Toe Dancing

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a toe dancer. I was always going around standing on my toes.

In the school swimming pool, it was easy to do this, as the water buoyed me up. (that's why Esther Williams did her ballet movements in the water!)

One day my mother went to an auction. She came home with a trunk that she bought the contents of without knowing what was inside said trunk. I remember a lot of law books and "The History of the World" set of books which she placed in a bookcase but which went unread for the most part.

But in this trunk was a correspondence course in BALLET! Even illustrations showing you how to

turn your feet into very painful positions. You were supposed to have a bar with which to practice your exercises. Needless to say, I did not have a bar. I also did not have a talent for ballet, I realized. I knew, too, that we could never afford a pair of toe-dancing slippers. So the ballet course went into the fire and I went back to just standing on my toes once in awhile.

But fate came along in my old age and gave me two granddaughters that had a talent for the ballet. One granddaughter even starred as Marie with the Minnesota Ballet production of The Nutcracker! At the curtain call at the end of the performance, the audience gave her a wonderful ovation and the tears in my eyes were from sheer pride and joy.

Sometimes your dreams do come true, but not in the way you expect them to.