One Electric Night in October

I recently returned home from a weekend get-away on the shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My parents had rented a few cabins and invited my sister and her husband as well. My daughter had been able to join us from college and that had made the trip all the more special. Our purpose for the weekend together had been for the fall colors but it turned into something much more than that.

After a morning of riding the ski-lift up the mountain and a photo-op at Lake of the Clouds we headed back to the cabins for a lovely lunch provided by my sister. We had big plans for heading back out on a hike or two but somewhere between lunch and the second bottle of wine opened we realized we were having too much fun as we held court outside our cabins enjoying the day.

We had pulled chairs out from the cabins and set them up in a large circle making it almost impossible for new guest arriving to drive by. Tall tales were being told, laughter loud enough to drown out the crashing waves of Lake Superior just a few feet away and every time a new guest checked in, we made sure to show them a hearty amount of Mid-Western Nice.

My contribution to the trip had been cooking Saturday’s Supper. I chose chicken paella; a hearty meal for a crisp fall evening.  I started off the meal with the opening of another bottle of red and an appetizer of homemade chutney served with crackers and hard cheddar cheese. My plan had been to serve supper around six that evening; like all good plans, that didn’t happen.

While in my cabin cooking up a storm the party moved next door to my sister’s cabin. I could feel the laughter and music as it radiated through the thin shared wall.

“What are you doing?” My sister yelled as she peeked her head in the front door. “We need you.”

“For what?”

“You have to come over and dance with us.” She said and then disappeared.

I went back to flipping my chicken over when a few minutes later my daughter came in. Her face had a warm glow and her smile reached across her face.

“Mom, Aunt Tricia is waiting for you.”

“What for?”

“To dance. She has the perfect song for you.”

Anyone who knows me knows my love for music and dancing. I want it engraved on my tomb when I dance over into my next world:

Here Lies The Body of The Woman

Who Loved Her Music Loud

And Danced Like Nobody Was Watching

May She Not Rest In Peace

But Dance Her Way

Up To The Pearly Gates

Oh, One More Thing

She Was The Mother To Two Of

The Greatest Kids, EVER.

Or something along those lines. I tend to not think about my demise too much.

Anyhoo, I turned the chicken off and went next door to see what all the fuss had been about. I couldn’t believe my eyes. All the furniture had been pushed out to the sides and a make-shift dance floor had materialized in the middle of this extremely tiny living room. It had become a mosh-pit of sweaty bodies bumping into each other as the bass boomed and the laughter soared.

My eyes grew big. Someone handed me a glass of wine and my sister cranked up her JBL. I was done for.

After dancing to a few songs with my family I excused myself back to my kitchen to work on supper. It hadn’t been five minutes when my sister came back.

“You need to get in here and see this.” Her eyes sparkled.

I turned off the rice that I had just started cooking in all the tomato and chicken juice. I reasoned the extra time steeped in the pan would only add more flavor.

My dad is sitting on the couch shouting, no, chanting, “I want to hear Stairway to Heaven.”

My sister yells playfully at him, “Just a minute.”

“Calm down old man.” I quip.

The room is dripping with sweaty chaos.

My mom leans into my sister’s ear and whispered. I knew exactly what her secret song request had been.

“Quick!” I turned to my two kids sitting against the wall. “Watch. Grandma Patty is going to do her dance.”

My mom’s secret song is We Are Family, by Sister Sledge. At every wedding reception and oddly enough at a few funerals I have watched as my mom performed what I have coined, The Grandma Patty Dance. It used to be The Mom Dance, then I had kids.

The Grandma Patty Dance is my mom swaying to the beat with her index fingers pointing up to the skies. Her left hand will rise up over her head and her right-hand falls to her side. Then her right hand will rise and her left-hand drops. She repeats the movement the entire dance. She will sway and turn and glide across the dance floor.

After all these years of me telling my kids about the dance, they will finally get to see it for themselves. “Get up, you guys have to watch grandma.”

By the second verse of the song, we are all up on the dance floor doing The Grandma Patty Dance.

I again excused myself after five more songs and dancing up a small thirst. I needed to get supper going or we wouldn’t be eating until Sunday.

Ten minutes later my daughter comes in and tells me I have to come back and dance. Everyone is missing me.

“Oh, Grandpa Art wants to know when we are going to eat supper?”

“Tell grandpa we are going to eat between eight and eight-thirty. And I’ll be back over in ten minutes. I just want to put the paella in the oven.”

This is when things got really crazy. I can guarantee every guest and the owners of the resort were listening to our dance party. Even if they didn’t want to listen, we became obnoxiously loud with “hoops” and “oh-yeahs” when Martha Wash started belting out Everybody Everybody.

“Well, that does it.” I heard my dad say as he pulled himself up from the couch. He had been the only one not dancing as he nursed his sore hip. He found his spot on the dance floor and the level of joy went through the roof. Thank God for VISA.

We danced, we laughed, we begged dad to watch his hip. He did us all one better. He grabbed my mom and the two of them took off twirling around. We all stood back and watched. Tears welled in my eyes. My kids were mesmerized as their eyes watched my parents dance. If there had been a power outage, we would never have known it. The little dance hall was electric that cool Saturday night on the shores of Lake Superior. We lit up the night. We continued with the raucous until my timer went off an hour later; informing me the paella was finished.  

We ate supper around nine or nine thirty-ish.

The trip had been the accumulation of a busy summer of travels and my third time in six months I had seen my family. We went out with a bang. However, I was most grateful my children were able to be a part of it. I hope they keep the memory of that night forever etched in their hearts. I pray they tell their grandchildren the story of one electric night in October.

This is rough cut. I didn’t spend a lot of time editing because I have other pieces I am anxious to finish. Thanks for reading; I hope you like it.