The television program is called, “So You Think You Can Dance?” Well, yes I think I can dance. I’ve been enjoying ballroom dancing all my life. No, I don’t dress like a Vegas showgirl. On most all of the television dance programs, many of the women’s outfits are little more than bits of fringe pasted over their secondary sexual characteristics. That’s certainly not my style. Give me a good pair of shoes and then I can fly.
There are many reasons why I adore ballroom dancing. Aside from the fact that it’s exercise and much better than the treadmill, I love the music. At all the high school dances I happily attended, my best dance was lindy-hopping. (Now it’s called swing). These days, I do all the dances: rhumba, posa doble, foxtrot, waltz, cha cha, meringue, and more. I wish there was a ballroom in our neighborhood.
So, where do I go to enjoy feeling like Ginger (unfortunately without Fred!)? Happily, there’s a fine dance center in Nutley on High Street. It’s little over a 30-minute drive from Bayonne and it’s called Starlight. It has a nice, big dance floor and there’s ballroom dancing on Tuesday and Sunday afternoons, plus Thursday and Saturday evenings. Even when I’m tired, once I arrive at Starlight, I get energized. On Tuesdays there are even line dances. My favorite is not the popular Electric Slide – it’s a “Hello Dolly” medley.
If you’re a novice when it comes to ballroom dancing, the Starlight offers lessons. Years ago, there was a popular band leader who always said, “Come on, children, let’s dance.” Thanks to all the television dance programs, dancing has been re-invented. And here’s my confession: Once the music starts and I’m dancing, I’m “Sweet 16” one more time!
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Some 20 years ago, a dear friend invited me to go on a mystery outing to meet an old dear friend of his. He also assured me that I’d be very impressed and also thoroughly entertained. He was right on both counts.
If I asked you to guess where we went and who we met, I doubt that you could come close. My friend took me to a floating barge at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, an unlikely and startlingly beautiful venue with a most dramatic backdrop of the East River and lower Manhattan skyline. But that’s not all. The 100-foot steel barge built in 1899 presents, of all things, 220 chamber music concerts annually. Called Bargemusic, it’s founder was the lady my friend wanted me to meet, Olga Bloom. In 1976, this amazing woman gave up her career as a violinist and violist to create – surprised – a floating concert hall! Fine artists from all over the world are happy to perform at this unique year-round floating concert hall. Not surprising, since there’s no other venue like Bargemusic in the world.
As we listened to Mozart, the barge rocked gently – left, right, left, right. Rather than distracting, it enhanced the pleasure listening to the music. The wonderful Olga Bloom says, “Our cargo is beautiful music.” Indeed! The unusual lady had a birthday this past April. She is 90 years old and still going strong. She sails on a sea of sound and I was pleased to learn that in addition to chamber music, she has added jazz on Thursdays. Oh yes, I mustn’t forget to tell you that lovely snacks are available on board. However, if you are a pizza lover, there’s the famous Grimaldi’s Pizzeria just up the block, and it’s just as delicious as the pizza at Bayonne’s Guardiola.
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As we all know, today’s technology has advanced so rapidly that it’s hard to stay with it and remain up to date. I take classes at the Apple store in the Short Hills Mall and bring new questions with me on each visit. But one thing I’ve mastered – email! It may not seem like a big deal, but for me, it’s a great way to keep in touch with out of town family.
My granddaughter, Rachel, is a freshman at the University of Michigan. Ours is a tight relationship even though she is into sports and I am not. However, Rachel sent me the following email: “There’s a film called ‘Gotta Dance!’ It’s about the N.J. Nets basketball’s senior dance squad. It’s playing at Bayonne’s South Cove.” You see, Rachel knows what interests me! Of course, I hurried to Frank’s Theatre (Where the popcorn is consistently good, but the films are not). Well, Rachel was right. ‘Gotta Dance!’ was the movie for me – no question. If you are a dancing enthusiast, you’ll enjoy this feel-good, big-energy documentary. It’s a true story about likable amateur seniors who shatter old-fashioned perceptions about the elderly (And, frankly, I don’t think of 60 as elderly – that’s the young-old. The old-old starts at 90 in my arithmetic). The NETSational senior dance squad appears at the N.J. Nets basketball games to an appreciative fun-loving audience. The movie made me wish I could join the group. If only I knew how!
P.S.—Since writing this column, I have tried out for the dance squad. I’ll tell you all about it in the next column!
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When my daughter, Jolie, was a tiny tot (she’s now a beautiful woman with her twins, freshmen in college), my brother, Adrian, thought he was giving her the best present one could buy. It was a life-sized Raggedy Ann doll. In fact, it was bigger than little Jolie. Every time she saw it, she trembled and wailed. We had to hide it until she grew bigger than her Raggedy Ann.
Recently, I was surprised to learn that there’s actually a museum, the Strong Museum in Rochester, N.Y., that is a kind of shrine to Raggedy Ann. It contains several hundred pieces related to Raggedy Ann. I learned that around 1915, a children’s book author drew a round-eyed cartoon face on a worn cloth doll and gave it the name we know now. By 1920, Raggedy Ann had been trademarked and acquired a brother, Andy (by coincidence, my daughter, Jolie, has a brother, Andy!). Their names and yarn hair-dos started appearing on products like canned spinach, cookie jars, jigsaw puzzles and nutcrackers.
Actually, an amazing range of material was made to promote Raggedy Ann and Andy in the years long before Mickey Mouse was even a doodle. An officer at the Strong Museum said that they took a department store display doll about six feet tall and a makeup kit from around 1970, made up the eyes with wide circles, put a red triangle on the nose and drew a wide smile. That would really have made little Jolie cry. Me too!