Footprints

by Budd Glassberg

Reprinted with permission from the Zionsville Times Sentinel on October 3, 2007

Leavin With the One What Brought Ya to the Dance

“This story is slightly immoral, but so, I guess, are stories based on truth.” – Ring Lardner

Last weekend I ran into a fellow who spun quite a tale. Kind of a tall, pudgy guy named Lou with a not so subtle Al A. Gore-ey story. This is what he had to say.

“Look. We gots this dance troupe that competes in costume against other dance troupes for six months every year. I direct our troupe. The guys dance in young Grizzly costumes. Even though these contests have been held every year for the past 120 years or so, we haven’t been to the final dance (our biggest contest) in 62 years. You gets points for every time you win a contest against another costumed team. End of September, the eight dance troupes with the most points gets to dance against each other. Best two go to the final dance. Winner’s crowned there. Now I am 64 years old, and I am not lyin to you when I say that even my father can’t remember a year when our troupe won the big dance. Only 16 troupes back then too.

Anyways, here’s my story. Our troupe was real bad last year. Well, from day one in the spring, our guys is fallen all over one another. By early summer theys fighten, so I blow my top and then send one of em packen. By this time we is way behind in points. All of a sudden the guys begin dancin like they was possessed. We starts winnin and lookin good. We still way behind in points, but our guys is hackin away at the lead the beer makers troupe has in our region. Bein Italian myself, I like guys with names like Soriano and Zambrano. As summer heats up, these two guys are dancin like there is no tomorrow. All is goin well when one of those two boys pulls a muscle twirlin a little too much. So we replace him and keep winnin without him.

Come August, we’s right in the mix of things with two other troupes; the beer makers, who I already mentioned, and a troupe that dresses up in red bird costumes. The red birds have been outdancin us for years. They is a smug bunch of guys who needed to be put in their place. Well, we was competin with the red birds when all of a sudden they falls down in this really important contest. My boys ain’t the kind to give em a hand up. We steps on their throats and knock em out of contention.

As we gets closer to the end of September, it’s just us and the beer makers left in our region. We’s dancin against a team in another region who dress in big fish costumes and we got some history with these fish. Four years ago, we just needed to get by them to get to the big dance and we is winnin the contest when someone watchin the contest, who’s for us by the way, spills a drink on one of our dancers and messes up our rhythm. Well, our troupe can’t get our composure back and we end up gettin eliminated. So, like I was sayin, we was dancing against the fish and they kept kickin us in the shins. Whole time we there, they just keep kickin our shins. Lost every contest with them. Luckily we leave town and then go beat up on the dancers with sunburned legs while the beer makers are getting beat by the troupe that is dressed like monks. Last Friday night, we win our region and qualify to dance in October.

In another region, a troupe dressed as big buildings had a huge lead in points over the troupe dressed like female horses. Now, there’s been some bad blood between us and the big buildings for the past 38 years. See we was once in their region and had this huge lead over them and they come back and beat us bad. We never forgot that. Tables turned this weekend as they blew this big lead in just a little more than two weeks. Couldn’t a happened to finer bunch of jerks. I hates them guys. Quite a weekend, ya hafta admit.

Our fellows is headin tonight to the desert to dance against the troupe that dresses like snakes. Don’t like snakes. If we beats em, we got only one more troupe to beat to get to the big dance. Sure would like to get to the big dance.”

I left Lou as he was figuring which of his dancers he planned to use against the snakes. He was talking to himself as I walked away, but I noticed a smile on his face. Hearing his story perked up my interest in these dance contests. The contest will be shown on television tonight. I will not miss a minute of it cheering on the fine athletes in young Grizzly costumes and their likeable director, sweet Lou.

Budd Glassberg is a 23 year resident of Zionsville who works and volunteers in the community. Visit www.runz.com for reprints of all his columns. You can reach him by email at budd@runz.com.