Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The Gator Got Your Granny

By Patricia White



By some divine intervention, I think that I danced right into this world following in the footsteps of my ridiculously unique and zany father. He loved his friends, a good time and he loved to dance. So do I.

I grew up in my hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. When I was in the sixth grade, my mama loaded us up in our Army surplus jeep and drove us to the Recreation Center every Saturday afternoon for Mr. Phillip’s ballroom dancing class. We learned the Fox Trot, Jitterbug, Waltz, Rumba and even the Tango. Dancing was in my feet and bones. Over the next 40 years, I would dance myself all the way to Houston, Texas.

Some years ago, my husband and I were out with a group of close friends for a night of dancing at a local watering hole. As we walked into the joint and heard the old familiar songs; my feet began to twitch and tingle with excitement. It didn’t take long to get into the action with one great song following another. Then there was silence for a moment, and the familiar guitar sounds of the Bayou suddenly filled the room.

"It’s gator time,” our rowdy friends yelled. They stomped their feet in demand to the music. I slipped out of my sandals. The smooth wooden boards shook beneath my now bare feet. The joint reverberated with the sounds of John Lee Hooker's,  BOOGIE CHILLUNS, as they blasted from the six foot speakers that stood like soldiers at attention in all four corners of the dance floor. My bare feet would not be still. That Texas watering hole would never be the same again.

We were not on the Bayou in Louisiana, this was not Gator country but the land of Aggies and Longhorns. The demand for a floor show came from the mouths of our Texas friends. They knew about the wild and crazy things we did growing up in Louisiana. They knew about the Gator, heard tales, and their insistent chant told me that there would be no peace until we were on the floor on all fours.

I grabbed my partner's hand in a fit of excitement and tugged him toward the center of the dance floor. He tried to shake lose from me as he cast brown eyes at me that said, "Don't ask me to do this.”
The glance I shot back said, "We're doin' it, Baby." I shuffled to the center of the floor with my partner in tow. The crowd closed in and began clapping. I forgot for a moment that there would be a tomorrow as I was about to let it all hang out. John Lee Hooker shouted BOOGIE CHILLUNS from the mammoth speakers and my partner and I dropped to the floor on all fours, face to face like two alligators squaring off for a bayou land-battle or the dance of love.

Words can't describe the dance or the body mechanics involved in this Southern ritual. What happened on the floor was never the same twice in a row. First, I was doing what looked like push-ups with both arms and legs, and then somewhere, somehow, I was doing one arm, two-leg push-ups, then one leg, one-arm push-ups. My partner didn’t miss a beat. He executed each flip and gyration with the grace of a true Cajun. To catch my breath, I flipped to my back like an Alligator preparing to sun on some bayou bank. and at the same time I shook my body as if to dry away the last of the swamp water then I flipped back over. Those back to front flips were risky for human gators as I needed to land with my belly on the ground, arms and legs outstretched, posed for an afternoon of sunning or a quick pounce on something for dinner. I rested a moment. The music wound down, "BOOGIE CHILLUNS, BOOGIE CHILLUNS, boogie chilluns." In one swift movement, I leap from all fours to a kneeling position with outstretched arms, shimming one last time. My partner leapt up and landed on his feet like a Circus performer. With all my strength, I attempted to spring from kneeling to standing. The crowd went wild. I was suddenly having an out of body experience. As I attempted to jump up, I lost my footing and in slow motion fell backwards for what seemed an eternity before I hit the floor. A jolt of electricity up my left arm told me I had connected once again with the smooth, worn boards of the dance floor. I heard a crack, just as the lightning struck my left arm. I was back in my body again, on the floor, sitting on my rump, crying as I lifted a limp hand into the hot humid air.

"It hurts," I whimpered, to no one in particular. The music stopped. The crowd shushed. Everyone knew that the lady Gator had broken her wrist. My partner ran to me and lifted me into his arms. His brown eyes met my tear filled blues. One moment his eyes said he was so sorry that this had happened, then they blinked uncontrollably as if to say, "you're a fifty-five year old alligator, you are a grandmother, what did you expect?”

The emergency room staff was very attentive and sympathetic to the events leading up to my arm injury. I told them I tripped on the green ottoman in our family room. I didn't have to tell them I had been snacking on grapes. I was barefoot and disheveled. Somehow they knew. I had to repeat my fabricated story over and over to each new person who entered the room. They thought my story would change. It never did. Even though my hand was dangling up on top of my wrist, the crew in green still insisted on an x-ray to confirm that my wrist was broken. And it was. As I floated in and out of pain-induced hallucinations, the words from my dancing song floated into my head, "Let that girl boogie woogie, it's in her and it's got to come out, BOOGIE CHILLUNS."
John Lee Hooker, where are you now? I need something for pain. I'll have what you have that always makes you seem so happy.”

My arm was eventually immobilized and I was sent home to suffer and pay for my sin. Surgery to place pins in my wrist followed three days later. After surgery, the Doctor announced that I had fine strong bones for a woman my age and no pins were necessary. He said my wrist would be as good as new and stronger than ever once it healed. He grinned and said that he hoped I had rearranged the furniture so that no one else would fall over the green ottoman.

I learned over the next three months that there were many things that were impossible to do with one arm in a cast. It takes two hands to eat a sandwich, cut up your meat, dry and style your hair, chop onions, pick up a baby, change a diaper, open a medicine bottle, floss your teeth, put on panty hose and get your britches down in a hurry. I was home alone one day, trying to get ready for a Christmas luncheon. I had planned to wear a wrap skirt with a holiday motif. When all attempts to put the skirt on with one hand failed, I spread the skirt out on the carpet, positioned myself at the edge of the skirt and rolled myself up in it. As I lay on the floor, I began to laugh. Now that the pain was gone, the truth about how it happened was pretty funny. The time had come to be  truthful  about how I had broken my arm with everyone who had not witnessed the Bayou fever that overcame me that night on the dance floor. To all those kind neighbors and unsuspecting friends who called, brought casseroles, sent cards and flowers, I owed the truth.

As I shared the true story over the next few months with family and friends, I often got the same question. "Will you ever do the Gator again?"
“No way, Jose,” I said. "But after the spectacular show my partner put on that night I'm sure he will jump in the dance circle first chance he gets with the twenty-somethings and put them all to shame.”
Hopefully, my Cajun man's bones are stronger than mine. But, I am retired these days and I will be here to help him with those two-handed tasks if he ever trips over the green ottoman and breaks something.


PS. By special request, I did the Gator at our oldest granddaughter’s wedding in 2010 but I had appointees standing by to help me up off the floor as I crouched in my little black dress. My final appearance was at a big Fais Do Do we co-chaired in 2012. We had a live Zydeco band, who could resist? I’ve hung up my dancing shoes, but they are still in my closet. My feet still start twitching when I hear that music. It seems to call my name. “Let that girl boogie woogie; it’s in her and it’s got to come out.” Boogie Chilluns………………….