May 12, 2003
DOWN HOME:
Dads' love puts them on stage
___The mistress of ceremonies announced the dads were about to dance, "or something faintly resembling dance."
___She got it right the second time--if you have a flexible definition of "faintly resembling."
___Six fathers performed during the Lewisville High School Farmerettes drill team's Spring Show, the end-of-the-year combination recital and variety program.
___This was the Knox family's sixth year for Spring Show. We started in 1998, weeks after Lindsay, our oldest daughter and soon-to-be-ninth-grader, made the Farmerettes the first time. We had two more years with Lindsay in the show, two years in which Lindsay and our youngest daughter, Molly, overlapped, and then this year, with just Molly.
___Spring Show is all about the Farmerettes, who perform in a variety of groups, doing everything from high-kick to tap to jazz to lyrical and even hip-hop routines. But since they have to change costumes between dances, Ms. Fields, the Farmerettes' director, books "filler acts" in-between.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___For the most part, filler acts are performed by talented LHS students. They sing, dance and even play drums to delight the audience.
___But for three years now, she's also let the Farmerettes' dads have a place on the program.
___"Place" may be too polite of a term. "Plague" would be more like it. We're not very good.
___This year, on the opening night of the show, I remembered what George, the dad who started all this, explained when he recruited me in 2001. "We want to embarrass the girls without embarrassing ourselves," he said.
___Put it this way: A guy who will shimmy into tights, put on a fringe-laden faux-Farmerette uniform, strap on a white hat and gallop across a stage to the tune of ZZ Top's classic-rock "She's Got Legs" is not easily embarrassed.
___We can't kick half as high as our daughters. But the numbers average out, because when we get down on the floor, it takes us twice as long to get back up.
___However, every year, I'm tempted to take myself too seriously.
___A couple of weeks ago, during dinner, I said something like, "I think if we get in a couple more good practices, we'll have our contagion down pat."
___Molly looked at me the way only a daughter can look at a dad, equal parts pity, amusement and unbelief. "That's not your job," she explained. "Your job is to have fun and be silly."
___Well, Charley, Jim, Richie, Roger, Scott and I had a great lot of fun. And the girls assured us we looked silly.
___Some folks say parenthood is a faint metaphor for God's love for us, his children. Somehow, I can't imagine our Heavenly Father wearing a Farmerette costume. But if we're all loved more than dancing dads love their daughters, then we're loved tremendously.
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