July 21, 2004
Can't Dance

A learning disorder.  That’s what it just has to be.  You’ve heard of dyslexia or dyscalculia (a math thing) and A-D-D.  These are a few of the known learning disorders people battle. Self-diagnosis has led to the conclusion I also suffer a learning disorder.  I’m rhythmically challenged.  I can’t dance. 

Now were a dyslexic continually urged to read in public, it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment.  But just try and wallflower your way through life by “sitting this one out.”  and every well meaning, half sober, dancing do-gooder in the world will be trying to drag your no sense of rhythm feet onto a dance floor.  “Oh come on party pooper, you’ll love it.”  So onto the floor I go squishing the toes of others in two/four time as the disc jockey plays a three/four waltz.  Finally the song ends followed by the rejoinder, “Wasn’t that fun?”  To which I respond, “Not at all.”  And then I’m told I have a bad attitude.  I wasn’t the one that wanted me to dance.  Why am I the bad guy? 

My sisters are quite musically talented.  I’m not, but over the years have enjoyed listening, not dancing, to music from the divergent worlds of rock, country and classical. However an examination of my DNA would most certainly reveal a complete absence of the rhythm gene.  This first became evident in childhood piano lessons.  I worked my way through the various John W. Schaum books progressing from red to blue to brown and eventually black with each color being more difficult.  But the piano teacher continually found fault with my inability to finish any piece at anywhere near the same tempo present at the song’s opening measures. Oh she tried the metronome.  And it worked, as I could stay in sync with the steady tick, tick, tick.  But once the metronome was rendered silent the governor was off the engine and down the hill we headed minus brakes.  “You are”, said an exasperated Miss Swanson, “the only student I have ever asked to slow the Minute Waltz down to a point where it can be finished somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty seconds. 

But just as a piano recital must be performed minus a metronome’s steadying tick, tick, tick, counting under your breath while dancing is also considered equally bad form. Muttering, “One, two, three four” while some bewildered soul staggers under your lead around the dance floor is un-cool.  “Nothing”, my daughters pointed out on numerous occasions, “is as dorky as counting out loud when dancing.”  One of these admonishments came just before the father/daughter wedding dance.  All three daughters picked the same song for this special moment.  They claimed “Thank God For Kids” was the ideal choice because of its special meaning.  The fact this most significant song is less than two minutes in length had to be an aid in its selection process. 

Speaking of my daughters, one of their greatest worries in raising our grandchildren is the fear the next generation will inherit their maternal grandfathers inability to find the beat to any song.  However those same daughters have no guilty second thoughts whatsoever in asking their father to dance and turn a crying child’s tears to laughter.  My youngest was even so bold as to suggest a grandpa “dance video” to be played in my absence since the sight of a bald headed man gyrating in total incompetence to a rock and roll song caused the mood of her then six month old to instantly change from tears to giggles.

Even my wife who loves to dance has given up.  “Once I passed forty,” she admits, “After dancing with you it takes way to long for the bruises on the top of my feet to heal.”