Joseph M. Madda
I am certainly not a great dancer. But sometimes you rise to the occasion. Let me tell you about a dance contest.
I have three daughters, all grown up now, who each graduated from Marymount High School, a venerable Catholic girls high school on Sunset Boulevard, just across from UCLA in Los Angeles, California. Back in the day, each fall there would be a formal Father-Daughter Dance. At a stylish hotel in a festively decorated ballroom, black-tie clad dads would accompany their dressed-up daughters for a night of fun.
The height of the festivities was a dance contest. Through a series of elimination rounds, each class chose a representative. Then the final dancing round featured the class winners battling to become all-round champion. I had taken my daughters to this event many times; 2009 was my last appearance, since my youngest child, Alexandra, was a senior.
Well, I had witnessed triumphant dancing techniques many times before. My wife and I had even taken some ballroom dancing classes. Nevertheless, I was an older dad, on the heavy side. There were way better dancing dads in the crowd -- younger, fitter, better looking, smoother-moving. All I could do was go for broke. So…I tried a different approach. Remember George Costanza in the TV series Seinfeld? Remember the particular episode when he was at his lowest point of the show and decided to do everything the opposite? You know what happened.
Plus, I had a secret weapon, Alex. My final highschooler was an Irish step dancer, a thespian in several school plays, a singer, and quite the improv comedian. She wore a long, blue dress, and white flowers in her up-swept hair – quite fetching.
I wore a black tuxedo and suspenders, silver cummerbund, white pleated formal shirt, silver bowtie, patent leather tie shoes and a white rose on my lapel. We looked at each other and nodded. This was it! We were ready.
How shall I describe what happened next? Alex and I danced in an…unusual fashion. Unlike the other couples, we would not stay in one spot. Rather, we dashed around the floor, weaving between others, coming perilously close in strange gyres to crashing into the sidelines. We would grin wildly at individual onlookers as we wheeled past each one. (I think eye contact helped.) Somehow, the two of us stayed in sync.
As a pair, we displayed manic modern dance while others waltzed away. I was drenched in sweat. We made the cut to the final dance and madly gyrated to the end. We won big. Medals were draped around our necks.
I have my two medals hanging on their blue and white ribbons in my home office. I could never have done that again. One time was enough.
Thank you, Alex. My last Father-Daughter Dance was one for the books.