A group of 60 year-old women who are members of a book club decide to ditch their novels for tap dancing lessons. Tonight is the year-end recital, open to the public.
Butterflies, butterflies!
Tonight is the night of nights. This is the night the Turtle Creek Tappers really put ourselves on the map. On the map!
I know full well that from now on when the name Turtle Creek Tappers is mentioned anybody who is anybody in Dallas will know that little ol’ Dottie Rodgers was the one who got the group going, and any success or failure that we have tonight will be to my credit or blame, not that there’s anything to be done but simply to relax and go with the music as Johnnie has been telling us for the past six months of practice, practice, practice.
Johnnie has been wonderful. Even after putting in a full day at his beauty salon he still has time to give us tap lessons each Wednesday evening. Where oh where does he get his energy?
I’m so nervous, but what will be will be. I guess we could have gone on reading novels until we all fell asleep or had a book club meeting where we finally realized that no one but no one had read that month’s selection. So I was the one who finally said enough is enough.
I said we’re all pushing 60 –most of us from the wrong direction!– and instead of just sitting there and Jane Austening ourselves to death why don’t we just get off our kiesters and MOVE IT! Someone suggested ballroom, but we all knew that we could never get our husbands to go along with that, so that left line dancing and tap. Of course we live in Texas and all, but line dancing is frankly not the type of music that our crowd appreciates, and tap dancing has a beautiful history from Bojangles to Arthur Duncan and it’s great exercise, too. So that was that!
This is so exciting! Mildred did such a great job on our costumes and we decided that the cowgirl theme was so perfect that we’d just use one costume for the entire recital. I just love the fringe on the sleeves! During the finale we’ll add kerchiefs and lariats, just for kicks.
Robert has been so supportive, although every time I practice my solo number, “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” he insists on teasing me. He sticks his head in the kitchen and sings along, but he always replaces the lyrics with poems by Emily Dickenson. The other day as I was tapping up a storm he sang “I heard a fly buzz when I died/ The stillness in the room…” and the day before “Because I would not stop for death/ It kindly stopped for me…” Honestly, he has such a strange sense of humor!
But there he is, sitting in the front row with my daughter Ruby who just flew in from DC. They both are holding a yellow rose! How precious!
Where are my note cards?
I’m the MC tonight, and if I mess up I’m afraid Robert will fall off his chair laughing.
Don’t let the fringe get tangled in the mike stand.
Is my hat on straight?
Take a deep breath, Dottie, and everything will be fine.
O.k. to start, Johnnie?
Johnnie seems a bit distracted.
Johnnie?
Thanks. It’s now or never!
“Hello, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the premiere performance of the Turtle Creek Tappers. Thank you! Tonight our first dancer will be Evelyn Pierce Mulshinsky tapping to ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ ”
Oh me, Oh my! It’s a dream come true!
Hey,
Thanks for sharing this story! It sounds like you all are having great fun tap dancing. I am sure that fun came across in your performance.
Taps