The Agony of De Feet

Right around the mid 20th century mark, the Buffalo Public School System decided to include, as part of its comprehensive Physical Education Program, a course in ballroom dancing. Even at this rudimentary level I found it terribly embarrassing trying to dance while hiding both the inner and outer manifestations that occur when an emerging 13-year-old boy makes his first physical contact with an emerging 13-year-old girl. To make matters worse, our instructor was a humorless, former ballroom dance champion, already hopelessly embittered by her longtime partner’s recent abandonment as well as her steep three month descent from National Championship competition at the Hollywood Palladium Ballroom in Los Angeles, (with Lester Lanin himself waving the baton) all the way down to teaching pimply faced teens the Box Step in a suburban Buffalo Junior High School. From my standpoint, however, the dilemma I faced eclipsed hers by a mile. While holding this real, live girl in my arms, the conflicting emotions collided inside my head like subatomic particles smashing together in a cyclotron. I was buffeted in all directions by the opposing crosswinds of blinding lust and revolting disgust. Although I never mentioned it to mom or dad, I was certain that by training me to become a 13-year-old gigolo, my endocrine system was being catapulted into chaos. Sure enough, at my next annual physical, o