After reading a list of the day’s activities I set down the brochure, picked up a pen and underlined, “ Dancing-Poolside, Deck 10.”
My friend Edrie Royals and I were traveling with a group of friends touring the East China Sea. We had been to Hong Kong, Okinawa, Taiwan. Now we were scheduled for a relaxing, yet entertaining sea day. Some of the ladies in our group on the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship were getting their hair done, others had signed up for massages, pedicures, manicures and lectures. Since I wasn’t interested in Detox for Health, a Sip n’ Bid art auction, or Talking about Tanzanite, I decided to do some dancing. I knew I wouldn’t be leader of the pack, it had been awhile since I’d danced or worked out. But I bet you can still do the swing step I told myself. Maybe I could go up to Deck 10 and show that senior citizens from Mississippi could cut a rug, even if its shag carpet.
I slipped into some loose fitting, bell-bottomed polyester pants, pulled a large knit top over my somewhat expanding nether parts and stepped into gripper-soled tennis shoes. I gave my hair a lick and a promise and then looked in the mirror. The face and body reflecting back could have been somebody whose house was on rubber wheels—an old one, with inner tubes, and a car jack.
“Hubba-hubba,” I said to myself when I reached the deck, heard the music and saw the age and stage of most of those that had assembled; maybe just maybe, I could hold my own.
Soon I was in my element as we did the foxtrot and jitterbugged. Boogying to Elvis singing, “Jailhouse Rock,” I found there was still some snap left in my garters.
“We’ll take a slight break and catch our breaths,” one of the instructors called out when that song ended.
I bought a canned drink and lounged against the outside bar. Someone cruised up next to me and set a glass of champagne by my caffeine free diet drink. A camera clicked and I glanced over. A lady I had run into when we landed in the airport and who seemed to be everywhere I turned on the trip was next to me. Selfie, I had named her. She had probably sprayed herself with Pam to get into those kidney crushing leotards, a size two I would guess. I felt like Betty White might feel if she stood next to a Kardashan at a magazine shoot.
“This is not what I signed up for,” Selfie complained to her cowed companion, pursing her chiseled red lips.
“I’ll take care of it my love,” he said.
I bet you get what you want, all you need is a tiara, I felt like saying.
You put me down the first day aboard ship when you asked where I was from.
I took a sip from my diet drink and remembered our first encounter.
When I said, “I’m from Mississippi,” you laughed.
“That explains it.” Then you snapped a selfie with your nose in the air.
I raised my nose now. There’s a lot separating us “suthreners” from some of you city slickers I wanted to say. We are mostly a polite, thoughtful, group of folks, and we don’t cotton too much to royalty down where I come from.
The instructor called us back. “We’ve had a request for a little change of pace,” she said. “We’ll try it on for size. A little reggae and carioca. “
A fake smile on his face, Miss Selfie’s escort stepped slightly to the side and behind her, she was queen of the dance floor.
Quickly, the crowd thinned; tottering to a chair I sank down. Soon, there were only two people performing, Selfie and her partner.
This went on only for a short while, then a voice came over the microphone. “We’ve had a few complain—suggestions, and have been asked to change the music ladies and gentleman.”
What evah turns you on, Shugga Lady, jest might not be something unpleasuring to me, but other folks too, I realized.
A life jacket was thrown out. The music was different---”Rock around the Clock” played, people began dancing again.
And then, “Let’s Twist Again,” the dance master called out.
And there we went, most of us curving and turning with old Chubby Checker..
Miss Selfie’s mouth popped open, she couldn’t cut it. She stumbled and almost fell.
I kinda felt sorry for Queen Selfie. But only for a moment.
Sometimes I think there’s an almost lost art in this world; it doesn’t have anything to do with dancing. It’s called “being nice.” I’m here to tell you, I find more of it in my home state than anywhere else in the world. I’m from Mississippi, and proud to be part and parcel of it.
Two somber figures slid away from Deck 10.
“I’ll see y’all in the funny papers,” I said, doing the old 1,2,3-- 1,2,3, and rocking back on my right foot.
Hubba-hubba
