Get Rhythm - W/C 317

The Writer's Cramp - 9/28/23

Sometimes you just feel like singing. And today, with the cooler temperatures and the blue sky, the sun shining like a bright new penny, a song came into my head.

“When you get the blues,
Get rhythm - shoe shine boy!
A nickel per shoe
Worth a million dollars for you!”

Catchy little ditty. Kind of makes you want to jump up, put on those dancin’ shoes. Trip the light fantastic. Grab the cat and prance around the room.

So that’s just what I did! I found my old black leather character shoes, strapped them on. Tuned into my local NPR ‘Jazz in the PM’ show, then sang and danced for awhile with Fluffy. We danced around the living room into the dining room through the kitchen, just like they were the biggest rehearsal room in the world. We waltzed, did the fox trot, did the jitterbug, did some jumpin’jive, did the twist, did some Martha Graham moves. Martha Graham once said, “Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.”

I sang my new song as loud as I could as Fluffy and I gyrated across the floor.
At this point Fluffy ran off, not to be seen for the rest of the day, ears plastered back against her head. She never cared much for jazz.

Tap, tap, tap. ‘When you get the blues’.
Tap, tap, tap, ‘a nickel per shoe’.
Tap, tap, tap, “I surely wish I had that million dollars, don’t you?’
Tap, tap, tap, ‘I still got rhythm - see my shoe …’
Wait…

I checked my shoes. They surely did need a shoe shine boy. Does someone like that still exist? Probably not. But surely shoe polish is still around. I make a trek to the store.

Do you know how hard it is to find black leather shoe polish? And another thought, do they still make black leather shoes these days?

W/C 317