Line Dancing with Judee: A Time To Say Goodbye

Judee Curtis

“To everything there is a season and a time to dance.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) There also comes a time when one is unable to dance and teach.

Thank you to Linda Robson and all the girls at the Robson newspapers for publishing my articles for almost 28 years, especially the last 20-plus years regarding my line dance classes at SunBird.

This article is being written on Labor Day 2021, the day we have always restarted my classes. There were a few exceptions, i.e., when our floor didn’t get refinished in time. These exceptions require a thank you to Linda Caton in Cottonwood for giving us a space to continue my classes for a few weeks.

The floor was usually ready for 20-plus years, so thank you to Joe Anderson and his crew for a great finish on our beautiful, large, wooden floor. A thank you also goes out to John Smith and his crew for keeping the floor clean, the doors pulled to our two-thirds size, and saving the table for my music equipment for classes on Mondays. Thank you, Chan, for helping me when the table disappeared.

A thank you to the activities directors for scheduling my classes, led by Layne Varney, our HOA manager, for close to my 20-plus years. Layne’s sons also need a big thank you for getting chairs picked up before our biannual dances on Sundays in March and December and saving our table for Monday. You see, it really took a “village” to be able to continue all these years.

There would have been no continuation all these years to teach and dance if there weren’t any dancers. The biggest ever thank you goes to the many dancers (men and women) who came to dance with me/us, and especially to the current dancers and a few new who waited for me to restart after cancelling classes in mid-March 2020. Some of them sent me encouraging and supportive messages, i.e., emails, cards, letters. They kept me happy, grounded, and looking forward to a new dancing season.

Thank you to my husband Al for helping me carry equipment when needed, taking the picture at our dances, and realizing how tired I would be for a couple of days after classes. No pandemic, and we ate out a lot! Now we are dealing with a health issue, and I’ve gotten out of shape, older, and unable to continue teaching my classes.

Thank you, God, for giving me 20-plus years to be able to teach, dance, and meet some of the nicest people I’ve ever known. God Bless line dancing!