turned to the internet, and after poring through descriptions of dozens of dance instruction tapes, I found her -- Ginger. She looked friendly enough in the picture on her DVD cover, and her DVD promo declared that I would quickly "Learn to Tap with Ginger!". She was affordable, too: only $14.95. Soon she arrived at my door, courtesy of Fed Ex, and we went to my exercise room for our first class together.

It turned out that I couldn't stand Ginger. First of all, she spoke English with some kind of thick Eastern European accent, as if her name should be Helga instead of Ginger (and likely was). She'd stress the wrong syllables in a word and pronouce the vowels differently than we do; I could hardly tell what she was telling me to do. Secondly, she dressed funny. Her tap dance costumes looked like they came straight out of some 1940's closet.....the black fishnet hose were probably most offputting. It was hard to concentrate on her footwork when she wore such wince-worthy, unattractive garb. Worst of all -- and this was the clincher that made me punch the Eject button -- Ginger's music tracks were truly atrocious, and her footwork didn't keep up with the beat! I couldn't bear to watch. Ginger got the hook.

I returned to the internet and chose another instructional tape featuring someone I knew and liked: Bonnie Franklin, who had the role of "Annie" on Broadway as a child and later became a successful TV actress. When Bonnie came to my house in her little CD jacket, I knew from the start that we'd get along. She ladled out praise and encouragement as if it were champagne punch at an outdoor wedding on a scorching August day. Every other sentence was "Great job!" or "You are looking terrific!" or "You should be proud of yourself!". Bonnie also never tired of backing up to go over a step or sequence again....and again.....and again........... She always had a broad, infectious smile for me. I worked hard for Bonnie! And I learned more from her $18.00 CD than I did in my $300 dance class, and most certainly more than I learned from Ginger.

So here I am, a 55-year-old woman who now can perform paddle rolls, time steps, soft shoe routines, and shuffle off to Buffalo with the rest of the herd. Is this a worthy accomplishment for someone of my age? Well, I don't know about that, but I can assure you it is a whole lot of fun for someone of my age! And maybe that's what Route 55 is about -- finding your sources of delight and fun in life before you reach the end of the road.