PP: 44-47 – She really was a wonderful dancer, during a time when the University was a noted Party School. I mean, Playboy Magazine had recently named Ole Miss as one of the top Party Colleges in the nation! And guess who the Party Playmate (but she didn’t have to strip!) was that year? Yep, Betsy Hahhpuh Henrich! They held a dancing contest party at one of the frat houses, and little Bob Hamel sidled up to me toward the end and muttered, “I’m one-a the Playmate Judges, but you don’t know that, okay? Betsy’s got it wrapped up, and she ain’t even tryin’ hard! Get her with some of the better dancin’ men, like Dickie Todd, or Arthur Ray, but don’t you dance with her till we turn in our Judges’ cards. I’ll signal you.” He sidled off.
Warned not to dance with my own date! But I was cursed with two left feet, and accepted that. Betsy loved to dance, and was very good at all the dances, from waltz, to tango, to jazz, to the Bop, or Twist. And Ta-Dah! when they announced the winner for Ole Miss Playmate, she was it! Got a picture of me and her posing with the Playboy Bunny cut-out, to prove it.
Of course, her mother had started her with the usual tap, then ballerina, then modern. She mastered ballroom dancing: tango, jazz, waltz — all of those. I could barely move my feet around the room, and my philosophy was, “If I’m gonna dance with a good-lookin’ girl, why would I want to dance six feet away from her?!” But Betsy was the Belle of the Ball.
It was my job to keep her happy on the dance floor, so I watched for the best boy dancers, sought them out, introduced them to my beautiful date, and let them enjoy a few dances, always ready to cut in myself on the slow ones, when I could hold her close and get in a few squeezes or suchlike. I think the comedian Brother Dave Gardner put it best: “I like that soft, sweet, celestial Music of the Spheres, what makes boys and girls want to touch one another.” Bless her heart, she was content to rest up on those in my arms, then when the beat picked up, I’d grab her a guy who could keep up with her. Or at least thought he could!
Ole Miss was fun thataway, and then the Christmas Dances in the Delta were famous get-togethers, where I already knew most of the good dancers and could get them to fill Betsy’s card, while I watched and waited for the slow ones. Matter of fact, between Thanksgiving and Mardi Gras, there were over two dozen formal Balls within two hours drive of home, and Betsy, being so beautiful and such a wonderful dancer, was an instant hit, so many of the older men provided dance partners for her while I stood by waiting for the slow numbers. I had found that I really enjoyed watching her moves on the floor, and it was SO obvious that she was having a fantastic time, as were most of her partners! And, you know, I became good friends with many of those good-dancing men whom I was asking to dance the (fast) dances with my beautiful wife. And I dutifully danced with some of their wives in return, thereby becoming good friends with them, sometimes being somewhat surprised at their reactions when I told them why I had asked their husbands to dance with my wife: so that she could have a better time at these Put-On-The-Dog Events when I felt so obviously inadequate to match her talents on the dance floor. One lady said, “I’ve always wished I could dance as well as Fred, but I just can’t come close to his level of coordination. But I never once considered asking a beautiful girl who CAN dance well, to dance with him!” Listen to me carefully here, because we worked this out between ourselves, and it was a Blessing for, Lo, these many years: in a good solid loving marriage, a man can have females who are friends (as opposed to Girl Friends) and a woman can have males who are friends (as opposed to Boy Friends). You just have to be careful about the S-Word part. But to purposely cull half the world’s population from being eligible for plain old friendships isn’t a good thing either. Just be careful, and faithful to your own spouse always. Selah. Nuff said.