How my Ozark dance training finally paid off

It is no secret that my love for Kevin Arnold, aged 11-13, is vast and unending. But it all came into hyper focus last night at about midnight when I saw this:
[Fastforward to 5:50]


That’s right, Kevin Arnold SQUARE DANCING! With poor, bless-her-heart Margaret Farquhar on top of it all!

Square dancing… Remember fourth grade? That’s when Willow Elementary School embarked on its square dance physical education. I have no idea how they corralled the bunch of us in the multi-purpose room and taught us how to do-si-doe. There were a lot of cootie shots going around, I can tell you that. In hindsight I suppose the whole exercise was to force boys and girls to—perish the thought—touch hands (a true coeducation) since that was the start of a year long, kid-inflicted sex segregation.

We allowed the boys to pull our hair and chase us around because they were actions that resembled hating rather than loving. And we HATED boys! So I suppose the California education system thought this was the only logical step: gather 100 odd kids in a large room, put them in gym clothes, make them stand in squares and bow dopily at each other, and teach them the fine art of Alabama lefts & right-hand stars. Don’t even pretend that you don’t remember what those are.

So the history of square dancing says that some time long ago the Midwest turned “square dancing” into “play parties.” Something of a Puritan impulse. At those times a common call went like this: “Meet your honey, pat her on the head, if you can't get biscuit, give her corn bread.” “Biscuit” was code for “waist-swing” and “cornbread” was a “two-hand swing.” So really there were two competing mindsets at work in the MPR of Willow Elementary School: 1) integration of the sexes and 2) keep it clean.

The culmination of our training ended in a large fourth grade party that consisted of various cookies, trays of crudités, and a large punch bowl. We were told to come in our best square dance garb, which really translated into cowboy and cowgirl Halloween outfits. Our parents came. They came with cameras. They came with camcorders—those big guys, the ones fathers had to hoist upon their shoulders with much grunting and bulging temple veins. They came in droves.

And we had to dance, dance, dance, like so many little monkeys. The weirdest part of the whole square dance unit was that we had to also learn the Mexican hat dance. I don’t know if it was some sort of concession—a sort of, okay nod to this culture nod to that—or some horrible, off color joke that just went too over our young heads. Either way, half of the classes square danced while the other half hat danced. Every so often we would swap. There is a metaphor of some sort here, I can feel it.

Fast forward 15 years to Lisbon, Iowa where there is a farm so red and so farm-ish it puts other farms to shame. There are horses with names like “Ace.” There are troughs filled with ice, beer, and Coke. There are hay bales a plenty, stacked up to the beams of the farm. There are folks in cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and cowboy belts. There’s me, grinning like a fool and do-si-doe-ing along with the best of them. And man I look good. Thanks, Willow Elementary school, circa 1994!