My First Real Dance with a Real Girl

I high school I was involved in a leadership and skills club called VICA, the Vocational and Industrial Clubs of America. Today the club continues on as SkillsUSA. It was a great experience and I learned a lot of stuff that I carry with me to this day. There was an annual VICA leadership retreat weekend at National Guard Barracks in Bethany Beach. There was a lot of leadership related related classes. On Saturday night the was a dance. Now I always loved music, girls, and dancing but in high school I was often shy to ask girls to dance with me. Being away from most of my peers and feeling the juices of leadership flowing through my veins had me confident enough to ask girls to dance with me. I danced with several to faster songs and it was fantastic. I felt really confident, which I didn't really feel around girls at that time in my life. I was dancing with a girl named Elizabeth Plumber, a girl from one of the downstate schools, when a slow song came on. The song was Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart. With all of the confidence a teenage boy ever had I reached for Elizabeth's hand and took it for the slow dance. She came up close to me and we danced. Her hands were like sandpaper, it turns out she was a masonry student and had coarse man hands. I was a little surprised but that didn't stop me from enjoying the dance. I never asked for her number and I never saw her again. In 1982 there was no internet, no cell phones, and I didn't have a car so it was not possible to try to go on any dates with a girl who lived downstate. Even calling her would have been long distance which would have not gone over well with my mom. Kids today have not idea what long distance phone service is. That was my first slow dance with a girl, each time I hear that song I always remember Elizabeth and her mason hands.