Take Five: Tap Dancing

by Mary McHugh

 

 

 I don’t know about you, but I have a tough time getting myself to exercise in the wintertime. I know I should put on my boots and gloves and scarf and ski jacket and tights and socks and go out there in the mornings when it’s 18 degrees, but somehow, I find myself snuggling deeper under the covers and reading The New York Times until I get hungry.

But there is one kind of exercise that I love -- tap dancing. I signed up for a class at the Y and every Saturday I put on my red tap shoes that I’ve had since college and join nine other women, all ages, and a lone man to learn a routine which we will perform at the end of our ten classes. An hour of flap-ball-changes and shuffle-hop-steps and I am in heaven.

I think I learned to love tap dancing when I was six years old at the same time Shirley Temple was six years old and dancing in the movies. All the mothers in our neighborhood took their little girls in patent leather shoes to dance classes with the hope that we would be another Shirley. I had curls, too, just like hers, although I must say I was disillusioned when I found out years later that some of hers were glued on. Anyway, I learned the time step in class but somehow never ended up in the movies. Just as well, I guess, all those lines to learn and you had to stay clean all the time.

At different times during my life, I have taken a class or two and my friend Betsy usually goes with me. Her mother wanted her to be Shirley Temple too, but everyone said Betsy’s older sister was prettier and more likely to be in the movies. Betsy never got over it and keeps taking lessons whenever she gets the chance. She is my very best friend in the whole world and has been for 50 years, ever since we drove across the country and back with two other friends in a 10-year-old car that kept springing a leak in a water hose patched with bubble gum. We’ve stayed friends through the births of her eight and my two children, the death of her husband and the death of my daughter. We know each other’s thoughts, and hers are usually very funny.

She and I rendezvous every August on the next to last Sunday of the month. We tap dance on Broadway. Well, actually, we dance on the street in front of Macy’s when Tap-o-mania takes place every year. Along with 6,000 other nutty people of all ages and sizes, we show up at eight in the morning and, after picking up our t-shirts and hats, report to a tap captain who teaches a short and simple routine. One year we had Betty Boop t-shirts with a top hat and lacy garter. Another time we wore hats with long Goofy ears. We’ve been Garfield and Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. We have no shame.

The tap captains are hopelessly optimistic young men and women who somehow whip their crowd of little kids, middle-aged ladies who have never met a calorie they didn’t like, and spry 80-year-olds who tell you they used to be Rockettes. They probably were too, judging from the agility with which they execute the high kicks. Betsy and I do our best to get the routine just right, but we usually forget the first part while we’re learning the last part, and all around us people are saying, “Which foot do you start on?” and “Is it grape-vine-step-step or step-step-grapevine?” We pretend we know what we’re doing, but we know in our heart of hearts that nobody is going to notice if we make a mistake, not among 6000 other dancers. So we just try to turn in the same direction as the rest of the crowd and talk to everyone around us and have a ball.

After we have supposedly learned the routine, we all go off to have coffee and something fattening somewhere --- there’s a Starbucks nearby, thank goodness. We are all easily identifiable by our huge, one-size-fits-all t-shirts with a cartoon character on it, so we talk to each other, sharing intimate details of our lives, the way women do when they meet each other anywhere. We learn that one woman coming to this Tap-o-mania for the last 10 years is one of several tapping Grannies who put on a show in Asbury Park every year. We talk to little girls who can do the routine without a mistake and give us lessons while we are waiting in line for the ladies room. We meet women who are a little embarrassed about wearing hats with ears and making complete fools of themselves because they haven’t a clue about the dance we are supposed to do at noon. Betsy and I reassure them that no one has a clue, and that they are probably better than most, and besides, who is going to notice. We appear on the six o’clock news every year for 15 seconds in an aerial shot that never zeroes in on the person turning in the wrong direction. We convince them that everyone should make a fool of herself once in a while so she’ll know she is still alive.

At 11:30 we rejoin our tap captains who run us through the steps again and ask, “Does anybody have any questions?” Well, as a matter of fact, “Would you mind going over the whole thing again more slowly?” is the plaintive question of more than one of us. The tap captains, unflappable unless they are doing a flap-shuffle-shuffle, smile and do it again for the memory-challenged of us. Finally we are ready, or as ready as we’ll ever be. We line up in raggedy lines of 20 and spread out across 34th Street in front of Macy’s. The main tap guy or girl comes out on the marquee of Macy’s and congratulates us for coming and tells us we have broken last year’s record of 6,278 to make a crowd of 7,210. We all cheer ourselves for showing up and the mood is jubilant. We are ready to dance on Broadway -- or slightly off-Broadway.

The music starts at noon, we stand up straight and begin our dance. We repeat it three times and are surprised at how much we remember. We kick and strut, hop and time-step, shuffle-ball-change, and flap,flap,flap, smiling and having the best times of our lives. If you’ve never done it, and you’re near New York the next to last Sunday in August, treat yourself to the fun of this Sunday morning.

After we have danced and puffed and perspired on this hot day, Betsy and I walk over to the most elegant restaurant we can find -- usually the Paramount restaurant on 43rd Street, which is staffed with incredibly handsome, tall young men in black, and pretty waitresses you know are really actresses. They don’t even wince when we appear in our Betty Boop t-shirts and seat us in a booth not even back by the kitchen. White damask tablecloths, gleaming silver, little bud vases with pink and yellow roses, huge menus. We order champagne, Eggs Benedict, croissants, hot chocolate for me and strong coffee for Betsy, and lots of jam. Every calorie we might have danced off jumps right back into our bodies and we don’t even care. We have had the time of our lives.

Are you a tap dancer? Do you still dance? Or is there a favorite activity or special trip you take with a best friend? Tell me about it, please.

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