Shall we Dance?

I'm watching Dancing with the Stars tonight and it brought back memories for me.

You see, a few years ago I signed my nephew and myself up to take two dancing classes...country and western and swing dancing. I had taken some country and western classes a few years before that and David (my nephew) had gotten some instruction in C&W in school. He was 16, almost 17, and not too keen on being seen dancing with his aunt. He loved me, and I knew that, but with teenagers there is that fine line.

Somehow I was able to persuade him to join me.

The first class I told him what time I would be picking him up - I was coming straight from work. I got to his house and he wasn't ready. I was pissed.

He got ready quickly (he knew I was pissed) and we drove through Jack in the Box, scarfed it down in the car as we raced to my house so I could let my dog out and change clothes before we had to race to make it to the class.

We get to class - swing dancing was first. David notes the pretty young girls (18 and 19). Already his enthusiasm for the class was improving.

Then the instructor showed us our first learned steps. David looked up at me and said with a lot of enthusiasm "I'm going to like this class!"

With every dance class I have taken, there has never been a balance of men and women. There is always more of one gender than the other. For this reason, and so you can learn to dance with different partners, you switch partners often. Also, if you're the gender that has fewer students, you have to dance alone some.

Okay, so David liked the way the class was going the first night. I know he liked dancing with me but he was loving getting to dance with these young women.

On the second night of class, David was ready when I arrived to pick him up. Again we drove through Jack in the Box, raced to my house to tend to my dog and change clothes.

By the third class, David was waiting outside for me when I pulled up in the driveway. We drove through Jack in the Box, raced to my house and HE let my dog out while I changed clothes, to save time.

There was one night when I was running late that my nephew with the bottomless pit for a stomach said we didn’t have time to drive through Jack in the Box because he couldn’t be late. THAT was a deal breaker for him.

We compromised. We stopped at a Jack in the Box that was closer to the dance class and scarfed our dinner like we’d never scarfed before.

I really enjoyed dancing with David. He was a strong lead and he was a favorite among the ladies, young and old. He had a natural talent for dance - even the instructor said so.

We only had two deals. One was he had to start with me. He could move on afterwards but he had to start the night dancing with me.

The other was when the Las Vegas song came on, he had to dance it with me - period.

We both looked forward to our Friday night dancing - him so much so that he offered to pay for the second session of classes we took. I didn’t take him up on it but it told me how serious he was about it. We had a good time.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been dancing since we stopped taking classes some five years ago. I miss it.

And watching the movie Shall We Dance and watching Dancing with the Stars has made me want to dig out and dust off my dancing shoes.

May I have this dance?