Dance Like It Is Your Last Dance

Boy, with 50-60+ degree weather the last couple days, Spring sure does seem like it is here! NOT! Listen up people, it is Wisconsin State Basketball Tournament time this and next weekend. That means snow . . . and if you think I am blowing hot air (or cold air in this case), the weather forecast is for 2-5" of snow accumulation on Saturday.

I have another indicator as well. It is my niece, Brooke’s dance recital this weekend. I am not sure if I can remember a nice weekend in recent years that it has landed on. A few years ago, I think it was actually a little later because Casey always had a track meet in Palmayra-Eagle that was on the same day. We would be down there all day long and then come back just in the nick of time to watch her recital. That day would usually be cold (at least brisk) and sometimes the sun would come out because one year, I actually got a mixture of sun and wind burn. But Brooke’s recital has been earlier in the last few years and usually around mid- to late-March.

I remember last year in particular. I didn’t make it. We had the O’Connor First Quarter Birthday party at Bob’s sister Patty’s house. It was a combination birthday party for the January - March birthdays, but more particularly it was Bob’s dad’s 75th birthday celebration. We had that in the afternoon and it was starting to snow pretty hard on the way there. That night I also had to stop back in town after dropping Bob off at home for my dear friend, Dottie’s surprise 50th birthday party. As the weather got worse, Casey figured it best that he head back to Chicago right from Madison, so after dropping everyone else off, my plan was to head downtown to see Dottie and then head off to Brooke’s recital. The weather worsened and I finally had to call Marci to say that I didn’t dare attempt the drive. Dottie’s son, Timmy, even went in the ditch trying to get to his girlfriend’s house in Monticello and also my niece, Maci, in New Glarus to pick them both up for a concert they had planned to attend in Milwaukee. They would not make that either. I ended up staying at Dottie’s party that night a little longer than I probably should have, given the weather, but it was worth it to get a chance to sit and visit, which is something we hadn’t done for quite awhile. [By the way, as Dottie has been one of my best friends for many years, Timmy has been a "fixture" in my house as a part of my family since he was born. That is Timmy in the front row in the yellow plaid shirt just to the left of Casey.]

This year may prove to be the same. I have my cousin, Ron’s funeral in the morning and Brooke’s recital that night. So my plans are to be on the road most of the day, but Mother Nature may try to hamper my itinerary a little. We’ll have to see. She’s a sneaky old lady and if she’s got a bug up her butt that she wants to take care of, she’ll certainly do what she wants to remedy the situation. In this case, I think she is planning on getting rid of a little bit of that nasty dandruff she has been holding on to and wants to blanket the countryside with some of it. Anybody got any Head and Shoulders to give her before she shakes her head this weekend?

Oh, well, it won’t be the first recital I have missed but I do love to go to them. I have made most of Brooke’s since she started dance, but that is because she lives close by. My nieces, Kailey and Autumn, on the other hand, I have missed most of them. Their’s are always in the middle of May and they usually fall on one of our birthdays. Bob’s is the 2nd, Casey’s the 16th, Brady the 22nd and mine the 23rd, so there is a chance one of us is going to get hit. But last year, I said enough is enough and that I needed to go to their’s. So my mom and I drove up on Friday and stayed through Sunday morning so we could catch their Saturday afternoon recital. I was not disappointed in the least. They did a great job and, as a former dancer, I was just as proud of them as I have always been of Brooke, and Maci, too, when she was in dance.

Speaking of being a former dancer, it may be a little known fact that I took dance lessons from age six through 8th grade. Once into high school, I had too much going on and gave it up. I loved dance and my dance instructors. They were Jean (Retrum) Adams and her daughter, JoJean Retrum. They gave instructions out of their farmhouse a mile or so from our farm and in a studio in nearby Monroe, where our recitals were held in a large auditorium. These were always big events and my dad would always have to rush to get done milking in time so that we could get packed up and head to the recital on that night. My brother, Gary, even took tap lessons one year. (Note: He is seated third from the left in the Thanksgiving picture above). He may not look like much of a dancer now, (hahaha) but he, along with myself and my friend, Dottie, were the opening act one year during an anniversary celebration of the Jean (Retrum) Adams Studio. We girls wore white silk chef’s shirts (that appeared to be short dresses) with white “underwear” and chef’s hats. Gary wore the same but with white pants. We carried wooden spoons for our tap dance routine and we mocked that we were the bakers of the anniversary cake. At the end of that particular dance, the girls had to turn around and flip up the back of our “dress” and flash our “underwear” as a sort of ”boop-boop-te-do” ending. My mom would certainly remember all of these recitals as well, because she made all my costumes. That was Gary’s first and last year at dance. He tried it, didn’t like it and it was all over for him .

During all those years of dance, I took ballet, tap, jazz, and baton. I have been an alley cat, a pony, a chef and too many more to even count. When you take that many types of dance, you tend to be in a lot of dances and you had to work hard at doing them all. I loved my instructors because they were strict and would not tolerate mistakes or being out of sync with the music or the other dancers. That is because they were great dancers themselves and knew that to be good, you had to work hard. And, I loved it all. Jean even had a tall wooden shepherd’s hook-type cane that she used to instruct with, to point with and to tap you on the shoulder if you made a mistake. She would tap that with the rhythm of the music to emphasize staying in sync with the music.

I can think back to many recitals and how we would “celebrate” afterwards with the other parents. There was a restaurant/tavern in downtown Monroe right next to the auditorium where we had our recitals that we would go to afterwards. Auntie and my grandfather, Oscar, would usually go along. We would meet up with Dottie’s parents, Cap and Mardell, and the grown-ups would visit and maybe have a beer and us kids would play.

All this reminiscing over recitals always brings back one year in particular to mind. It was 1968 and my mom was pregnant with my sister, Lori. I had just turned nine. [By the way, Lori is seated as the second from the left in the Thanksgiving picture above.] It was a hot, sultry night for the beginning of June. My grandpa, Oscar, had bought a ticket and promised he would go. At the last minute he decided not to go. I remember running over to his place and begging him to come along, but he said, no, he didn’t feel good and had better not go. So, off we went to a night of gaiety and prancing around on stage – my mom and dad, Auntie, Gary, and me. After the recital, we met up with Dottie and her parents, and stopped at Turner Hall as was the usual. It was late getting back, sometime between 11:00 and midnight. As we pulled into town and were coming down Main Street, we saw the flashing lights of a police car. We had no idea what was going and my dad was going to proceed to head toward home, when our local police officer and friend, Hooky Blanchard, stepped in front of our car vigorously waving his hands and arms for us to stop. My dad pulled over to the curb and before Hooky approached the car, I remember Auntie murmuring “something is wrong, something is seriously wrong.” As Hooky stepped up to the car and my dad rolled his window down, Auntie immediately shouted to Hooky, “Who is it? Is it dad or is it Al? Which one? Who is it?” Hooky took one look at her and my dad and said, “It is your dad (my grandpa).” “I am sorry to have to tell you but Oscar was killed in a plane crash tonight.” That was one of the saddest nights that I can remember as my mom, dad and Auntie were visibly shaken and Gary and I weren’t quite sure how that could be. Grandpa was supposed to come to the recital with us but he said he wasn’t feeling good and decided to stay home. It was impossible. He was at home. Someone should really go check, because he had to be at home. My dad and Auntie stepped out of the car and my mom, two weeks away from delivering my sister, stayed in the car.

This is rural, small town America, back in the days when everyone knew everyone and everyone cared about and was concerned about each other. Hooky, of course, growing up in the town with his last name, was the Andy Griffith of our town. The children all crawled into, played and slept in the back seat of his car. He knew everyone by name. When he had been alerted to what had happened with the plane crash, he knew where we were and waited for us to return to town, leaving his red lights flashing so that no matter what, he would stop us from going home so that he could deliver the bad news. Of course, instantly there was concern for both my parents as my dad, being a diabetic and a heart condition, and my mom, being almost nine months pregnant, but Auntie was devastated. Her balloon had burst and she was in terrible shape.

But they proceeded to ask what had happened. To the best of their knowledge, this is how it was explained. Grandpa’s friend, Jim, who lived in the neighborhood of our farm, was a pilot. He had a landing strip on his farm and he and my Grandpa had taken many trips by plane. Lots of times they would fly up to Mt. Horeb and land at the tiny airport (landing strip) there. Friends would meet them and they would visit with them in Mt. Horeb. On this particular night, Jim must have called Grandpa and asked if he wanted to go for a ride. The two of them took off and headed to Mt. Horeb. There they met up with a young doctor and flying pal from Mt. Horeb, Dr. Egge. They went downtown to Mt. Horeb and then went out for a fly. That is when they were spotted by a local farmer who saw the plane dip a couple times and then go down. We are not sure whatever really truly happened, but a couple versions have surfaced. One, was that they hit an air pocket and Jim could not get the plane resurrected after that. Two, which we didn’t find out until a few years later, is that Jim’s farm was being foreclosed on the next week. That version imagines that he committed suicide and, unfortunately, took my Grandpa and Dr. Egge, who had a wife and two small children, with him. We will never know for sure; it will always be an unanswered question. The whys.

But, this I do know. It was a horrendous crash. Auntie and my dad were asked, of course, to identify my grandfather. There was really not much to identify. There were only body parts, which we were told that as they scoured the wreckage, the officials would pick up and put in them in garbage bags as they found them. Always hoping for the best, Auntie and my dad were finally able to identify a ring and a watch that Grandpa always wore and later his wallet was found. This is a horrible thing for someone to have to go through.

Grandpa was an assessor and treasurer for the township we lived in. He did taxes, etc., for people, too. Grandpa lived on the small farm attached to our farm. We called it our “second farm” or “Grandpa’s farm.” (This is where my mom and dad retired to after they sold the big farm.) That is where Gary and I stayed on nights when my parents had plans for the night or if we just wanted to spend the night with Grandpa. He would let us take all his blankets and sheets and drape them across his furniture in the living room and we would make tents and tunnels. We would camp out and sleep in them that night, as long as we gave Grandpa just enough walking room so that he could get to his bedroom. And the next morning he wouldn’t tear them down. He would let us have our fun and then before he was ready to walk us back home, we would take them down and fold them up ready and waiting for the next time he would babysit.

Although very independent, Auntie always took care of Grandpa after Grandma died. She would stop out almost daily and clean and fix any extra meals for him. He was a good enough cook for himself, but she liked to take care of him. It hurt Auntie tremendously when she lost Grandpa, as well it did my dad.

I remember the year and events very well when Grandpa died. My sister Lori was born two weeks later. She went through a tragedy and funeral before she had even breathed her first breath outside of the womb.

Recitals seem to always spark a little bit of the remembrance of that horrific June evening. I am sorry to say that today, almost 42 years later, I can remember little bits and pieces of some of my dance routines, but most of all, I clearly remember the events of that night – the night I danced my last dance for my Grandpa Oscar.

There is a lesson here, you know. I think every time we dance, we should dance like there is no tomorrow, live for today, and dance like it is your last dance.