The Boy Who Never Quite Learned to Dance

By Lewis McLain & AI

The first record I ever bought was a 45 rpm of Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue.” That tiny disc felt like it held the universe. I’d play it over and over, the guitar hiccupping like a nervous teenager and Buddy’s voice bouncing like he was trying not to spill a secret. And with every spin, my imagination took off. I could see myself out there in the middle of the dance floor, shirt collar open, fists pumping, sneakers pounding the wood in glorious rhythm. I wasn’t just dancing—I was inventing new categories of cool.

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But imagination is a dangerous liar.

I was actually a wall flower somewhat comfortable just watching and wishing.

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Reality came when someone (probably one of my great friends from the third grade, Beverly or Janet) grabbed me by the sleeve and dragged me out onto the floor during a dance at the Teen Club in Farmers Branch. It wasn’t even a free form, “just shake and look natural” kind of number. No—this was a line formation. Rules. Steps. Coordination. I was in trouble.

My imagination became a mind recorder that night. I could practically see the playback: my feet trying to decide if left meant left or if left meant “trip over yourself.” My arms were pumping like I was milking invisible cows to some rock tune. And my face—my face was locked in that grimace-smile combination unique to teenagers who know they’re failing but are determined to look like they’re not.

I earned myself a C-minus, at best. And that was on a generous grading curve.

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When I landed at the UNT campus (North Texas State University from 1961 to 1988), I thought maybe geography would help. New place, new people, new me. That’s when I met Linda, my Peggy Sue. Linda could dance. Linda had courage. And Linda—bless her—decided to loan me a little of both. With her experience and with a whisper of alcohol acting like rocket fuel to me at the time, dancing began to seem possible. Not easy, but possible. My grade improved to a C+ territory.

Still, I knew who the real dancer was. Linda glided. I lurched. Linda spun, and I rotated like a stubborn washing machine on its last cycle. But somehow it worked, because she kept encouraging me back onto the floor. She was patient and kind.

Fast forward to our mid-marriage years: Our solution? Humor. Any hopes for rhythm by booze were years in the past. But still—miraculously—we were moving and no longer needed the floor space we once did. Picture two hugging bears, braving the trip onto the floor, bobbing rhythmically and occasionally parting and then colliding. That was us. Linda still had it, but I set new lows even though we laughed through every step of it.

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Now we’ve reached the senior edition of dancing. We’ve lost most of the urge to dance, yes, but we’ve also lost our audience. The dance floor has shrunk to the size of a kitchen, sometimes no bigger than the space between the refrigerator and the kitchen table. The music doesn’t come from Buddy Holly’s 45 anymore—it comes from whatever the Alexa thinks we meant when we said, “Play something we can dance to.” However, we don’t need any music.

We stick to slow dancing now. Easy to fake, harder to mess up. A sway, a shuffle, a turn if the knees allow. No one’s grading anymore. No one’s even watching. And that’s the secret: the freedom to just move, no grades, no pressure, no audience but each other.

From Peggy Sue to the kitchen floor, from C-minus to C-plus to “who cares,” we’ve carried the rhythm the best way we knew how. We never got to A-level dancing since I was the leg ball and chain. But we got the one grade that matters in the long run: an A in joy.

Because when the lights are low and the kitchen is ours, we aren’t as mobile anymore. We’re just two kids who never stopped trying. LFM