A Journey, Football And Ballroom Dance

Dancing teaches respect for one another, coordination of arms and legs and brain power and most of all it enhances one’s respect for him or herself.

When I was in Florida as a fourteen year old teenager in 1948 visiting a step aunt for a month, I would go on the bus to the beach to meet teens my age because Aunt Eve did not know how to entertain me in the afternoons. She was a step mother to my first cousins and was raising them and they were both five and ten years older than me.

So I made friends (my I was brave for a 1948 teenager) and they asked my name and I said it was Ginger because I loved dancing and Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I never told them my real name and so it was a precursor of my now dancing career. I was way ahead of my own time it seems.

When we were in Paris in 1976, the people in our tour went with us to the Lido Night Club and these older folks got up and danced the night away. I told my husband when we came back to the states; we were taking ballroom dance lessons. He said no way. We did and the rest is history these last thirty-six years. A history of fun, excitement, competitions, showcases, new friends, writing dance articles and most of all besides great exercise, a spark was ignited in our life of delight and joy.

Joy to the heart and soul and the toes and soles and as Shakespeare said in sonnet 53 “what is your true essence, what are you made of that there should be millions of reflections of you?” Reflections of wisdom in learning to ballroom dance and reflections of happiness in the mirror when looking at our self. We realize that we are special people, young persons, almost seniors, now seniors and even teenagers who want to learn to really dance and to dance well.

So I who was Ginger now dances with Jerry and we are now Ginger and Fred. That is the way I think of us and believe me, it is indeed a beautiful reflection and as John Milton said “reflection is wisdom’s best nurse.” We will need no nurses to care for us, because we have cared for our self by excelling in dance at whatever age we started doing this glorious, awesome, unbelievable and astonishing thing called DANCE.

So now football season will be coming all over the country and I am glad my boyfriend/husband now went to that game. It was called Sudden Death in those days and though football is a part of men and women’s lives so much now days; I will always treasure that he went and saw that game in New York. My grandsons are very proud they can tell their friends that their grandfather really was there to see it.

So football and dance are related in my life because if perhaps I would have gotten angry that he went away that weekend instead of seeing me, things may have ended. So the moral of this story is do what is right for you at the time and perhaps happier times will evolve.

Now we have the Ravens here and I have learned to love them even though I still do not understand who is running where; but I love the color purple and every Friday at various offices, the employees wear purple to honor the Ravens. I love them too and even though I am Ginger and he is Fred (in our minds only), football and dance are synonymous to me because he went there to see the game and years later, we took up ballroom dancing and it would never had happened if we did not remain together.

Shakespeare said “how heavy do I journey on the way.” That I take to mean for me, that he went on a journey to view a sport and my life remained and became a greater voyage.