Chapter 1

It all started out innocently. My son, Tommy, and I were having breakfast prior to his, as usual, rushing off to school. We were both looking forward to his summer vacation and to his graduation from high school. This beautiful 18 year old was due to graduate in about 6 weeks. I was hoping that his father would keep his promise and be home for that benchmark event.

My husband is a petroleum geologist and his work requires him to spend a lot of time in the field investigating potential oil bearing soils and monitoring drilling operations at sites he has located. His work, unfortunately, requires that he be away from home about three months at a time. Fortunately, he then gets to spend about a month at home before returning to the field. This summer he had made his schedule such that he expected to be able to take Tommy down to the Caribbean for several weeks. I was going to stay at home and then the three of us and my daughter Monica would all go to the mountains for three weeks. Monica is away at Georgia Tech where she is following her father's footsteps and majoring in geology. Monica was going to spend the first four weeks of summer auditing a class about the Moon rocks.

Tommy, in his usual offhanded way, blindsided me with his question.

"Hey Mom, didn't you and Dad used to be pretty good dancers. I mean like winning competitions and things?"

"Yes we did. Why do you ask?"

"Well you know our senior prom is going to be in four weeks, right?"

"Yes. And I know you're looking forward to it."

"Yeah, well there is a problem."

"What kind of problem?" I asked.

"Well, you know the guys who I play basketball with. Well, Eddie and Richie and Angel, they know how to dance, but not how to slow dance."

"Ok, I can see that might be a problem at the prom. I guess the school is insisting on a reasonable number of slow dances for the faculty. So what?"

"Well I was telling the guys how you two used to dance and I kinda said that I thought you might be willing to give them a few lessons. Wouldya Mom, wouldya."

"Tommy, how could you do that without checking with me first?"

"Well, it kinda jumped out ya know. And then it was too late to take it back because they got all pumped up. They really like you Mom, they think you are real cool for a Mom. Would ya do it Mom, You know, after school or something? They're my best friends and it would be terrible if they couldn't dance with their dates for half the night. Mom, please do it for me. I know the guys will never forget it and they'll love you too."

"Let me think about it. It's such a strange request."

"Please Mom, I told them I would check with you and tell them today."

"Tommy, you're a real rascal pinning me to the wall like that. OK, I'll do it. Bring them here this afternoon after school and we'll talk about it and I'll check them out to see what they need to be taught. Now get out of here and get to school young man before I change my mind. You're a real sweet talker just like your father and you know how to talk me into anything. I just hope the boys have some rhythm in their souls otherwise I am going to have to work really hard with them. Now, I'm going to have to check the records we have in the den and see what music I can use for your dancing school."

Wednesday

I spent about an hour going through our vinyl record collection and selecting some pieces that would be good for teaching these boys the basic steps. I didn't think there would be any waltzes so I left them out. I took the records I had chosen and then the specific songs and copied them down to a cassette tape. Then I went ahead and made three copies. One for me and one for each of the boys.

The four of them arrived shortly after school finished so I took them out to the patio so we wouldn't have to move the furniture and carpets. You can't dance my kind of stuff on carpet very well. I had dressed in shorts and a blouse so they could see the movement of my legs better and get an idea of the movements and, with the music on, the timing. The first thing I tried was playing the music and then standing in front of them and moving my feet with the tempo of the music. I covered just the basic step motions. Then I had the boys stand facing me and just move their bodies in time with the beat of the music. That went fairly well until I had them try some of the foot movements and that did not go as well.

I thought for a moment and then asked Angel to step forward. He seemed to have the best sense of rhythm. I turned him around and then stepped behind him. I put my right hand around his waist telling him to pretend he was holding a girl and putting his arm out and around empty space. Then I took his left hand and held it outstretched with mine. When the music started I guided his body with mine with my legs brushing against his to show the foot movements. I then had him try it by himself and he didn't do too badly. I then repeated the same things with Eddie and then Richie. I could see that they were watching our movements intensly.

We practiced just the individual movements for about an hour more and then I gave them each their own tapes and asked them to repeat what we had been doing at home. We agreed that I would work with them on Wednesday and Friday afternoons for the next several weeks to be sure they had gained enough proficiency to ask the girls to dance some slow dances. The tapes I had given them were all simple Foxtrots. I figured that after they had mastered them I would teach them a Rhumba and then they should be able to fake any other dances they played at the prom. Or even if they did well they might be able to watch when some of the other dancers did something new they would quickly learn how to change their steps according to the beat of the music. I knew that the Tango was way far beyond their abilities at this point or even before the prom at all.

After the boys left I asked Tommy how he thought it had gone.

He said that he thought it had gone well and the boys had really enjoyed it.

When he returned from school the next day, Thursday, he said the boys had been so enthusiastic about the lesson that they couldn't wait to get back for the next one. He said that both Eddie and Richie had talked about practicing in their rooms at home and Angel had mentioned that his mother thought he was going crazy when she saw him dancing around his room by himself.

Friday

Friday seemed to arrive awfully fast for me because suddenly I looked at the clock and saw that the boys would arrive in about 45 minutes so I rushed in and showered and powdered myself so I would smell good and then dressed in a smart little frock. I figured the boys should learn what dancing with a woman in a dress would be like. It was a quite conservative outfit.

The boys rushed in and greeted me warmly. I had prepared sodas and lemonade and offered them drinks. They all drank Cokes so I decided not to let the lemonade go to waste and had a glassful of that. When we started the music, Tommy excused himself saying he would go into his room and do some stuff on his computer. Neither the boys nor me noticed his absence once we got started with the music. I had them repeat the individual steps I had taught them, first without music and then with the music playing. They seemed to have picked it up pretty well but I decided to spend another halfhour with each of them the same as before; standing behind them and guiding their movements. With just a few corrections I had them moving very nicely by themselves. The music was of course very generic Foxtrot stuff, stuff played by the big bands back in that era, well before even my time. I used that music because it was all easy to dance to music with the bands always understanding that it was music for dancing, even when there was a vocalist.

I guess we spent about three hours in total. The final hour was spent with me dancing with each of them in the normal dancing positions, me in their arms. Aside from some slightly bruised toes everything went well and the boys left quite enthused with their progress.