My Golden Dancers

The Telephone Line to Eternity

By Elita Sohmer Clayman

Sometimes when you need something, you do not realize it is in front of your eyes. Sometimes we yearn for a new person in our life to enhance our well being. We may search far and wide and people nowadays do something they never did in my time. They go to dating services online and many do find a person they eventually marry. Some do not find happiness on these sites.

Plato said that time is the moving image of eternity. It has been said that eternity is no where and no when.

If there is no where and no when then we certainly are in bad shape. We must believe that there is something out there for us to triumph over and then we can set a goal. A goal is a purpose and a target.

I have wondered in the past few years why the variety store is named Target and why it is so popular and succeeded where other stores of the same category failed and closed up. Perhaps it is in the name and alongside of economical prices and decent quality, it survived and seems to continue to prosper. It is not as if it is a store or stores with plenty of personnel to assist you. They often walk around doing nothing and unless you inquire of them about something, they ignore you. However, in this recession type of holiday economy we are enduring, they seem to have been advised to help the customers in a more pleasant manner.

So perhaps the name Target is a symbol of people coming into the facility and targeting their needs and accomplishing them easily and with low cost and fairly quality merchandise. The word Target means aim and goal. So goals are what we set when we begin to ballroom dance.

My aim in the beginning when I started lessons to dance was to do well but to win at least one trophy. I needed that one trophy to assuage my need of knowing that I was a good dancer. Dancing to me was a goal I needed to achieve. In the end or shall I say the beginning of satisfaction, I did win fifty-eight trophies and medals competing with several dance coaches. I had shelves built in my newly remodeled kitchen back then to display them. My son at age sixteen invited a friend over one day. He looked at the trophies and asked whose they were. I said they were mine. He looked at me and I could read his thoughts. This old lady won trophies dancing? I was only forty-seven years old then.

My mother had a cousin who was unmarried at about age forty. Her brother was a very wealthy business man and he made it his business to find her a soul mate. He introduced Rose to Ron and they hit it off and were married about six months later. The ceremony took place at the rich brother’s lovely home and Mom and Dad and I were invited. I was about twelve years old. It was a sweet rite and I was impressed that such an ‘old’ lady had gotten betrothed. They got up and did their first wedding dance and everyone was amazed that the bride and groom danced a lovely waltz and really looked quite masterful doing it. The perception of Ron and Rose was that they were two lost souls who had gotten together at the request of the wealthy brother Albert and everyone seeing them dance in such an artful way helped to change the homely perception of the two of them because they were unmarried and were forty something in age.


Actually, Rose was a registered nurse with a master’s degree and held a very elevated position at the hospital. She was in charge of many floors of nursing assistance and even had her own secretary and an office. Ron was a certified public accountant (CPA) and ran an office of fifty employees and he too was running a lucrative business. They just never met the right person or were too busy or whatever. When they met, it was a good match and they showed the world and the family that both of them were a very interesting couple. People at the wedding reception were more enamored of their ballroom dancing then of their scholastic and business accomplishments.

They thought of each of them as nerds or like the Yiddish word schleppers. Schleppers meaning people who just drag along in society and are not of much worth. So they were labeled that by their relatives and friends and no one ever saw anything too much of merit in knowing them. Albert, the brother knew his sister only needed to meet the right man and he saw the right man in Ron.A year later they had a beautiful litte daughter named Samantha and she grew up to be a ballerina dancing with an established ballet group.

Labeling people is a pastime in this country and it makes the insecure person feel more secure to attach a not so nice word to someone else and they in their own mind feel superior doing so. Robert Jacob Meyer who was my editor when I wrote seventeen years for the Amateur Dancer magazine saw in me the ability to write and to encourage ordinary people to go out and dance by reading my articles. He wrote me the other day an email that said “that Elita’s spirit is the telephone line to the world”. He did not state whether he meant the regular phone line or the cell phone line. He probably meant both and that my spirit in creating columns to psyche folks up to try dancing is one of longevity and eagerness. Bob Meyer was and is a competent writer himself and he wrote his own interesting column in the Amateur Dancers magazine for twenty-four years. I wrote for them seventeen years when Bob chose me to be the senior page editor. That was my good fortune. He was my mentor in the beginning and we had and still have a delightful friendship and though we have not seen each other in person since 2002, it still thrives via the emails and the internet.

I have been unable to ballroom dance for almost six months now due to the automobile accident we were in, but my intention to keep at this telling of my love for ballroom did not diminish. In fact, it increased due to the fact I could not dance because of injured shoulders and knees. My love for ballroom dance still was alive and many dreams I had while sleeping had me dancing and having fun and taking lessons. I always in the dreams was performing beautifully and never tired. The feet with the bunions from dancing were in perfect shape.

I was invited last year to write a column for a former teacher here in Baltimore for his website. I agreed but he gave me conditions that it only be an advice column on dancing and the health benefits. He did not want me to write of my own experiences or of others’ experiences or to compliment any one on their activities. I told him no. I write in the manner I write and I have been successful in doing so and I know that I have encouraged people to dance that would never have thought they could dance at an advanced age, a young age or possibly with a medical problem age. I showed his email to a dancing friend and he told me I did the right thing. He said this guy was not intelligent enough to realize that everyone needs encouragement and everyone wants stimulation to try a new project. The only medical advice that I am willing to dispense, not being a medical professional is that dancing is certainly a healthy way to exercise.

Epictetus, a Roman philosopher said “Keep company with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” The best advice one can receive is to be with the populace who never puts you down and especially for no reason. The spirit telephone line, the accomplished and unknown couple like Ron and Rose, the encouraging friends and teachers and the word target are all important. Our goal and our target
should be in our constant well-being, our health, our happiness and our contentment with our life. Keep your journey of life, Do not let your joy be behind you, let your joy always be in the front of your life.

Bob Meyer appreciated my talent and therefore, I encourage others to go out and dance, be uplifted, be full of spirit, be a line of talented people who love to dance. We show the world that the time we have here can be blessed with this lifestyle of exhibiting to them, that people like Albert who saw something special in Rose and then Ron, the Bob Meyers of this world who visualized greatness in me and Elita who now envisions dance talent in men and women she does not know yet exist to help others to be positive, powerful and productive.

Epictetus was surely a keen guy because he said keep company only with people who uplift you, I say keep company with people who elevate your mind and soul to reach and hold onto the glories of ballroom dancing and how you will feel once you have expertise in this glorious pastime. It is a delightful journey that will keep you on your ‘feet’ and you will be awakened to do your best. Never allow any one to lower your expectations of any thing you do in life whether it be in your job, your hobby, your dancing, your love life or your daily living. Keep company with individuals who perceive you as able, kind and talented and you do the same for them. You will both reap the rewards of being happy. You will be a telephone line to eternity Elita Sohmer Clayman December 2008 8th Article for Fred Astaire Dance Studios

You can email Elita at elitajerrydancing@verizon.net.