Dear Group, I hope you don't mind my continuinng to post some of the childhood memories that I have of my early life in Niagara Falls. I know that it doesn't satisfy your need for details about your family history or help you in your research of your family. Nonetheless, I also know that recording such childhood memories are important to the history of Niagara Falls. I know that because I know that there is a drive going on to encourage "senior citizens" like me to sit down and give an oral history from our point of view. Well, there ain't no way that I could sit down in front of a tape recorder or a camcorder in the middle of the afternoon and just pour my heart out. No, it has to be at a time in the evening when I'm inspired to WRITE about a particular event in my life and my memories associated with it. And this evening I was inspired to write about Mr. Atkinson's Dancing Class. Back in the early 1940s in Niagara Falls I was a student of Mr. Atkinson's Dancing Class. Oh, what a privilege it was to be admitted into his school of ballroom dancing! Why was it a privilege? Well, one thing my parents had to be from the "right" part of town and had to have the money to afford it. And because my parents WEREN'T members of the Niagara Falls Country Club, I just squeaked by! (By the way, my family has always been pretty much "down home" people and the only reason we had the money was that my father worked his way through college and eventually became a successful electrochemical engineer here in Niagara Falls.) This evening I was thinking back to those dancing class days and the magic of them returned. There we were, youngsters who went to school together learning how to dance when we were in the sixth grade through the ninth grade-1943-1946. But it was more than just learning how to dance-it was learning very proper manners in a very proper social setting. And I don't know what I remember most, how awkward and shy I was, or how wonderful it was to really learn to DANCE and actually dance with a BOY! Every Friday evening, we would get dressed in our very best and take the IRC bus to the YWCA on Main Street where they had a "ballroom." Mr. Atkinson was a very proper gentleman and his dancing assistant was his red-haired daughter. Each week we would learn a new dance step and eventually we learned the entire spectrum from the whirling swirling Vienna waltz to the jitterbug, with the tango and rumba thrown in between. When Mr. Atkinson sensed that we had learned enough of the new dance step, it was time for the students to dance with each other. The girls always sat on one side of the room and the boys on the other. He then directed the boys to chose their partners and the boys would cross the room-NO running!-and properly ask the girl of his choice "for the pleasure of this dance." With that, the boy would properly bow slightly from the waist with his right hand held out and his left hand held behind his back. The lucky girl would demurely accept and off they would go dancing awkwardly together. After the students had spent the hour or so dancing to different melodies and rhythms, it was time to end the dance lesson. And that's when it was time for the finale. It was the Grand March. The girls would line up in a row on one side and the boys on the other and at the head of both columns would be Mr. Atkinson and the mother of one of the students. My memory is fading right now but I seem to remember that it was a bit of a convoluted exercise where at the end the boys and girls would end up arm in arm as couples and would say good night to the "host and hostess" and thank them for the very nice evening that they had. The girl would first hold out her skirt daintily and shake the hand of the hostess while curtsying and then do the same with the host. The boy would repeat the process as he bowed from the waist. That's what dancing lessons were all about in the 1940s in Niagara Falls. Now I know that this is now the year 2000 and I guess what I have written sounds like it must have happened 100 years ago. But I still remember the students of that dancing class and I met many of them again at the 50th class reunion of Niagara Falls High School last year. Yes, many of us are still alive! Among those awkward kids, Bob became a successful banker in Niagara Falls, Marshall was a great architect in Philadelphia, Richard is a renown doctor in Chicago, Bob a dentist, Willard ("Binxie") an attorney here in Niagara Falls, etc., and oh, I forgot, Irene is now the Mayor of Niagara Falls! Most of them remained in the "country club set." Me? Well, as I mentioned, my family always was pretty much "down home" and all that I accomplished was to serve thirty years in the Navy and eventually find that what I really want to do in my retirement years is to spend my time researching the genealogy of the families of this area and learning more about the history here. But I'll tell you what, if my knees could still hold up, I could give still give the MOST proper curtsy to the Queen of England herself! Hey, if there is anyone out there who would like to give me a whirl around the dance floor to a Vienna Waltz, just let me know! vee