Dear Group, Today I received a response to my message about Mr. Atkinson's Dancing Class. It was from Carol, a girl who had also attended his class back in the '40s. She reminded me of the final class where the girls dressed in their first "formals," meaning floor-length gowns and we knew we were to experience a very special evening-our first formal dance. Oh how I remember that dress that Mother bought me for our final class in June of 1946! It had a black bodice with white net ruffles around a square neckline and the full skirt was made of soft white netting over a white underskirt. Now I have to admit that I had to jog my memory by dragging out my old photo album that has a picture of me in that dress. Hmmm, I was quite a pretty young thing I was when I wasn't quite 15 years old! Shoulder-length blonde hair with a black velvet headband holding it back off my face. Oh, yes, back to the dance! When we arrived the girls were given dance cards. I can't really recall if there were cords attached to them so that we could carry them comfortably but as Carol reminded me, the boys would approach the individual girls and ask if a particular dance was free. The dance cards had blanks with numbers next to them and the girl would check her dance card to see if that particular dance was available. If it was, the boy would pencil in his name for the dance. When that dance came up, he would come back and claim her as his partner. Pretty romantic, huh? Welllllll, neither Carol nor I seemed to have been the belle of the ball because both of us still have our dance cards and I don't know about Carol, but I'm embarrassed to let you know how few names were penciled in on my dance card! Sheesh, and I looked so gorgeous that evening! Now let me tell you another secret about that evening earlier. I can remember how grown up I felt in that dress and I can remember descending the stairs at home feeling like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis and I made my grand entrance into our living room where my mother and father were sitting. And I can remember what I asked my father as I twirled around in front of him, "What do you think of your little girl now?" He looked up, grunted some response and then went back to reading his newspaper. Oh parents have no feelings when it comes to understanding how their teenage daughters feel! How did we manage to survive our teenage years with parents who didn't understand us or didn't realize that the whole world revolved around US? And as I look back over the past 50 years or so, I feel that it will ever be thus (sigh!). Nonetheless, Carol and I have some great memories of our teenage years and if the two of us had the opportunity to "get down and dirty," I'm certain that we could share memories of things we did and places we went that would have REALLY caught the attention of Mother and Father! When we graduated from Mr. Atkinson's Dancing Class . . . well, that's another story! vee