Did you see Michael Flatley on Dancing With The Stars? He did some serious tap dancing and literally “lit up the stage!” For me, it wasn’t as wonderful as watching him in Riverdance, but it was pretty darned good!
That was understatement, y’all. It was hot!
I always wanted to learn to tap dance when I was a little kid, and seeing Michael Flatley dance so effortlessly only underscores that yearning! My parents wouldn’t give me lessons, though. I thought it might be just because I’m clumsy, and they didn’t want to waste the money. However, in retrospect I think could have been that my big brother ruined it all for me. After his unforgettable performance at a dance recital when he was five years old, my parents might have decided they never wanted to endure such a thing again!
At five years old, my Big Bubba was justifiably impressed with his own skills. He had mastered the art of whistling, and proudly told people that. He told anybody that. In fact, to my parents chagrin, any time they stopped at a traffic light, Big Bubba rolled down the window and shouted to the next car, “Hi! I’m five years old and I can whistle!” Then, he demonstrated until traffic moved again or until my Momma could yank him back inside the car.
Yes, he was proud of that whistling, but he also loved to demonstrate his prowess on a dance floor. At five years old, he was a darn good dancer (and I think he can still “cut a rug”).
Big Bubba attended a kindergarten in Dallas, and the curriculum included tumbling and dancing. A highlight of the year was the annual program where the children performed dance and tumbling routines for their parents and families. A dance recital. Yippee. I don’t know who finds a recital more excruciating — the children or the parents (or possibly the teachers).
In the year I am telling you about, on the day of the big show, my Momma and Daddy took my Big Bubba to visit our favorite aunt and uncle: La Verta and Fritz. Fritz was part-owner of the Zanes-Ewalt warehouse downtown, and he took my family on a tour of the warehouse. It included a trip to the rooftop to look at downtown Dallas.
Finally, they wound up in Uncle Fritzie’s office, and it was there he gave Big Bubba an exciting gift… a double fistful of pennies! Since it was too many to hold, he put them in his pocket for safekeeping.
They left the warehouse, and went to the auditorium where the show was to be. Momma and Daddy got seats in the middle of the second row, so they were perfectly positioned to see Big Bubba’s first public somersault. Unfortunately, everyone had forgotten the pennies in his pocket. The somersault was perfect except for the mayhem that ensued as Big Bubba and his classmates stopped the show to scramble for the scattered pennies!
If that had been the only embarrassing happening that day, it would have been memorable, but the pièce de résistance was when his tap dance routine began. You see, Big Bubba had to make an emergency trip to the bathroom. He recognized the music just as he was finishing his business.
He quickly tucked in his shirttail (actually, only about half of it) and dashed onstage to join his troupe. Unfortunately, he had only learned the routine from the start — and had no idea how to pick it up in the middle! He didn’t let that stop him. He was a real trouper.
He began dancing the “shuffle-ball-chain” at double-speed until he caught up to the music, blissfully unaware of the havoc he was creating. He smiled at the audience the whole time.
My Momma and Daddy slid down in their seats as far as they could, but Big Bubba could still see them as he proudly continued his routine. I think that might have been the last recital of any kind that my parents ever attended.
Do you think that Michael Flatley ever had an experience like that? Did you? Go on, I know you are dying to tell about that dance or piano recital that you remember. I’d love to hear the story.
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Nope – never had the chance. I did want to learn Baton and piano but I never had the chance. My older step-siblings had ruined it for me – they had asked for lessons and got them and then didn’t follow through so it was assumed that none of us would and lessons weren’t an option. I was always envious of the girls who could twirl a mean baton….still to this day sometimes I find myself trying to maneuver my knitting needles in the same way…lol!
Oh Shelly that story made me laugh out loud.
My parents forced me to take tap lessons as a child – I HATED EVERY SECOND OF IT! But I can still do a step or two.
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Cori, why is it that our parents made us take lessons we hated but wouldn’t let us take the ones we wanted? Or, would we have hated any lesson that we took? I envy you being able to tap dance…even if it’s just a little.
Here is the link to Flatley’s Celtic Tiger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbozC9G4u7c
Now My stepsister was slender and given dance lessons but no sense of timing. I always had hips that said ballet was out as a career choice and loved dancing … long sad story of dead teenage dreams. lol I got over it and just decided to love all really good dancers.
OOOH! I love watching that man move! Teenage dreams
I’m so sorry. You were probably built like a brick “outhouse” (my Daddy used a different term, but it meant very well built)—and yet, you pine about being a skinny dancer. 
We never want what we have, do we?
Ah, Michael Flatley was fabulous.
I love your brother’s story. Mine is not quite as funny, but it did get me out of dance classes!
I was five almost six and the second girl. My sister, a mere 13 months older than I, was the dancer, the dramatist, the singer – and still is wonderful at all! She was taking ballet lessons, so I had to take them too.
I HATED going to class. Mom bribed me with Little Tavern hamburgers after class. Well, at my recital, my beginner ballet class routine was the blooming flowers. We had green and purple satin-y body suits with some sequins in the front and the tutu to match.
As part of the routine, we started with our heads and bodies bowed down and through the routine we were to raise up – body, head, hands – until we were tall flowers (well, as tall as 5-6 yo can be (and for me that was pretty tall)). Anyway, I did not bloom. I did not raise my head. I resolutely looked at the floor the entire time.
I never had to go back!
I hadn’t wanted to go to begin with – but mom did want be to feel left out. Umm? Mom? Leave me out, ‘kay?
I did outgrow most of my stage fright later on and was in school plays and the glee club (chorus, choir, whatever it is called these days) and such.
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