Upbeat Times


Santa Rosa, CA. ~ [French: VEE-VAH LAH DAHNCE] I’m lying prone on a padded massage table. My face is cra- dled. Acupuncture needles are pincushioning out all along my backside.


An


warm infrared lamp is relaxing muscles tensed from too much yard work and guitar playing. Halpern’s “mel- low cello” mu- sic is like melt- ed honey over my bones. I let a sigh go free into the cozy, Petaluma clinic. My qi (chee) energy is rising


with my spirit, and inside, my body is fl oating free to the mys- tical melodies. My mind driſt s …Was I always a natural-born dancer? T e little ballerina in my home town of Wichita? My fi rst dance instructor was a rabbi’s daughter. Yona Richman was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. I was ten-ish, yearning to be a beautiful swan, too. When lovely Yona leſt for N.Y.C., my tender heart broke; would I ever dance again? Yes!


Junior high school was


jumping with this new “rock and roll” thing. I just had to


17th


Annual SUMMER Guide #2


learn to Swing, and Stroll, do the Chicken, Jerk, Locomotion –and the Hully Gully. My best friend Linda Lee, taught me the Bop to our fav hit tune “Rockin’ Robin,” making my unpopularity more bearable. --And


stir-


ring an ardent, puppy-loving


crush on Rick- ey MacMullin, the handsome kid across the street. Rick was a gentle jock, and our school’s athlete.


best I was


fourteen when our innocent hearts fi rst touched. Other girls were jealous, and I was insecure about competition for his atten- tions.


dancing at


Wichita teenyboppers went the


(“T.A.R.P.”) on Friday nights.


local Armory I


persuaded my parents to let me go, agreeing to attend Friday- night Jewish Sabbath services on alternating Fridays. T.A.R.P. had strict rules. Chaperones were everywhere: no necking or dancing too close. Girls had to wear white gloves.


Shy Marcia


ran and hid in the ladies room when the emcee called, “Ladies choice.” When Rick became my


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“steady,” I didn’t have to worry about being turned down for a dance from a cute boy. --Or get- ting stuck with a clumsy part- ner. Everything embarrassed me back then…. My sixteenth summer birth-


I


took refuge in dance movement, fi nding an outlet to express both pent-up emotions, and wildish outbursts of joy. On a hot August night before leaving for college, at an outdoor dance-athon, I moved through fears of leaving home.


“Sweating my prayers,”


dancing every number (four hours?), I leſt nine exhausted partners in my wake. Dance is a gateway to my soul. In the late 1970s, I sang with


small bands in night clubs. Cool! Getting paid to dance my little buttinski off each night.


In ‘79,


2016 WORDPLAY “VIVA LA DANCE!” by Marcia Singer • lovearts@att.net


day saw my boyfriend and best girlfriend moving far away.


performing in Hong Kong, I vis- ited aſt er-hour clubs, sitting-in with my favorite Filipino band, who did near perfect imitations of top disco hits. What a keen natural high, being on stage boogeying to a scorching ren- dition of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.” Here at my acu session, I’m


inwardly dancing the harmoni- ous play of the moment, happily in the divine sway of unfolding memories. –Like that time I won a singing competition and got to perform for the fi rst time, with a big band. Scary great! But when the infectious rhythm fi lled the room, I landed ‘inside’ of it, and forgot to be nervous! T ere were special times I


felt that ‘melting’ and transfor- mation dancing with a partner. T ere was my charming boy- ... continued on page 23


July 2016 • 17


JOKES & Humor # 5 During the invasion of


Sicily in World War II, General George Patton was preparing to take the city of Palermo. He checked with his meteorologists and learned the day he had chosen would be incred- ibly rainy. So he issued an order to place copies of the New York ‘Times’ immedi- ately beneath the tailgates of the transports carrying his troops. In this way the men could keep their feet dry. His staff was mystifi ed. Why the “Times”? Why not the New York “Daily News”? Patton was adamant, and one did not argue with the General. As fi ve tons of old copies of the “Times” were being loaded, the General issued one of his greatest quotes to the assembled war cor- respondents: “these are the ‘times’ that dry men’s soles.”


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