Hop, shuffle, flap, step, step. My shiny leather shoes had taps, big, heavy metal taps and gro- grain ribbons tied across my white anklets. How I prayed for them. Finally Mama, after talking to my Aunt Sarah, agreed I, along with her daughter Roz, my best friend and cousin, could take tap dancing lessons. Oh, how happy we were. We all went together. Mama give Miss banks five dollars.
There were eight other girls in the class but Roz and I were the only news ones. We did try hard to do everything Miss Banks told us to do but our feet got mixed up and she had to make everybody start over. If only we could dance our own way, the way we did in our shows, we'd be ok.
One problem was Carsey who was put between Roz and me. She was so pretty with her long brown curls bouncing as she did her military tap. Her new teeth came in straight and very white. She had black silk shorts and a long sleeved white satin blouse. All Roz and I had were our shoes and two mothers who thought we were Shirley Temples. They found out soon enough that no Bill Robinson or James Dunne was waiting for us.
After three lessons Mama and Aunt Mollie both knew they were throwing their money away and had us removed. My mother tried to sell my tap shoes to a new girl that came in before we finished our last lesson but they didn't fit her. I was glad because Mama had bought my shoes one size too big and had stuffed the toes with cotton. That meant the shoes were mine and I could tap every Saturday morning when Uncle Jack's Kiddie show was on the radio. I pretended I could see Pepper and danced on the hardwood floor until my Daddy sent a signal from his office below me, to stop that noise.
Be that as it may, nobody could convince Daddy that his little girl was not another Michelangelo. Saturday nights we bought the American from the boy on the corner but waited for the Sunday Sun to be delivered in the morning. Two papers were extravagant, but a good investment, as they kept my hands busy for hours. The mischievous Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt and Jeff, Andy Gump with ugly, but I could copy them perfectly. Min, Colonel Hoople, Popeye were all my friends, fun to read, then to draw. Miss Belaga, my father's secretary, had lots of typing paper in the top right hand drawer of her desk and Daddy had a pencil sharpener attached to his office wall. What more could I want, what more did I need?
Daddy called me downstairs to show my drawings to fat ladies with their mouths stuffed with cotton, to mothers standing near their frightened kids, to men with fingers tightly gripping the dental chair. They were at his mercy. Of course, they nodded, smiled at my efforts. My daddy believed them, told me over and over again that I was going to be a great and famous artist when I grew up.
Daddy was very smart about a lot of things, but not about his talented daughter's future. He goofed.
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