More Dancing

My maternal grandfather was not successful in turning me into a famous ballerina, but my paternal grandfather taught me to polka. My Grandpa Sam was one of the kindest and sweetest individuals to ever walk the face of the earth. He was playful and fun loving in a quiet kind of way. It is not at all hard to picture him dancing and having just the best time swinging the dance floor on a Saturday night. It is quite a bit more difficult to picture my grandma dancing along with him, but I know there must have been a side to her that I never got to see.I wonder if there are still radio stations that have a polka hour? I know there are tapes and reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show. It was on the rotation at my mother's nursing home--wonderful therapy for Alzheimer's patients. It's amazing how people who can't remember the names of their children can belt out the lyrics of the old songs. Different part of the brain or different pathways to retrieval...I don't know. I do know, my mother came more alive whenever there was music playing.
Anyway, I can remember one afternoon when my grandmother, mother and father had gone out shopping and my brothers and sister must have been off playing somewhere. My Grandpa and I were alone in the living room and watching TV, maybe Lawrence Welk, and a polka started playing. My Grandpa Sam got up and held out his hand to me. "Can you polka?" he asked.
"No I don't know how," I replied probably thinking along the lines of: "Duh, that's not the kind of dancing we do. Polka is for old people."
But he pulled me to my feet. "Every body should learn to polka. I'll show you. You'll always have fun at weddings if you know how to polka." So he taught me the basic step, told me to relax, and we swung around the living room together for the rest of the song. When it was done, I was praying for another polka to come on.

And on the subject...this from my e-mail:

An old prospector shuffled into the town of El Indio, Texas leading an old tired mule. The old man headed straight for the only saloon in town, to clear his parched throat. He walked up to the saloon and tied his old mule to the hitch rail. As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old man, have you ever danced?" The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No, I never did dance... never really wanted to." A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, "Well, you old fool, you're gonna' dance now," and started shooting at the old man's feet. The old prospector, not wanting to get a toe blown off, started hopping around like a flea on a hot skillet. Everybody was laughing, fit to be tied. When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon. The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and cocked both hammers. The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air. The crowd stopped laughing immediately. The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly. The silence was almost deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old timer and the large gaping holes of those twin barrels. The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man's hands, as he quietly said, "Son, have you ever kissed a mule's ass?" The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No sir..... but... I've always wanted to."