The Dance

The Dance

“Most things worth doing come with their fair share of risks.”

Kristen Beyer

Way back when, my cousins and I all owned Model A Fords, and in the summer, we would drive them somewhere wonderful in the west. The summer of the photo above, we drove to Yellowstone National Park.

The distance to Yellowstone from Jackson Hole is just a few hours, and we had a beautiful ride to the cottages where we stayed near Old Faithful.

We heard there was a fifties-themed dance in the gym that night, but that you had to dress up to get in. So, like a bunch of sailors on leave, we greased up our hair and did our best to look like we belonged to that era.

The big guy in the middle of the photo is my cousin Johnny. I drew the tattoo on his arm for the occasion. Everyone to the right of him is me or related to me. The ones on the left are two of my best friends, Todd and Scott.

So, off we headed to the dance, where there was a great fifties band on stage and a crowd of a couple hundred people just sitting in the bleachers. No one was dancing, and no one was dressed from the fifties except for us and the band.

The crowd noticed us immediately, as we were the only ones standing, and we could see they thought we were for real.

Well, you have to play the cards you’re dealt, so, staying in character, I walked directly over to the prettiest girl I could see and said, “Ya wanna dance?” She looked nervously at her friends, then back at me, and said, “Not right now.”

I don’t know what possessed me — likely the sunglasses, grease, and the music — but I looked side to side, then at her, and gently said, “C’mon,” and the next thing I knew, we were on the dance floor. And within a minute, the whole crowd was on their feet, having a great time.

The band played an hour past expected, and the place filled to capacity, with many of the kids racing back to their rooms to dress in fifties attire and return.

All it took was for someone to break the ice, and for whatever reason, that night, it was me.

I walked the girl I had asked to dance gentlemanly back to her cottage. Perhaps I had removed my sunglasses by that time, as I don’t recall falling down along the way. As I walked back to my cottage, passing “Old Faithful,” the geyser suddenly erupted in all its glory. And I realized that I would never have witnessed that spectacular site, alone in the moonlight, had I not taken a chance at the dance.

-Hank