Tiny Dancer

My mother’s mother died when she was twelve.  Even a long train trip from Seattle to the Mayo Clinic, halfway across the country, did not result in finding a cure for my elegant grandmother. 

Back in Seattle, her grandmother told my mother that the frail woman she loved had passed away in an upstairs bedroom.  The year was 1929; an all around horrible year for the entire country, not just my mother.

Her father, my grandfather, chose to lose himself in his work as the minister of the new church in the university district.  My mother’s brother, seven years older, dealt with the death in a way that was of no help to a twelve year old.  Philipino houseboys were hired to take care of the house, and the grandmother and her elderly friends tended to my mother. 

Fast forward to 1960 in Los Angeles, California.  My mother was now raising two daughters, and doing so without the benefit of maternal advice and care.  As a result, my mother opted to become Super mom.

Thus it was that I, being the eldest, was presented with a variety of mostly unwanted lessons.   Swimming lessons were fine.  I loved them and I am a damned good swimmer. But every other lesson given with the intention of making me into a well-rounded and successful woman went down the proverbial drain.  Ballet was an utter bust. “ First position, second…” To be honest, my only memory of those ballet lessons taught by the side of Echo Lake was a dead pigeon hanging from a palm tree  that we saw on the way to the car.

There followed piano lessons.  I was informed that these lessons would make me popular at parties.  Even as a kid I didn’t buy it.  Long gone were the Bing Crosby movies where everyone stood around a piano and crooned.  The 60’s weren’t about crooning, but my mother didn’t know that.

Then came probably the most ill gotten of all lessons:  cotillion dancing.  Somewhere near the golf course and horse stables that abutted Griffith Park on Loz Feliz Blvd was a hall that became the personal hell of many a Silverlake pre-teen.

One woman played the piano, one woman gave directions.   And a slew of Silverlakites were suddenly thrust into a dance hall.  Sweaty, pimply boys in suits and ties and girls in frou-frou dresses were ordered to move their feet to the rhythm of the fox trot and the cha cha cha.  This had absolutely no relevance to our real life…and never would have. 

The stress of not being picked to dance was equaled with the angst of dealing with the odors and damp fluids emitted by teenaged boys. The closest this came to having any meaning was when I watched the Sound of Music and knew that, if the odd happenstance occurred and  I would need to do the waltz surrounded by my seven children—I would be able to do it.   This is not something most people pay for.

I know parents do things with the best of intentions, but cotillion dancing was not something that I have ever used.   Once, when my son was at an un-named school, they asked parents to come in and talk.  I was sorely tempted to come in and tell the kids that algebra was of utterly no use.   But I have a few friends who are math teachers and thought the better of it.  Cotillion is right up there with algebra.