Why
an old coot can’t dance the box step.
Published March 25, 2018
The
invitation came in the mail on a snowy December afternoon in 1955. It offered seventeen
weeks of dancing classes, conducted by Mrs. Charles Quillman at the Monday
Afternoon Club. I scribbled an acceptance note. This was my entry into
“dignified” society, 13 and 14-year-old girls and boys learning social manners
and the box step. A rite of passage.
Unfortunately,
my mother caught me trying to stick the note in the mailbox and let me know in
no uncertain terms, I would not be donning a pair of white gloves once a week
for four months and box stepping around a dance floor to the snap of castanets.
Not at a cost of $30!
I
was devastated. A Southsider trying to break into the high social circles of
Westsiders, whose frequent chant in the halls of West Junior High was, “The
west side is the best side!” So, I pouted; I stewed; I grumbled, “Life
isn’t fair,” like a typical self-focused, teenage brat, and penned the
following letter of non-acceptance to Mrs., Quillman (she apparently returned it
to my mother, because years later I found it in a scrapbook between my Junior
Lifesaver ID card and a picture of me in the West Junior Band, holding a French
horn that I often played off key.
Here is what it
said, warts and all: Dear Mrs. Charles
Quillman, I can’t except your offer because my mother doesn’t led me
do anything on my own. I try to do things without concerning her and she gets
all riled up. The other day I wanted a paper route. She said okay. Then I
wanted to get working papers. “you can’t get excused from school,” she said.
“Remember your record (perfect attendance).” Well I lost the job. It’s awful
hard to live with such a person. She always wants to check my homework or
something. Well there isn’t enough paper to write what I want. So I have to
end. Merlin Lessler
I
recently caught up with some of the dance class students in Florida, where all
things old eventually gravitate: Dave Niles, Janet Multer, Stu Williams, Dave
Robinson and Woody Walls. I wanted the inside scoop on what I’d missed those sixty
some years ago. I learned of the mad scramble in the hall outside the dance
floor to pick a partner and avoid a disastrous pairing, the agonizing stroll across
the ballroom floor to “present” your partner to Mrs. Quillman, the swish of skirts
sweeping across the polished, hardwood floor to master the box step with sweaty
hands held at bay, in white cotton gloves. The skirts hovered above three
layers of sugar starched crinolines that legend had it, attracted sugar loving
ants. No jitterbug, no East Coast Swing, no The Twist – just the “socially
proper” box step. They chuckled at the memory of snowball fights initiated by
Robert Ridings on the front lawn before class, resulting in 20 male pairs of
soggy white gloves that the poor girls had to clasp for the next hour while gazing
at a dance partner with a wet-head, the result of a humiliating face wash in
the snowball fight. I missed it all. I never did learn the box step. Just ask
the women whose feet I stepped on over the years.
