Tiny Dancer
My mother enrolled me in dance lessons when I was very young. She signed me up at Claudette Wall’s school of Dance. It was a little building on Erie Blvd, in Rome. I believe now that building is a Chinese Restaurant. I took Ballet, Tap and Acrobatics. We did recitals every year. One time, we preformed at an elderly center between Rome and Westmoreland. Now that same facility is behind rows of barbed wire and part of the NY State Prison system. Boy how times have changed.
It was the days of the 8-millimeter, and my Mom would tape all of my recitals. One time she for got the microphone, so all we have recorded is me dancing to no sound at all. It’s like watching a Charlie Cha pman film. We always had the cutest little outfits with sailor hats or Tutus. We danced to songs like Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Girls in The Chorus are We. I loved dance. My mom would give me neat braids. She would pony tail it of to the side and split it into 3 braids. That hurt though if you swung you head too fast. Later, the dance studio would move upstairs from the Bowling alley (now the sire of the Rome ACE Hardware). That worked out well, because Mom was a bowler. She would go down stairs and bowl while I danced. I stayed with Claudette Wall for 5 years. I would have stayed longer but we moved and I had to leave.
When we got to Omaha, I started up at Omega. That was mostly a gymnastics place, but they did dance and tap. I thought that we did the best routines. We had a dance to both Footloose and Let’s Hear it For the Boys that I still remember most of to this day. We did another to the theme song to Star Wars.
One Time, my Mom dropped me off and went shopping at Richmond Gordman's. We were hit that evening by several tornados. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. They had all of us kids climb into the foam tumbling pits and under the "twinkie" mats for safety. I remember that night thinking it was cool, but also very worried. My father was landing at Offutt AFB from a trip, my brother was at the movies and mom was in the basement of Richmond Gordman's department store. I was worried about my whole family. At one point it was reported that it touched down at the base. That really had me concerned. Nothing catastrophic happened however and we were all safe. Mom picked me up and we went home.
Eventually I would have to give up dance. I was doing that and I had a brief career as a figure skater (just a few lessons) and I was riding horses. My ankles couldn’t take the stress and I was forced to choose.
I chose the horses.
I chose the horses.
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