Dreams DO Come True

July 30, 2012 By 19 Comments

This email came through to me last night.

Thank you for signing up for the Rockettes event on Friday, August 3rd, at 7am, at Radio City Music Hall! This email confirms your space at this event. We can’t wait to see you there!

I’d be totally lying if I told you I didn’t tear up. And squeal out loud. And immediately call my 14 year old niece.

This is totally a dream come true for me.

Let’s back up a little… like to when I was two.

At two, I got my first pair of ballet shoes and started taking classes. I danced non-stop until I graduated from high school, taking ballet, tap, and jazz.

In 7th grade, I was a majorette and a cheerleader in 8th grade.

When I was a freshman, I was one of two freshmen to make the high school dance team — The Vespidaettes.

August, 1990, y’all! I’m 2nd from the left.

Dancing took me many places.

I went to camps during the summer, training with several professional ballerinas.

My dance team earned the chance to dance in two Cotton Bowls at NCA Camps.

I was invited as a senior, to dance in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland. My whole family went. (Shoutout to Mama and Daddy for doing everything they could to allow me to experience these trips.)

Twice I was invited to dance in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The first year, the 5 of us who went from my school were front and center. We opened the parade and it was AMAZING! The second time, we were almost front and center, in a group of 1000 high school girls. We marched the parade route and experienced the whole shebang.

There were two groups that, all my life, I’ve looked up to. The Rangerettes from Kilgore College in Texas, and obviously, The Rockettes.

I knew I would never go to Kilgore College, so my dream of being a Rangerette was dashed (although I could totally kick my hat like they could) (they didn’t call me Miss Dance America for nothing, you know).

But I did look into auditioning to be a Rockette. Crazy? Hell yeah. But why not?

Only… I was too short.

My hopes for being a Rockette were dashed, also.

In college, I took ballet from a wonderful man, Mr. Curtis, and kept myself semi-in shape. But now? Not gonna lie… I’ve let myself go.

I could blame it on grief, marriage, laziness, birthing babies, arthritis. Whatever. At the end of the day, I’m out of shape.

So it’s highly likely I’ll rip pull a muscle on Friday morning. It’s highly likely I won’t care one single bit.

I’ll be dancing with the Rockettes, y’all. Probably with tears rolling down my eyes from both joy AND pain!

 

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Pep Pep PEPPY!!

September 13, 2011 By 8 Comments

I’m a morning person. I’d much rather be up at 6am than stay up past 9:30. I know. I’m an old lady. I’m good with that!

Being room mom (yay me) for Henry’s class, I was invited to the PEP RALLY (use jazz hands, please) to kick off their big fundraiser, the Boosterthon. If y’all have never been to a Boosterthon, well, you’re missing out. I was so excited to be going to a PEP RALLY! Only… it was at 8:15. AM. Yes, AM.

Naturally, by virtue of being me, I was all, “this will be great.” And it was. But boy howdy was it LOUD!

The guys who put on Boosterthon are amazing. They dance around, they say funny stuff, they are basically paid to be total and complete goofballs. What a sweet gig! But it involves hundreds of screaming kids. But what a sweet gig!

Seizure inducing screaming!

Anyway, as I was standing in the gym full of half-asleep parents and screaming elementary kids, I was taken back to days of Friday afternoon PEP RALLIES at my high school.

In high school, I was a Vespidaette. A what? A Vespidaette. We were the Hornets. Our yearbook was The Vespidae. That is the Family of the Hornet in scientific language. So we, the dancers were the Vespidaettes. Makes sense, right?

Anyway, we wore lycra and sequins and danced our hearts out. We had rules that we followed and camps we attended. We could kick high and do splits (why do people say “the splits” I wonder…). We were, if I may say so myself, amazing.

Being a Vespidaette gave me a chance to do some pretty amazing things. At summer camps I won a myriad of awards, as did my teammates. I was chosen to dance in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade not once, but twice. I danced in two Cotton Bowl halftime shows. My whole family went to Ireland so I could dance in front of the Lord Mayor and in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin.

In fact, if I said my whole high school career was wrapped around being a Vespidaette and being Captain and all that, it would be 110% accurate.

Flashback:

Pre-Macy's Parade 1990

Macy's Parade 1990 -- We had just been to the taping of the Phil Donahue Show!

ANYWAY, ENOUGH BIG HAIR — BACK TO PEP RALLIES (see? I get excited talking about my years in lycra and sequins).

Fall Fridays in high school were game days and every game day had a PEP RALLY! The cheerleaders were in charge and everybody else just did what they said — football players, coaches, Vespidaettes, etc. Everything went through them.

If you wanted to be “on the schedule” you had to see them or their sponsor. We always performed. It was all very orderly.

Then the schedule was made and the captain went to see where we went in the official schedule. It usually went something like this:

  • Cheer: BE AGGRESSIVE
  • Cheer: We Are The Mighty Hornet Team
  • Fight Song: Team Enters
  • Stunt Cheer: Go Hornets
  • Vespidaettes
  • Cheer: Blah Blah Blah (I can’t remember these cheers, it’s been like 15 years)
  • Coaches and Captains speeches
  • Spirit Stick!
  • Alma Mater
Those were fun days when you could wear your uniform to school and put cute little spirit treats in the players’ lockers. Days I had forgotten about until today.

And although there were no Captain speeches or cheesy cheers, there were a bunch of kids in one room screaming and hooting and hollering for one main goal.

Their school is a team and even though there’s no win or lose, they all for a good hour this morning were excited to cheer on themselves.

I’ll break out my pom poms if they can promise not to hold another PEP RALLY at 8:15 am again, though!

Now, to start gathering pledges.

*This is not a solicitation to pledge to my child’s Boosterthon goal but he does really want the big giant prize — a light up football. He only needs like 33 billion pledges.*

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