REMEMBER WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD DANCE?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rBjpjEAi24 This is the link to the Beach Boys singing "Kokomo," the last time I heard this song, I still thought I could dance. My sisters and I spent endless hours on the roof of our shed (the roof made a great stage) choreographing a dance in our bathing suits to this song. We used beach towels as props and grooved to carefully thought out steps while the song blared on our ghetto blaster. We played it over and over until all three of us could make it through the routine in perfect step with eachother. Once we were sure it was perfect, we invited mom and dad to be our audience and performed with a pride that would match any dancer in the Royal Winnepeg Ballet! Mom and Dad clapped and clapped while the three of us beamed. We had no idea we couldn't dance. We had no idea that our "choreographed" routine bore more ressemblance to three bulls running through a china store than a Ballet number, but that was the beauty of growing up the way we did. We passed through childhood creating several dance routines, some on roofs, some in living rooms and some on skates down at the pond. Each routine was performed for an audience of 2, mom and dad, and each one ended with the three of us joining hands bowing while saying "thank you all for coming and making this day extra special!"

I walked into my first "family dance," with my side pony tail and bobby socks, ready to take the dance floor by a storm...that was the first time I realized, I actually couldn't dance, NOT AT ALL!!! The moves from our Beach Boys "Kokomo" routine didnt' seem quite right, neither did my side pony tail. I've attended many a dance in my day, and just because I couldn't dance doesn't mean I didn't. I pulled out all kinds of awkward moves, from the basic step together step, to trying to add my arms, basically just waving them wildly like some kind of solo chicken dance, to lame attempts at the "running man" and the "moonwalk." I never did master the dancing by myself thing. I just have zero rythm, I can't seem to "feel the beat." I did, thank God, eventually learn a dance that I am pretty damn good at! Gimme a partner, turn me loose in a Country Bar and I'll two step or polka the hell out of any song! This has never made me cool at school dances, or at the Bars in University, but I am always a star with the old people at most weddings I go to! :) I still can't dance very well without a little "liquid" help, and even with that, I know I don't dance as freely and as un inhibited as I did back when I thought I COULD dance!

I don't have any digital photos of our Kokomo dance, but I've posted one of Nic and I in disco outfits at a Halloween party a few years back. We look like we were dressed for a Disco Dance, so I figured it fit the story....