May I Have This Dance?

When I was growing up, in my hometown, pretty much every kid between the ages of 12 and 14 signed up for the weekly ballroom dancing classes held at the junior high. They were so popular that although I didn't even go to school in town--my parents had switched us to a private, girls' school by that point--there was never any question that I too would partake. It was as much as a rite of passage as Sudbury has.

Do kids take ballroom dancing anymore? I suspect the answer is no, that today the art is considered antiquated, or that in the age of the "overscheduled child" recreational ballroom dancing fell by the wayside, considered more expendable than, say, ending poverty in Jakarta or playing 18 sports along with the violin. This, I feel, is a shame. Not because I believe ballroom dancing to be essential to an American, or any other, adolescence. In fact, having seen many of my fellow ballroom dancers attempt a first dance at their own weddings, I have to say that the retention rate--with the possible exception of the ever popular Funky Chicken--seems pretty low. But those evenings I spent navigating uncharted social terrain, learning how to be gracious, and kind, and take it when others both were and were not, are precious to me now, and I wouldn't trade them for all the AP prep courses or internet chat rooms in the world.

Of course it must be said that part of the reason Sudbury's ballroom dance classes were so renown was the instructor: a man famous throughout the Metrowest for his ability to tame a room of 200 testosterone and prematurely eye-shadowed preteens with a single raise of his eyebrows. Mr. Lamoureaux was my parents' friend, a school principal, a father of three charismatic children of his own, an incorrigible match for my father's sense of humor and love of a practical joke, and the closest thing Sudbury had to a rock star with the possible theoretical exception of the individual who opened the Dunkin' Donuts franchise, but as I don't even know who that is, I'm going to stick with Mr. Lamoureaux.

I don't think it's exagerrating to say that he was, simply, magic. How many voluntary group activities attract such a cross-section of kids that age: the popular, confident ones, the pathologically shy ones, the atheltic ones, the awkward ones and on and on and on? They all came, and they all stayed, and although there was always the thrill of the couples' dancing itself, the waiting to be asked, to ask, we were pretty young, and that was all pretty nerve-wracking. It was mostly Mr. Lamoureaux.

I have seen the man in many settings over the course of my life, in restaurants, at social occasions, at town events, and although he is always a draw, there was something about a group of kids that age, the music, the expansive gymnasium, the tension in the air, that turned him into Mick Jagger. He made a joke, and hundreds of kids laughed so hard their sides hurt. He made a suggestion, and you could practically hear hundreds of mental wheels turning, taking it in, pledging allegiance. He was fair and decent without being sappy and mockable, as were so many adults of our acquaintance. He was authoritative and respectful without being dry and remote, as the other half seemed. Is it enough to say that he made ballroom dancing one of the high points of early adolescence for generations of kids?

It wasn't just Mr. Lamoureaux, though, that made ballroom dancing such a fond memory for me. I loved getting the chance to spend time with the kids I missed from my old schools, and I loved the way it brought out the best in my relationship with my cousin Andy. Andy and I are just one month apart. As kids, we were rivals, best friends, conspirators, enemies, the two bosses when everyone knows the term demands one. As we got older, our worlds expanded, outside of our family, and we felt both the relief and the loss. But at ballroom dancing, we were each other's signpost, safety net--and what more does a 13-year-old need in the world?

We had a signal. If it was a "choice" dance, meaning that either the boys or the girls had the opportunity to ask a partner to dance, we gave each other a reasonable amount of time to be asked by a coveted partner. Somehow we both understood what--or who--this would be for the other. If a painful few seconds too many passed, and the askee was still unmoored, the member of the asker party would make a beeline for said askee, ensuring that neither one of us was ever left standing alone. Fortunately, we both generally did okay on our own. But knowing Andy was out there, that he had my back in the jungle that is junior high school, made the whole enterprise all the more satisfying.

So, on this sweltering July night in Lower Manhattan, as Andy and I approach 40, and Mr. Lamoureaux, I hope, is enjoying a summer full of kids to whom he is related, I want to state for the record that I can still, maybe, do a box step. I definitely remember, although will never again do, the Funky Chicken, and I like to think that there are thousands of other adults all over the country at this point who know that if someone does ask you to dance, you must smile, and say yes, because for one thing, you never know where one dance can lead, and for another, it's just the right thing to do.