This week when I was in Peck's Country Market, I noticed on the public bulletin board a lot of ads placed by young women selling last years Prom dresses for a steal to this year's crop of young Prom queens. I smiled as I remembered all the ways that dance has impacted my life.

When I was in Woodstown High School, we used to have Friday night canteen's (dances). Interestingly, still in the early 1960's the African-Americans would dance on one side of the gym and we on the other. There were no mandatory rules requiring the seperation but it was just the way things were back then. In my early high school years Chubby Checker's The Twist was the number one hit. In fact, it was one of the few records that repeatedly garnered number one status several times over multiple years. One dance students were twirling in the jitterbug and suddenly grooving with twisting hips and pelvic thrusts at the next. The teachers were appalled and often energetic students would be reprimanded for suggestive dancing!

My senior prom date was Patricia Miller who looked stunning in her full white dress and the gardenia wrist corsage I gave her. I was every bit the gentlemen (and also very closeted!) and the most memorable part of the evening for me was almost falling asleep on the way home and driving off the road! Of course in the same year, I was granted the honor of escorting and dancing with Ms. New Jersey Grange at Elmer Grange Number 29. What a memorable night that was for me!

As I started going to gay bars in my twenties, I was very reluctant to dance with a man. Somehow I had the absurd notion that dancing with another man would make me 'more gay'! Finally I couldn't resist the beat of Donna Summer, Diana Ross and Thelma Houston and I hit the dance floor with my best dancing moves. Now I don't think I would qualify for So You Think You Can Dance but I had some great moves; well-timed twists and swirls, the music moved through me. Travolta and Swayze would have been impressed as I bopped around to "Love To Love You Baby"

To dance one's ass off in the gay disco's of the seventies was one thing, it was totally another to slow dance with a man. The thought was really too much for me. My barrier broke down in a little bar called "One" in the San Fernando valley in Southern California. The bar was divided into two sections of a disco and an intimate cabaret piano bar. I was drawn to the group singing "There is a Place for Us" gathered around the piano to begin the evening. Then eventually beckoned to the dance floor to display my free spirited moves.

One night the DJ played "There is a Place for Us" and the guys started slow dancing. I immediately hit the sidelines and watched in amazement. Then this masculine vision dressed head to toe in Levi walked over and simply said, "May I have this dance?" I was dumbfounded as he guided me out to the floor. Thank God he had the good sense to let me lead! In the middle of the dance, he put his head on my shoulder, and we both sighed. I was in sheer heaven having this wonderful freedom of intimacy with this handsome man! The young man's name was Don and he was a horse trainer out near Palm Springs. We danced all night and I felt free and alive.

Many years later in 1992, I had to face yet one more barrier that dealt with dance! After a very successful year assisting Bill Clinton getting elected to the Presidency, I scored the best tickets to 1993 Presidential Inaugural Ball. The "National Ball" was to be held at the National Museum Building in Washington, DC. My date was David Davis, a handsome man who is also a very good friend. I was absolutely determined to dance at my first Inaugural Ball. Now as silly as it may seem now, this was a major deal back 15 years ago. My gay friends begged me not to make a 'spectacle" of myself and warned that two men slow dancing at the ball would be fodder for the sensationalist press.

I agonized about it for days leading up to the Ball. Much to his credit, my date David Davis was quite comfortable either way. He just wanted to be supportive of me. Finally the evening arrived and the slow music started. I turned to David and said, "May I have this dance?". He smiled and we glided to the floor. Much to our surprise, the other dancers moved away from us and left us dancing alone. I have never felt so awkward. Suddenly a very elderly couple came out of the side lines and moved right next to us and smiled at us. The elderly women said to us, "We always like to dance next to the best dancers". Having broke the ice the other dancers on the floor closed into us and the rest is history.

So I hope these young people up here in Turkey Hollow have a great prom and I hope maybe, just maybe, there might be a gay or lesbian couple there who ask, "May I have this dance?".