Don't get me wrong. I enjoy being a writer. It has made me a small fortune. Nubile women throw themselves at me. But I think back and wonder about the road not taken. At one time, as a youth, I was a heck of a clog dancer. I'd run home from school, race to my bedroom, put on my clogs and serious clog music, and pound away until my mother told me to cut it out.
I majored in clog dancing at a small school in New Hampshire. While there, I fell for a ballet student, Olive, who never understood my calling. I made the mistake of switching majors to ballet, but could not master even the fundamentals. She fell for Raoul, her partner, and there I was without a girl or my identity. Somehow I graduated with a BA in poetry.
When I attempted to return to intense clogging it soon became obvious I'd lost my mojo. After ten minutes my ankles hurt. The International Clogging Competition in Montreal came and went and I didn't even go. I had lost the killer clogging instinct.
Now I sit quietly by the window watching kids pour out of school, knowing some of them can't wait to get home and practice this amazing dance form. My grand kids found my old clogs in the closet and asked what were they for. I said I'd wait until they got older before discussing my story. Hopefully they'll lose interest by then.
I think I'll write a poem.
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