I Hope You Wobble.

This is sort of late in life to announce this: I am a dancing fool.

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Actually, more "fool" than anything else, but I have decided that at weddings, class reunions, etc not to be a stick in the mud, but to actually get out on the floor and boogie.

Getting out on the floor and booging was big back in the 70's, the time of my youth. There was a genre of music back then called "Disco" (better known in Latin as "Realiter Sugit") which wanted us to get up and boogie. They also wanted you to get up to get down. It was a decade of mixed signals.

It was a decade when people put on their boogie shoes. I don't think I had any.

The first time I ever danced, in front actual people, was my senior prom. Personally, I thought I was amazing. I remember doing something resembling the modern dance of the period, which I think was The Hustle or maybe it was The Bump. It could have been The Robot, which if you ask me, is an annoying dance when someone else does it. All I know is that for the first time in my life I remember being very sweaty in a tuxedo.

It just so happened that my classmates didn't know how to dance either. I guess I don't need to explain I went to an all white high school. Except for one of my fellow white guys.

The lead singer of the band that played (Brookwood Station, really) announced "We have a dancing machine!" and out stepped this guy who began to really dance, above  the"American Bandstand" level but a little below the "Soul Train" level.

This boy was putting the boogie in the boogie-oogie-oogie. We were all standing around, watching and clapping for him. It was kind of like "Saturday Night Fever", except with heterosexuals. Then it happened.

He decided to do a split and it split his pants.

I've never had anything embarrassing like that ever happen to me. Nope, I don't need my pants to split to cause people to remember my dancing.

How would one describe my dancing ability? It is part Elaine from "Seinfeld", part Chuck Berry, part Chubby Checker and part Mikhail Baryshnikov. What I lack in rhythm and grace, I make up for in pure spasticity and enthusiasm.

My basic dance is free form modification of "The Twist" except I look like I'm stomping out a floor full of cigarettes most of the time. Believe it or not, I can get by with this type of dance most of the time.

The problem is the line dances.  This is when people get on the dance floor and they have to dance the same dance in a line, which for a renegade like me is difficult.

The music for the line dances is very bossy, It is always telling you what do-which leg to shake, where to stand, hop, jump around, and cha-cha,

One new line dance is called "The Wobble". My son learned to do "The Wobble" while he was a student at Georgia Southern University, so don't tell me my money was well spent.

At the past couple of weddings, I have had boogie fever. So much so that my son tried to teach me to "Wobble", so I wouldn't bring disgrace to the family.  His instructions: "First, you jump like this. Then you do this. Then you do that".

Well, we went to a wedding last weekend for one of his high school buddies.  To prepare myself for the reception. I watched a YouTube instructional video. The instructions: "First, you jump like this. Then you do this. Then you do that."

The time for dancing came. I was amazing during "Uptown Funk", especially when I realized I was the oldest person on the dance floor.

The big moment arrived:  "The Wobble". First, I jumped. Then I did this. Then I did that. If I was being graded on a curve, I might have past a Wobble test, if the instructor was blind.

I did manage to impress someone. A lovely lady said I was "something". Okay, it was my wife but I think she meant it.