The Applause Is Over, The Joy Still Here

Shelby Stein said “wow I read that whole thing. I love this lady!!!! What an awesome old woman.”  Taryn said “yes, she is an awesome lady! I've known her since my first job at the Olive Branch. :) “

These comments were written at the bottom of an article I wrote a few years back on The Patch. It is funny to see someone call you an old lady and I still smile about it.

When we were in Florida in May of 1982 for a dance competition I was dancing with my coach Laurence E. Miller, we went down on the first night we got there before it started. There were old ladies there probably the age I am now who were going to dance with their young dance teachers the next day. I thought to myself, wow, I love those old ladies who are able to still dance and to be active. Now I have progressed to their age group. Shelby mentioned above was referring to an article I wrote about some dental assistant being nasty to me on one visit several years ago and I told her off for sure. Shelby who I do not know was proud of me for speaking up.Taryn Starck I have known for years, first as a hostess in a restaurant we frequented and later on as a fine secretary in my podiatrist’s office.

I use to be meek in these situations and I did not have a big mouth as my brother did. He did not take anything from anybody and in most cases, he was right. I just wanted to keep the peace and so I often backed down and let others get the best of me for the moments. Now as an older person, an old lady referred to above, I speak up.

When we went to that dance competition for the first time in 1982, we had to check in and we got to Florida a few hours earlier to beat the traffic of hundreds of dancers to be checked in. The owner of the competition was named Gary and he got a bit ruffled while trying to check us in, we had all paid in advance through the mail. When it got to be my turn, I felt he would be thrilled to have three people come from Baltimore, Maryland all the way to his event.

Instead he was not very polite or friendly. We checked in and we went a second time that year to the Fall competition and there he was again checking us in and still obnoxious. When it came to my turn to check my husband and me in and our teacher, he looked at me, did not say Hi and practically threw the competition packages at me.

I said to him “I see you are still obnoxious as you were in May. It is my opinion that we are ‘customers’ to your event and therefore customers should be treated with kindness and respect and especially since we traveled so far to come here.” He turned to me and said “You are right Mrs.Clayman; I get overwhelmed when so many people descend on me at once. I am sorry” and from that moment on he was quite friendly. We came back several more times, and each time he said Hi, a bit more accommodating than before.

He ran a smooth competition and he gave out tremendous trophies to the winners and it was worth the trip because he also had excellent meals, fantastic entertainment at the end of each day featuring the most fabulous dance couples there were in the world, all professional and winners in their divisions.

It was my first winning for my accomplishments. I had been to one before in New Jersey and I came in sixth which was quite awesome for a first time trying to do this. The Gary competition was in Miami Beach, Florida, a place I had not been to since I was fourteen. When there in 1948, I would go down to the beach, a stranger in a new city for me to find something to do since I was visiting an aunt and uncle for a month. My dear step-aunt did not know how to ‘entertain’ a teenager, so she sent me on the bus to go to the beach or ocean as it was called.

I look back and I cannot believe I went all alone and sat on the sand in a chair looking quite sexy for fourteen years old and I knew not one soul. Finally, after a few hours, a few teens’ girls and guys made my acquaintance and lo and behold I had a few friends who I spent time with for the rest of the month. They lived there; I told them my name was Ginger, because I loved Ginger Rogers, the actress and dancer.

Thirty-four years later I returned with my teacher Laurence E. Miller and my husband Jerome (Jerry) Clayman to be a real dancer, not Ginger, but Elita at age 48 to compete in ballroom dancing. I was not an old lady yet, old being designating as over at least sixty.

I saw the old ladies who were over sixty then, some seventy, eighty and possibly almost ninety performing with their coaches at this advanced age and winning trophies because they deserved it, not because of their age. They shined with glory, competence and fun. They wore gorgeous ballroom dance dresses, golden or silver shoes, maybe the heel a bit lower for safety sake.

Oh how they performed with grace and elegance and it was a vision to see by me only at forty-eight years of age. Now I am one of them, the old lady who looks forward to dancing once again at a competition when I will be almost eighty next June.

What future desires I yearn for and all of us seniors should still crave for anything they desire in any field, any hobby, and any adventure.

Let us all be like the brave fourteen year old girl who went all by herself in 1948 on a 24 hour train ride to Florida, her first train ride ever and none since and who got on the bus in a strange city and went to the beach. If she could do that at that time; then we golden agers can still do and we will do things to make our lives happier and fuller.

If Elita could be Ginger in 1948, she and anyone who desires to learn or continue on with ballroom dancing now in 2013, we can become the new and ‘young’, old Gingers now and the men can be a younger version of Fred at their advanced ages.

W.M. Tory said “The dance is over, the applause subsided, but the joy and feeling will stay with you forever.  How true!!