Lady Canfield’s School of Ballroom Dancing
(First drafted in 2010; revised during the pandemic of 2020)
I haven’t been invited to any of the Inaugural Balls, which is really too bad. Not that I expected to be invited, but boy would I have loved to go just to dance! I’m 63 years old and I’ve been dancing since I was 12. This is due to the fact that my mother thought that ballroom dancing was a sign of good breeding so she arranged for my sister Cathy and me to attend Lady Canfield’s School of Ballroom Dancing in Norwalk Connecticut.
My parents didn’t have two nickels to rub together, especially in 1957. I could hear the ‘discussions’ that they would have about how best to spend their limited resources. My father was sure that dance lessons would be a complete waste of time and money but my mother was adamant and whenever she ended a sentence about money with the phrase, "we’ll find a way to pay for it," the argument was over. Of course I was rooting for my father because the last thing I wanted to do was learn to dance with girls. There were lots of other things I wanted to do on Friday evenings, most of which involved no shower, no Sunday clothes, and certainly nothing that involved doing something with my sister!
I tried to do what I could to get out of this. I spoke as an aggrieved businessman telling them that I would have no time to get my paper route done and get home in time to eat and get cleaned up. My mother suggested that I didn’t seem to have any trouble getting my route done in time to play baseball and that if I was short of time I could skip eating. My father, now completely behind the project, finally pulled me aside and told me that if I did this without any whining, he would let me wear some of his Old Spice aftershave every Friday for the classes. That did it. Wearing his Old Spice was to me the most telling tale of having passed from childhood to adolescence and I most likely would have even played dolls with my sister if I got to wear Old Spice.
The day finally came. I did my paper route and even had time for a sandwich before cleaning up and putting on my Sunday best, which included a tie and a handkerchief in my chest pocket. True to his word, my dad let me splash on some Old Spice just before heading out the door. I damn near hyperventilated in the truck cab as I kept breathing in and out to savor the manly aroma that was emanating from every pore in my face. It wasn’t long before we pulled up to the corner outside the dance school, which was above a B&B Auto Parts Store. You entered at a side door and there was a flight of stairs that seemed to go on for miles. They were wood, very old wood, and they made noises with every step. The corners of each step were filled with dust that looked like it had been there for decades. With my father gently but firmly pushing my butt up the stairs, I finally arrived at the dreaded venue.
My sister was so very excited about this and was already talking with other girls about how much fun this would be. It was then that I noticed that there were no other boys in the room. I thought maybe we would have separate lessons in another room and I kept hoping and hoping that would be the case. My father took us to the small office where my sister and I were introduced to Lady Canfield. Now I had no idea what a Lady really was - and when I finally found out realized that she wasn’t - but she was very intimidating. I think she was about a hundred years old and weighed about seventy pounds. Tall, angular, and wearing funny dance shoes, she took my father’s money and promptly dismissed him with a warning not to be late picking us up at 7:30. No one had mentioned that we would be taking dance lessons for 90 minutes! It seemed like an eternity to be doing one thing for that long, but I didn’t have much time to dwell on this disaster.
At the stroke of six we were lined up according to height. Despite being the only boy in the class, I was certainly not the tallest. We were told that we would start with the basics; we would learn one dance each lesson while reviewing the previously learned dances; and we were told that there would be no tolerance for wise guys. The fact that she looked directly at me while saying that made me very proud and I now had a reason for being there! I certainly didn’t want to disappoint her judgment call. Finally she introduced the piano player and the dance instructor, who was this unbelievably beautiful woman in her twenties who wore high heels and a dress with crinolines. I was in heaven and my eyes never left her until Lady Canfield began another monologue and asked me to go first. Of course I had never heard what she said and had no idea what I was supposed to do first, so she repeated the instructions. Basically, I was supposed to walk across the room, turn around and walk back to the group and get in line again.
I thought she was joking and started to laugh and wondered why the others weren’t laughing. I finally got the point that she was serious so I walked over to the wall, turned around and walked back. The next painful minutes were spent listening to Lady Canfield tell the rest of the class what I had done wrong, step for step. She then demonstrated how it should be done. I watched in amazement as she did what I had just done but I don’t remember ever seeing any individual part of her actually move. She literally seemed to glide across the floor and when she turned I thought she was on a turntable. She was, without doubt, the most graceful person I had ever seen and I vowed right then to never, ever, ever walk like that!
We started our lesson and for the first time in my life I heard someone playing a piano without any singing. It was magic to me and I was entranced with the piano player who simply sat there and watched the instructor dance while - as my father used to say - he tinkled the ivories. I learned to fox trot that night and I learned how to do it quite well and actually liked it when I was able to do it with the instructor, who noted that I smelled very good. I was still on cloud nine when we were told to line up again for our break.
This break consisted of our being able to go over to the ancient water cooler, two by two, take a paper cone from the dispenser and sip the water slowly. I came to worship these breaks over the years since it was the best tasting water I had ever had and it also gave me a chance to watch the instructor sitting next to the piano player and talking. By dropping my empty paper cup, I could take my time picking it up and looking under the piano to see if I could detect any exposed thigh.
For an entire school year I attended the dance school every Friday night, until finally my parents decided that I had learned enough and that the money could be used for other things and other siblings. I never gave dancing another thought until I was invited to go to a summer dance at a local beach at age 16. A girl that I never thought even knew me - so it was really a big deal - invited me. I was dressed in a summer suit that I had purchased with the money I had earned from working two jobs after school. It was a warm summer night and the band shell was decorated with garlands of flowers and there was a five-piece band providing the music. Gina, my date, stood with me and watched everyone dancing, mostly older kids and college kids home for the summer. I finally asked her if she would like to dance and she looked at me like I was from the moon. “You can dance?” she asked with so much incredulity that I was taken aback. “Of course I can dance! I’m a graduate of Lady Canfield’s School of Ballroom Dancing." She started to laugh until she realized I was serious so she took my hand and up the stairs to the dance floor we went.
For the first time in my life, I realized that I really could walk like Lady Canfield and I could dance like my instructor. We danced for hours: waltz, cha-cha, foxtrot, Lindy and whatever else they played. I was so pleased to be getting admiring looks from lots of other girls that I hardly noticed the glares from the non-dancing boys. Nor, as the music stopped, did I notice the guy walking over to me. Turns out he was the piano player at Lady Canfield’s and was the leader of this band! He remembered me and was so pleased that I had retained all I learned. He introduced himself to Gina and then introduced us to his wife who, of course, had been my instructor. She was still beautiful and I was still wearing Old Spice.
Over the years my ability to dance has made a huge difference in my life. In college I was the only male who could dance real dances with my peers as well as formal dances where I would dance with faculty and administrators. Working with the Carter Administration I was often invited to fancy social events so that I could be the dedicated dancer for donors, visiting dignitaries, and other fascinating people. But the best part was that at my wedding I was able to dance with my mother and tell her how much I appreciated all that she had sacrificed to make sure that I was a well bred young man.
Postscript: With our previously-scheduled cruises canceled and no hope of scheduling another one any time soon, we dance in the sunroom every night before cocktails. Usually just one dance and there is no band or bartender in sight, but it's better than nothing!
