Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo

The first time I remember being aware of my mother teaching ballet was out of our home in Nashville, TN. I know this doesn't sound right, but I believe the classes were held in a refinished garage. In fact, I think I remember my parents putting in a linoleum floor; the kind with the 12x12 tiles. Only this was back before the self-stick kind. These were the kind you had to spread glue, or something like it, then place the tile down. It's possible it wasn't the garage, but only a spare room, I was only in nursery school, so it's a little fuzzy.



Back then, my mother used a little record player, the kind that folds up into a box and has a speaker attached. She would put on old 45s and the kids would dance around the room. I'm sure it was more complicated than that, but that's how I remember it.

Later, after we moved to Oklahoma, she opened a big school in Edmond. This was the largest operation she ever undertook in her 30-odd years of teaching ballet and gymnastics. Her speciality had always been teaching young girls ages 3-7, but in this school, she had hired other instructors and the school had classes for every age and level of accomplishment. There was the requisite ballet and gymnastics for the young girls, which my mother continued to teach. But there was also, more intensive ballet classes, as well as a full gym, complete with uneven bars, a balance beam, and a vaulting horse, for the gymnasts. There were even classes developed for college cheerleaders.

For a short time, I even took lessons there. The problem was, the class was a mixture of classical ballet and gymnastics. I was the only boy and while I really liked the gymnastics, I hated the ballet part. I just didn't truck with the girly nature of ballet, with it's pink shoes and tutus. I don't even think I lasted the entire class before I bailed.

But that didn't keep me from coming to the school with my mother. But instead of taking ballet classes, I hung out next door at Toddy's Crafts. Toddy was a Native American Indian from the Hopi tribe. I remember this because it registered pretty big with me at the time. I was a little blond boy with a dutchboy haircut, and she was a long, black-haired Indian woman with a craftstore full of turqoise, hemp and beads. This was the early seventies and I have often thought she was probably the closest thing to a hippie that I ever knew.

Next door was a auto supply store that had a coke machine that still sold ice cold, 10oz cokes in glass bottles, for a quarter. Toddy would send me over with fifty cents and I would put the money in, open the narrow glass door and pull the bottle out. I spent many an afternoon with Toddy.

In 1976, my father decided to take a job with Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, Pa. For awhile, my mother maintained ownership of the school, with another woman running it. In those first years, I remember coming back to Oklahoma in the summer and attending recitals on a stage at the local park. A few years later, my parents sold the ballet school, it turns out she never really liked managing in the first place, and managing a school from 1500 miles away was not something my mother was cut out for.

I don't remember the name of the woman who bought the school, but I remember she wore a lot of makeup and always looked a little overdone and fake. I also remember she was the one who asked our housekeeper, Bachtu, a vietnamese woman, "Now what's your name dear, I always forget. Is it back-to or come-from?"

After we moved to Hatfield, my mother started a new school, this time in our home again. For close to thirty years, my parent's house at 13 East Broad Street in Hatfield was home to the Creative Ballet & Gymnastics School, taught by Miz Jan. Literally generations of mothers and daughters took ballet classes from my mother over that time, and thousands of girls came to know my mother as Miz Jan. She is forever etched in their minds as a powerful part of their childhood.

For the entire time I lived in that house, from the third grade till I graduated high school, a room we called the "sun room" and an adjoining room which we referred to as the "dining room" were dedicated to the ballet school. These were rooms in which no other furniture was kept, but on days when classes were held, the entire first floor, with the exception of the kitchen, was the domain of girls ages 3-7 and their mothers.

The driveway was also off limits for the most part, as it filled up with parents picking up, or dropping off, their kids.

But for all the disruption, my mother was rarely away from home. She had one of those rare jobs where she actually worked from home and made a decent living. There were years, I know, when she was clearing more than my father, who was working for the seminary. She also managed to put three of her six kids through college on what she made working Saturdays. But she did it from home. As a general rule, we did not disturb her while she was teaching, but if we really needed something, or we wanted to go somewhere, all we had to do was open the door leading from the kitchen to living room, walk in, wait for her to notice us, then quickly ask our question or make our request. She never scolded us for this, but rather often introduced us to her class.

If you were in the house during classes, you were treated with a steady littany of music, mostly classical ballet numbers and Disney tunes. Since classes repeated not only throughout the day, but also the week, you came to know the week's class pretty imtimately. And since many classes were repeated year after year, we children could probably recite with near accuracy, the words to most of the songs my mother used over the years.

Misplaced ballet shoes and small musical instruments filled a basket in the corner of the dining room, a practice balance beam (one that laid directly on the floor and that had been covered with carpet to soften it up) rested against one wall. In the sun room, against the outer wall, which was lined with windows surrounded by dark wood trim, there was attached ballet bars. My father had taken old bicycle tires and cut pieces to guard against anyone hurting themselves on the brackets that held the bars in place. Also in the sun room were the gymnastics mats. Folding mats used for tumbling. These had many uses beyond the ballet school. For years we made alternative use of them as forts, wrestling mats, and even cushioning for the back of the station wagon on the long trips back to Oklahoma.

In the winter of 2003, my mother made the decision to hang up her ballet shoes and black wrap skirts. She would be Miz Jan no more. Forever after, she would be know only as Mimi. After a brief moment of doubt, my mother has never looked back. She really did love those girls, but everyday wakes up and she giggles with the knowledge that no little girls will be knocking on her door. She had had enough. Not only had she raised six kids of her own, but she helped to raise, if only for an hour and a half at a time, thousands of girls. One part of her life was over, but a new one had just begun.

We're still not sure where she'll end up, but she still calls me and says just a little guilty, "I'm having so much fun, I can't hardly stand it. I just don't think I've ever been this happy in my whole life."

But because she is my mother, and there is still a part of her that remains, she has to add, "Of course, I loved my time with you all, too."

"It's okay, mom," I tell her. "You're allowed to be happy."

"I am," she'll concede. "It's almost not right how happy I am."

No one deserves it more than her.