Melody Of Living

Mark Twain said this long before the Internet was invented. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” When we started to dance and take several lessons a week, we were advised to purchase real dance shoes for males and females. They are constructed with suede soles so when you dance, you do not slip or fall, because the suede grips the floor better than regular shoes. I bought my first pair from a dance shoe catalogue from Virginia. It was called Amber shoes and I purchased them through the mail, no email then. I waited for them to come with great eagerness and also apprehension. I was afraid they would not fit well. I was use to buying shoes in person in a shoe store. They arrived and they were gold and beautiful and I felt like Cinderella at the ball with her pretty slippers. I wore them the first time to a social dance on a Saturday night. I felt very dressed up and I imagined that I danced so much better because of the lovely shoes. My husband purchased a man’s pair and he too felt like he was more like Fred Astaire and I changed my Cinderella feeling to me being Ginger Rogers. Fred and Ginger were the top ballroom dancers making movies all about dance with a side story of a nice couple who danced and were involved in a relationship. After the first pair, came the second and third pair. I had to have silver ones, black ones to sit in the cupboard with the gold ones bought previously. Now I had three pairs and really felt like a real ballroom dancer. Then I danced in some competitions and I won my first six trophies wearing the second and third pair along with a pretty custom made dance dress. In fact, I had two dance dresses to wear for the competition shows. The first one I had made custom and it was very expensive. It was sewn with hundreds of crystals, beads, sequins and rhinestones. It must have weighed about ten pounds without me even in it. It was sparkly, gorgeous and very sexy. It had a crinoline underskirt which was the style at the time and after about seven years, crinoline was out of style. The men partners complained that the dresses stuck out too much from the crinoline and bothered them when dancing with us and so finally, we were happily rid of the underskirt which actually made a slim girl look quite heavy and a heavy girl look heavier. So I took out the crinoline and the dress became a new and slimmer version of the lovely fat dress. They cost so much to custom make, that you wore them for many years at different competitions and hoped everyone did not see you in the same outfit too much. I was able to vary wearing it because I found an “off the rack” dress in a department store which was quite popular here, named Hutzlers. It was a lovely tan chiffon dress and I wore it one night at the dance studio because I was dancing in a showcase event.One lady asked me where I got it and I said up the street from the studio, Hutzlers. She said “no way, you must have had it made.” “I said honest, I did.” She really did not believe me.It cost me all of eighty dollars in 1983. The custom made heavy dress cost one thousand dollars. Now I have that readymade dress from Hutzlers Department Store which is out of business now, down on a rack in my junk room where I have lots of clothes in different sizes. The various sizes are from when I was small, middle, and larger in sizes. That dress was the middle size and I could get in it now, except it is a bit shorter than I wear now, because I am an old lady and I wear support stockings for support for my aching knees and calves. It hangs there next to the ten pound dress that I could not get into even if I want to. It was from the smaller years. It is like a little dress shop for dancers. Two nice dresses, a dozen of dance shoes from the thirty-five years of dancing. Then there is the third dress which was also custom made and weighed about six pounds. It did not have as many stones on it and it was still pretty. It was made in purple/lavender material and I was way ahead of my time, because purple is the color of our beloved football team The Ravens.Even men are wearing purple to the games and every Friday, in most offices and medical places too, everyone wears purple all the football season long. Women are wearing purple nail polish (me too) and even some people with doggies dress their dogs with a purple coat or ribbon. Some people have purple ribbons tied to their outside light posts and others have Ravens flags on their cars. More from Across Patch •Ray-Bans, Running Shoes, Kindle For Kids: T So as the saying said truth is putting on its shoes, and we dancers do put on our suede backed dance shoes as we go on out to the dance world that we live in for our recreation adventure. There are other hobbies that people go out and give it their all. I know a lady whose dog is named Golf-Girl, you know what her hobby is, I know of a hair stylist whose dog is called Snippy and another one (me) whose second dog was named Rhumba. I know another lady whose dog is named Natty Bo after the beer name. If you are putting on your shoes to dance, to play golf, play tennis, to go social dancing, to get a haircut or to drink a beer, know that your shoes are significant in what you are going to do. Shoes are important and as excited as I was to receive the first pair of them; I still get happy when I buy a new pair, all different from the ones I have. I heard Rush Limbaugh call himself laughingly the following: “I am the mayor of Real-ville.” We are all in Real-ville and while we are living here in the real world, let us all be happy in doing what we do best, especially in our fun time after working all day. Put on your appropriate shoes and walk away to some fun and a delightful few hours. You deserve it. Real is now, some fun is now, and excitement and anticipation are always good on the horizon. Put on your ‘shoes’ and walk away, dance away, play away and go away to some delightful area and relax and enjoy the “melody of living.” elita sohmer clayman Fairfax Station Patch