Ballet, Tap and Red Hots!!

I started taking tap and ballet in 3^rd grade. I remember seeing a poster at Groveland Elementary school announcing an after school dance program. I knew then and there I had to do it. Little did I know then that dancing would become a major focus of my life for 20 years.  Every Friday afternoon we would file into the gym. Black leotards, black tights and black ballet shoes (pink wouldn’t come into vogue for several years, apparently!).  We didn't have ballet bars to hold on to, instead they would line up folding chairs and that is what we use to hold on to. From the beginning I loved ballet, the music, the steps and patterns, the outfits, everything!  I was free, I was beautiful, I was me.  Tap was just pure fun, but ballet is what made my heart sing.  I truly loved it…. Anyway, this is really about red hots!

Fast forward a few years. I am still taking tap and ballet at Groveland, but as I got older I was able to leave the school grounds between school and ballet class.  Talk about dangerous! There was a Tom Thumb store about a half a block from school. Every Friday I would skip lunch and save the quarter it cost for lunch (yes, my children, 25 cents for lunch) and before ballet class I would walk to Tom Thumb and buy a bag of red hots for 19 cents. We’re talking about a big bag of red hots, not the nickel kind (yes, candy was a nickel back then). I loved the cinnamon flavoring, how it would burn slightly on my tongue. Red hots are best when slightly soft and chewy. For some reason buying them in a bag would guarantee that perfect mix of hot, spicy, soft and chewy.  I am positive I would come to class with a red tongue and what likely looked like red lipstick on my lips from eating so many red hots!

The best part was that walking to Tom Thumb to buy candy without my parent’s knowledge felt surprisingly good, a little dangerous, but also slightly wrong. My first taste at independence at such a young age proved to be precipitous. What followed through the rest of middle school and into high school was an incredibly determined, fiercely independent person. I’ve always followed my own path and didn’t let others overly influence me. I went to an open school throughout high school so I could dance every day and I continued dancing through college, even majoring in dance. Today, dancing is still an important part of who I am. When no one is looking I will do pirouettes in the kitchen, I shake my booty at a latin hip hop class twice a week, and when I close my eyes, I am young again and dancing up a storm!

And of course, I still love cinnamon candy!  My repertoire has broaden a bit to  cinnamon sticks, cinnamon Mentos, and Brach’s cinnamon hard candies, but every now and then I will seek out that perfect cinnamon imperial slightly soft, extra spicy red hot!