One Hundred Year Old Man Danced At His Birthday Party

Uncle Dallas lived to be one hundred and three years of age. He died recently and his niece in-law told me a true story about him that is very interesting and I can say, yes, about dancing. He lived in North Carolina and Cheryl and her husband who was Uncle Dallas’ nephew visited him there many times. When he was a young man of about twenty, more or less, he sneaked out one night and went to a dance hall and danced for a nice amount of time. He was of the Baptist religion and dancing, alcohol and smoking were banned. Someone in the community saw him dancing and reported it to the church. The pastor came and told Dallas it was either dancing or the religion and family. That was the ultimatum. He chose no dancing and stayed with his family. He did not dance again. When he was ninety-eight, his niece Cheryl told him that when he had his one hundredth birthday in two years, she would dance with him at the affair. That she did four years ago. Cheryl Conrad and Uncle Dallas danced and everyone applauded. Uncle Dallas moved about and used his arms and feet and he did a wonderful dance with niece Cheryl to a disc jockey’s music. The current pastor got up and told the story I mentioned above and he said times have changed and the Baptists can dance, drink and smoke now if they want to. I can picture Uncle D. dancing and prancing and being happy to be one hundred and to be able to dance, at last and not have to choose between dance and family and religion. This is a real cute true story and I heard it when I went for my physical therapy session with Cheryl 3 years ago; It is a sweet story of a young man back in 1929.That was the year my brother Herbert Marshall Sohmer was born and I was born five years later. So Uncle Dallas was twenty then and he had a big choice to make for a twenty year old in those days. Things were so different in those days. Drugs were what we took when we got sick. Smoking was accepted and drinking a drink or two was also not taboo. We never smoked in our house, though Dad once in a while would have one cigarette a week after dinner. He took a small wine glass with some red Kosher wine on Friday night which was the beginning of the Sabbath weekend and he said the blessing for it before drinking it.This was it; no other smoking, no alcohol drinking and people did not dance much in those days other than at a wedding. Someone this week said “Live your life and don’t be restricted. Life is great.” When I was growing up in the forties as a young kid, you never talked back to your school teachers, to your parents or even your relatives. You may not have cared for some of your aunts and uncles, but you were always pleasant to them and respectful in their presence. Your school teachers would not put up with the kind of behavior that goes on now in public schools. You knew you were a kid and kids had to honor and revere their parents, family and friends. Uncle Dallas chose family and that was the right decision and then when he was one hundred years old, he chose to dance with Cheryl and so by then, he had the best of two worlds; his family, his religion and now dancing one long dance with his nephew’s wife coming all the way from Baltimore, Maryland to see his dream come true. He danced at the ripe old age of one hundred. He deserved his dance and he surely waited a long time to do it and I am sure he felt it worth the long wait and that his decision was the right one for the times of those days around 1929. We ballroom dancers from now, starting lessons and me from 1977 when my husband and I started lessons know that we would probably have done the same thing as Uncle Dallas and we would have chosen family over a “terrible and bad thing like dance.” We are lucky we never had to make the decision as Uncle D. did over eighty years ago. I think most of us would have chosen family, but we would have found a way of having both of our wishes. We do not believe someone would have ‘told’ on us because to know that, they would have had to be there too and we could have told on them too. So here is a bravo to the late Uncle Dallas and to the good health he had at the age of one hundred years,where he could dance with his young niece and finally, finally, dances as he wanted to do eighty years before. This time the current pastor was there to help celebrate this man’s advanced age and to watch him dance and to enjoy it as much as Uncle D. and the whole group of guests and family did. If I had known you Uncle Dallas, I would have gotten up and danced with you myself, because you would have been Fred Astaire to my being Ginger Rogers and I would have been so proud to dance with you and to know your desire to do it was still there at age one hundred. Fred Astaire was in his late eighties, not one hundred, when he was still dancing. You see, Uncle Dallas, you beat Fred and you were dancing at one hundred. You saved the best for this time in your life and even Fred would have honored you if he had been here for your birthday party. I am glad Cheryl told me this neat story and it only goes to prove, that we ballroom dancers or dancers like Uncle Dallas who waited, know what they want and even waiting such a long time, it was a wonderful and everlasting experience. Fred Astaire lived to be eighty-eight and you Uncle D. defied expectations and lived to be one hundred and three. This shows that hopefully, us ballroom dancers get exercise from dancing, eat healthy and live a long life. There was a song years ago which was called “I Could Have Danced All Night.” You Uncle Dallas got to dance that one night and it was as if you had been dancing all these many years. I know you could have danced with Cheryl ALL NIGHT. ELITA SOHMER CLAYMAN FAIRFAX STATION PATCH