Boots Aplenty
OK. Here it is! I'm outing myself. I was both a post-Vietnam war hippie poser AND on the RJ Reynold's Dancing Boots. In order to substantiate the deeper meaning of this; back up!..... give me room. This was no pansy-booted group of girlie girls. We were dance jocks. The audition process was feverish and heavily populated, not to mention a coveted placement for a girl from any click, so being selected for the only city school dance team was hi-freakin'-brow stuff. The judging panel included, as I recall, a professorial dancer from the NC School of the Arts among other notables.
Once selected, our practices were hellish -- sweltering south'ren heat all summer long 3-4x/wk - daily, grueling after school practices during season (stretching included upright splits on the lockers using the locks as pulleys during winter) and chilly, muscle-cramping dances at the games. We were once asked to dance at the Super Bowl (because we were so damn good & fine) but the funds available, in that tobacco rich city of Winston-Salem, would not allow it...meaning most of us were not spawn of the old money. We were mostly back-woods or city scrappin' girls who knew full well how to kick. (Back me up on this, Trisha Corona sistah.) Plus... we were all well-schooled in Supremes moves.
What matters more is that this is the very scenario in which Trisha Corona (aka Byrdie) and I met and fell in love our junior year in high school. It would be twenty years from graduation day until we would joyfully reunite.
Girl.... you just better cough up your boot portrait or your "booty" is, ..... well, you know.
posted by wendy lewis at 5/09/2005 08:04:00 PM
3 Comments:
Most shapely legs, Scout.
I'm having a little cognitive dissonance here. Somehow the pom-pom wieldin', boot stompin' girl in the picture doesn't fit with the moon howlin', soul wailin' woman I know. But then if I pulled out some old pics from high school you probably wouldn't recognize me either. Hell, I barely recognize me.
Kitty, Hannah... You've got good genes.
Scout, this pic is circa.....?
The danceline at my school was actually pretty good, though not of the variety of Dancin' Boots. As I remember, several of the ladies were also cheerleaders. Of course, each sport and each level (Varsity, B-squad, etc.) had it's own cheerleading squad so there were lots of cheerleaders at my school. And my whole high school, freshman-senior, was not much bigger than your graduating class.
Too much nostalgia.... getting ill....
Ahhh, the memories ... I, too, was on the boots team at my high school ... not the city one, the one "across the tracks" just west of town. I still remember that my first performance was to "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" ... might even be able to remember it to dance at the wedding!
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