My First Stumble, Square Dance

It all started at the New Dancer dance hosted by the new dancer class of the Starlite Shufflers’ square dance club of Sacramento, California. Three club members (Joyce, Sharon and Betty) asked my wife Patty and I if we would like to join the Starlite Shufflers’ comedy demonstration team, the Starlite Stumblers. I knew they wore a big sack over their heads and it was sure to be hot in there. I get very hot when I dance even without a sack over my head. In fact I think most of the club members knew me as the new guy who always fans himself before they even knew my name. So at first I said no, but Joyce asked if we would think about it and let them know by the next club meeting. The more we though about it, the more we thought it might be a good idea. Duane, Patty’s Dad, who had been a Starlite Stumbler and was still active as a dresser for the team, said it was an honor just to be asked and he pointed out that if we joined the team, that would make us second generation Stumblers. Patty and I had just retired so we had the time. I decided to try it and told Joyce at the next club meeting. She introduced me to all the other Stumblers and they made a big fuss over me. Hey, this was pretty fun already!

To get ready for out first performance we would have five Sunday afternoon practice sessions. The first two would be in regular street clothes; the next practice would add the swim flippers. Then there would be one with the sack over my head and the flippers and the last practice would be in full costume with the sack, the jacket with the fake stuffed arms and of course the swim flippers. The large burlap sack had a face on it and the costume made you look like you were 4 feet tall.

The first practice was hard. For one thing the formation was different from the regular square dance square. Normally there are four couples. Two of the couples are called heads and the other two are called sides. This was one big double square with six side couples and two head couples. The other and even more difficult thing was I could not use my hands. To me square dancing is hands. Every since I started it was right hand this and left hand that. I can’t remember anyone mentioning anything about my feet. Patty was picking everything up just fine while I was slowly starting to get some if it with many gentle pushes and endless pointing by the other Stumblers. And of course there was the caller Ivan patient as ever saying, “George – to the right, the right, the other right . . . very good!” Bill, an experienced dancer, explained carefully how I was to count my steps, especially for the double grand square. Eight steps and turn, repeated eight times, that was the secret for my position. The longest part of the routine was a double cloverleaf in pairs. All I had to do was to remember to follow the Grapes. The Grapes were Frank and Marge; their costume sacks are purple so I nicknamed them the Grapes so I could remember easier. Right before each practice Patty and I would remind each other saying, “Just follow the Grapes!” The rest of the team had been dancing the routine for years and as far as I could tell, none of them had made a mistake since 1982.

Roy and Evelyn, past Stumblers, gave us a beautiful set of matching costumes. I could not resist trying mine on in my house. On went the flippers; over my head went the comic sack head. Inside the sack I held onto the plastic pipe that held up the sack. Patty fastened the fancy jacket with the great false arms around my waist. I tried to walk around in the house, but right off I stepped on the dog and banged into the walls a few times. No doubt about it, I was getting the hang of this. This will be a piece of cake.

As each practice went by my confidence grew. Even when Ivan changed the routine to add a spin chain the gears, I managed to learn the new routine in only a few tries. I walked around in those swim flippers darn good. In fact I went out and bought myself the biggest pair I could find. Everyone suggested I cut them down to make them easier to walk in, but I was confidant I could handle it!

Then we were ready for the final full dress rehearsal. Everyone told me this would be just like the real thing. If I could get through this ok, I would have nothing to worry about at the performance. The routine lasted about six minutes. So Ivan had us go through the whole thing twice just to be absolutely sure I would know just what it would be like. There was even an audience of five or six friends of the Stumblers. After the performance they cheered and applauded just to make it even more realistic. No doubt about it, every item had been simulated to the finest detail. I had been in the full costume at least fifteen minutes. It was warm in there all right, but not too bad. I could see fairly well, the practice hall was big, maybe 40 feet long and it was a little tiring on my legs to flop around in the flippers, but I was tough; I held up under it all and I had not made a single mistake. I was ready!

The week before our performance at the state square dance convention in Fresno, California, Patty attached bright color sequins to the costume on the eyes and lips to make them even more grand and wonderful. To my costume I added the final and most glorious item, a badge that read GEORGE on the first line and SACRAMENTO on the second.

The day of the convention finally came and we all arrived at the hotel where Marge had made reservations for all of us. When we checked in they gave us a program book for the convention. Joyce said we would be performing first in the arena then in Exhibit Hall #2. In the program book there was a diagram of the convention center so I looked just to see where we would be performing. That is when the first bit of fear struck. Right there in black and white it was printed as clear as can be just below the title of the Arena the words . . . . Seating Capacity 11,500. Oh no! Eleven thousand five hundred and they would all be watching me . . . . me. If I messed up not only would I shame myself and my square dance club, but my family as well. After all I was a second generation Stumbler so the family reputation was at stake as well! For the first time I got the hint that maybe, just maybe, our dress rehearsal would not be exactly like the real thing.

We were to perform at 9:15 p.m. so we all went to the convention center at 6:00 p.m. to do one last walk through. We went to Exhibit Hall #2 first. It was big, real big with a capacity of 3,500, but even that did not prepare me for the main Arena. This place looked like you could put a small town in there. The bleachers went up and up and up until you could just make out tiny little specks at the top that must have been the last row of seats. Did the people up there have to bring oxygen bottles or did it come with the seats? Maybe the top rows were pressurized like some super giant 747 jumbo jet!

The dressing room was just off the main Arena. It was explained that we would dress there and right after the Rainbow Stars finished their routine, it was our turn. We would then march in full costume behind the main Arena to an elevator that could only hold four of us at a time to be ferried up to the main level. Then we would walk outside and enter Exhibit Hall #2. When we were done there, we had to retrace the journey to get back to the dressing room. I had not walked that far in the costume and swim fins in all my practice sessions put together. Was there something the other Stumblers were not telling me? Perhaps they were all taking physical fitness lessons from Arnold Schwarzenegger on the side!

Before I knew it we were all gathering at the dressing room. There were 24 people in the small room. There were 16 regular positions for the double square plus two more because two couples were each performing in only one hall. The extra couple would walk around the side of the hall and interact with the audience while the rest of us performed the routine. There was also Harley, Mary, Duane and Jo who were helping as dressers. I got the feeling they were also standing by to step in if anyone, like me, panicked or died or something like that. Which I thought was growing as a real possibility. Last and most important there was our square dance caller and his wife Marion who were also helping as dressers. This group made the dressing room very crowded.

I put on my swim flippers, took off my shirt and then put the sack over my head. The sack was help up over my head by a piece of plastic pipe in the shape of a big offset “T” that I held in my right hand. I waited as Duane carefully fastened the jacket around Patty’s waist and adjusted everything just right. Next he turned to me. Around my waist he fastened the jacket with the padded arms. Had he put bricks in the pocket as a joke? I remember the jacket weighing maybe fifteen pounds, but now it seemed to weigh at least 50 pounds. He worked and worked and worked; was something wrong? Suddenly he cried out in pain having jammed a safety pin in his finger. Now I imagined great floods of blood running all over the front of my costume. I think I was starting to get a little nervous! He kept on working. Finally after what seemed an hour, but was really only a minute or two, Duane said to me, “There how does that look?” I could not see anything but the inside of sack! So I just mumbled something about it feeling ok. He moved off to handle another 100 safety pins and 50 yards of Velcro to dress 14 more people in the two minutes or so he had left!

From the other side of the room I kept hearing Gene asking if anyone had seen his pipe. I thought, why would he want to smoke at a time like this? We were going on in just a few minutes. Then it dawned on me he was talking about the pipe to hold up his sack. He was starting to sound desperate and for a moment I was afraid that maybe it was really my pipe that was missing and I had taken his by mistake. Oh no! What would I do? Then mercifully I heard Harley say, “Here it is Gene under your jacket.” Gene and I were saved. Oh, but were we saved for an even worse fate?

We all shuffled out into a small area of the big arena alongside the huge bleachers to wait for the Rainbow Stars to finish their routine. As I shuffled out of the dressing room I was hit by at least ten million candlepower of floodlight. That wiped out even the little I could see before. The waiting area was unlit and the glare from the main arena lighting was like trying to look into the setting sun. We waited and we waited and it got hotter and hotter in my sack. Already I could feel streams of sweat running down my back and down my face and into my eyes. I had brought my trusty fan into the sack with me. With great effort while holding my pipe in my right hand, I could fan myself a little with my left hand. There sure was not much clearance inside the sack and from time to time I whacked myself on the cheek with the fan. Once, even with my glasses on, I managed to poke myself in the eye. Well my glasses were almost on; they had by now slid halfway down my nose. It did not matter much, they were fogging up too bad to see through anyway. Now an insistent itch began to nag at my right shoulder. My pants, which were a bit loose anyway, felt like they were starting to slip down my hips under the enormous weight of the jacket. Oh no! Would my pants fall off in front of 11,500 people?

By now the temperature in the sack must have been approaching 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I was sure I could bake cookies in here. Marion was walking around to each of us in turn asking if we were all right. I did not hear anyone answer; they just sort of shook the costume to suggest there was still a hint of life within the gunnysack prison. I heard Gene call this little ritual the shake and bake. I was not in any mood for humor.

I was trying to take some comfort in realizing that no matter what mistake I might make, no one would know it was me under the sack when I suddenly remembered the badge I, in my utter stupidity, had attached to my costume. Not only would they now know I was, but where to find me. After all the badge clearly showed I was GEORGE from SACRAMENTO. OH NO!

On and on and on we waited. Was the Rainbow Stars’ routine really three hours long or did it just feel like three hours? Perhaps the sack and the heat and the sweat and the fear made up just the right ingredients to create a time warp within the sack. Then I started to think about the high school science lessons about how we breathe in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide and how people can’t live on carbon dioxide. I was wondering what the concentration level of that gas was within my gunnysack prison! How long did I have left? If I died could they get me out of the sack or would they just dig a hole and bury me sack, fake arms, flippers and all?

Then I heard the music from miles away . . . One eyed, one horned flying purple people eater . . . One eyed, one horned . . . and we all started moving as though somehow hypnotized by the call of alien music toward whatever fate awaited us in front of 11,500 people. My concentration was so intense it was like I was in some great tunnel. All I could see was the Stumbler I needed to see to get the little cues to know I was in the right place at the right moment to get through the routine. I was unaware of the people, the arena, the music. Ivan’s calls seemed unreal as though I was in a dream. I flopped around in the flippers by rote never really thinking what I was doing, just doing it automatically.

Then the routine was over. We were parading out and suddenly there was an enormous applause. As if by magic all my fears vanished and I found myself smiling broadly. I had done it! They liked it! Wow! I felt great! The costume no longer felt heavy. The fogging of my glasses was cleared; they were no longer drooping on my nose. The air seemed to flow through the sack quite well. The costume jacket felt firmly affixed about my waist and it felt as light as a feather. I could see everything; the smiling, cheering, congratulating people – all 200 of them.

I saw Patty in her costume in front of me. Someone was trying to get her to shake hands with her fake arms. It amused me to think this person thought there were tiny people in the costumes with real arms way down there near the floor. There was also someone talking to Don in his costume. The person’s eyes were affixed on the spot just above the shoulders of the costume that would be about at Don’s naval. I heard a person in the audience saying that we were really midgets with someone on our shoulders to hold up the costume head. I thought we should let that rumor get around. I bet no one would try to copy that outfit.

We marched all the way across the arena to the door that would take us on our way to the little elevator. At the door Marion was standing there to guide us over the threshold. I could hear her saying, “Ralph watch your step . . . oops are you ok? Don watch your step . . . oops are you ok? Gloria watch your step . . . oops are you ok? “ They don’t call us Stumblers for nothing. We shuttled up the elevator four at a time. After five trips we were on our way to Exhibit Hall #2. It took us so long to shuttle up the elevators there was no wait for the Rainbow Stars to finish this time. We went right on.

We had just squared up to start when I heard Ivan saying that there was an emergency! Someone was hurt and help was needed. My first thought was that the carbon dioxide had indeed built up the lethal levels within a sack or the high temperature within a sack had baked a Stumbler. No, it was someone in the audience and the situation was already under control. Betty had started to move to help, but now she was already heading back to her spot in the square. We went through the routine without a hitch except that I went the wrong way around Walt during a pass through, but no one seemed to notice.

Back in the dressing room after we had all gotten out of our costumes, Ivan presented Patty and me with Stumbler badges. All the Stumblers have us handshakes and big hugs. The fellowship of this great group made me feel really included and wonderful!

The next day we all gathered for a grand march. I felt real proud marching in my Stumbler jacket. Well, it wasn’t really my jacket. Roy and Evelyn graciously loaned them to us to use for the march. Still it was great fun. In the evening there was a party first in Ralph and Junia’s room and the next night in Ivan and Marion’s room. I remembered the advice Duane gave me, “Always leave the party before they get arrested!” So I had already left before the security people came to tell them they were making too much noise. It seems there is a rap sheet on the Starlite Stumblers in nearly every hotel in California that says, “Loud . . . they do a strange dance in the bathroom!”

Saturday and Sunday Patty and I danced until our legs ached, but our hearts were filled with joy. We can’t wait to join these wonderful people for another stumble with the Starlite Stumblers.

There are square dance clubs in almost every town and city in the United States and in many foreign nations. Most have classes for new dancers that start in September or January. Look forward to meeting some nice people because square dancing is friendship set to music.

By George V. Schubel