The Politics of Dancing

So… I was watching the Pittsburgh – Philadelphia game until the end of the second period when it became apparent…painfully so, for Flyers fans… that it was all over except for the hand-shakes. At that point in time… given that it was such a nice day outside… I turned off the teevee, brought up Pandora Radio on the PC, and retired to the outdoors with a cee-gar and a Trippel. Which turned into three Trippels, but leave us not digress. More to the point… I had Pandora tuned to the Aretha Franklin station, which you might surmise (correctly) is pretty heavy on Motown and to a lesser extent, dance tunes.

Which got me to thinking. Specifically… about a comment The Second Mrs. Pennington tossed off at the very beginning of our relationship. Said comment was uttered without a lot of thinking behind it while we were at the Yokota AB NCO Club for a night of dancing, to wit (S’cuse our French, Gentle Reader, but it is what it is.):

“I love watching people dance…coz I think people dance like they fuck.”

Umm…well, OK. That line might have been a throw-away to her, but it stuck in my mind. And it just might have inspired me to be a little bit more soulful in my dancing from that point on. Or perhaps not…. we are what we are, and I’m most certainly not a dancer. I’ll digress just a lil bit by saying I’ve always admired those guys who have mastered the art, coz I’m of the opinion, most unequivocally, that good dancers have it ALL over those of us who aren’t when it comes to scoring points with the opposite sex... at the bar and such. And that’s never been me. I enjoy getting up and shaking a leg but I am most definitely the rhythm-impaired, quintessential White Boy when it comes to dancing. As a matter of fact, another pertinent quote about dancing comes to mind…uttered by a female in-law to SN1 while observing my (lack of) dancing skills at SN1’s commissioning party way back in 2000, or so. Said comment? Just this: “Your Dad’s a great guy. But he sure as Hell can’t dance!” And the woman was right. I can’t dance…not at all. Proof-positive below (which: The First Mrs. Pennington and I, dancing at SN1's commissioning party. She, (much) more so than I.).

Which, of course, brings me full-circle. My dancing couldn’t have impressed TSMP; your average six-year-old wouldn’t be impressed by my dancing skills. It had to be something else, and I’m sure it was. Fortunately for me, the dates TSMP and I went on before our dancing nights consisted of lots of occasions spent in conversation, interspersed with lotsa mo’sickle rides out into the country, followed up yet again with lots more conversation. That had to turn the trick… coz it sure as Hell wasn’t my dancing. One is thankful for women who can see beyond the superficial.

Oh. By the way… I do the deal a whole HELLUVA lot better than I dance. Just in case you were wondering. (Insert smiley-face thingie here.)

(The video is but one tune TSMP and I danced to back in our early days. More appropriately, the tune was popular during my high-school days, but it remains a dance tune that gets a lot of play…or at least it did, at one point in time. And I heard it on Pandora today…which prompted this whole post, to begin with… You may have wished it hadn’t Gentle Reader… but it is what it is.)