Tamworth Cha-Cha-Cha

On the Oxley Highway a few kilometres west of Tamworth is a billboard advertising hotel accommodation. Above a caption that says, "We know how you feel" is a photograph of a pair of eyes propped open by match sticks. Rumour has it that a square dancer posed for that photograph.

Do you normally get just two or three squares at your club? So do we. The 42nd National at Tamworth was different and nobody knows how many squares crammed onto the floor. You could try dividing 1,000 dancers by 8 and not even get close. We had wall-to-wall squares in a venue so big that it could only be measured in hectares.

A greater scribe than I once wrote, "Eat, drink and be merry for on Tuesday you have to go back to work." And so it was. Some came to dance, some to call, some to renew old friendships—everybody came to party.

You could always tell who'd been to the after-parties—they were the ones who kept messing up the squares next day. And some of the dancers were almost as bad!

Dragging myself awake on Monday I struggled along to a lunchtime contra session where I danced with Marilyn, a charming Dianella Ranger from Perth. Until then I thought Rangers only came from Texas and they all looked like Chuck Norris. Boy, was I wrong!

Either I was in worse condition than I thought or the caller had been partying too hard himself because, not only did I lose Marilyn, I found myself square dancing in cha cha time. It was a novelty and square thru cha-cha-cha didn't present too many problems—but have you ever tried to swing cha-cha-cha? It's dynamite! Moreover the unaccustomed footwork tends to snap the teeth sharply together. Unfortunately I was concentrating so hard at the time I had my tongue between my teeth and gave myself a nasty bite. I still talk with a lisp.

So that was Tamworth—lots of friendships, lots of fun, a scattering of clever novelties and not nearly enough sleep.

By the time you read this most of us should have recovered enough strength to start planning the trip to Mandurah W.A. in 2002. I'm hoping to go myself—they tell me Mandurah is on the Dianella side of town.