I was looking at the picture thinking of my Cotillion days. Apparently at the same place rgraham was, now the Laguanitas Country Club. Were you the guy in the plaid sport coat ?

Is about to get his foot stepped on.

I actually liked these classes. It was amazing to me to see all the girls I went to school with during the day, all dressed up and smelling nice with their little white gloves. Our dance classes were held in a building way nicer than this however. An old craftsman style building with a dark, almost black woody interior. The Lagaunitus Country Club is what it is today.

Of this picture leave me nothing more to say. An enjoyable read.

Acoustical tile ceiling, and the Linoleum is simply stunning! Nice sprinkler head and AC register too! The two poles are breathtaking!

As the nuns would admonish rambunctious teens who wanted to get close up and personal as they danced.."Leave room for the Holy Ghost"

The missing boys just might be Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver and Larry Mondelo.

When I was in Elementary school someone decided we should learn to dance a minuet.

Neckties for the boys, stockings for the girls!

Notice none of the couples are making eye contact or talking to one another. Worst way in the world to learn to dance is with (a) someone who doesn't know any more than you do and (b) is not familiar to you, and it shows here.

In those days and earlier (mine were in the fifties), young students like this were often told they were doing it wrong or they had to have their partners in a particular position and make sure their feet were placed in a particular pattern and the instructors, like the confident older woman with the elbow length white gloves in this picture, would tell us what we were doing wrong. Rather than be embarrassed by our obvious ignorance, we decided we would rather just not dance and thus became "two left footers". Today's free-spirited kids just get out there and let 'er rip, and nobody tells them they are wrong. Hence, my 5 and 7 year old grand kids are avid dancers and have some very smooth moves they just copy from watching TV dancing and from the way the music inspires them to move. They develop their own personal style and dance steps so none are wrong.They love dancing while I hate it. So much for "right" and "wrong".

I wish I could be there to dance with the lone girl on the right. Would probably be way too shy to ask though.

Ballroom dancing lessons are always given to kids too young to see the point.

A dreaded night of the week in a kid's life.

This brings back a lot of bad memories from 1956. On summer vacation in Connecticut in a rented beach house. My mom signed my older brother and me up for dance lessons. I hated them.

Then had to go thru the same ritual a few years later in seventh grade. Again, I hated them.

So much so that I won't get out on a dance floor.