Let's Dance!

 

 

I was working this past weekend at the home of a retired couple who had recently down sized in house due to their failing health. They moved from a nice three story home which they had built some years ago to a modest house on the other side of town. A number of remodels had to be done to open the floor plan and incorporate some of the niceties they were use to. After they were able to move in I was asked to come in and help with their electronics. It was a pretty simple job of connecting some existing speakers throughout the house and installing volume control knobs so they could control the music easily from the room they were in.

Upon my arrival the lady of the house greeted me and showed me in. I quickly got to work connecting speakers and cutting boxes into the wall for volume controls, then moved on to the equipment closet. Often my mind will wander while doing mundane tasks like sitting still and connecting wires to equipment, and that morning my mind wandered to a recent podcast I had listened to with Lisa Earle McLead. In an interview she discussed the need for a greater purpose, how finding what you do to be noble and add value to people’s lives will help drive a positive perception of what you do and thus make it more enjoyable and successful in return.

 

About that time the husband came in from outside. He was a cold and weathered man, a real cowboy with a no nonsense demeanor. He shook the snow off his coat and stamped his boots before entering through the kitchen. With a glanced my way and without saying two words he nodded his head as if to acknowledge my existence. He then quickly found his seat in the living room on the couch opposite of his wife, and sat there quietly content to watch reruns on the HGTV network.

 

I returned to my work after the slight distraction and soon was testing the system out. I turned on the radio and set the speaker levels appropriately. I continued on to the cassette tape deck (If you do not know what that is you can look it up here.), and it was working as well. All I had left was the CD player. I found an old Hank Williams CD tucked away on the desk next to the closet I was working in. I didn’t pay much attention to what CD it was I just wanted to make sure it would play. As I turned it on the gentleman sitting across the room perked up. I adjusted the volume up and down and saw his interest being drawn more towards the music than the TV.

 

I left the music playing in the background and proceeded to clean up my tools when I was surprised by the sound of something slapping. I looked over to see this man with his chin pointed to the sky and rocking back and forth and slapping his knee to the beat of “Hey Good Lookin’”. Then all of the sudden to my surprise (and apparently his wife’s as well judging by her reaction) this man who had not spoken a word in the past 30 minutes belted out to his wife, “June, let’s dance!” Obviously embarrassed by his outburst, she quickly snapped back, “I will not dance with you!” so he proceeded to dance with the dog.

 

As I gazed at the sight of a man dancing with his dog to Hank Williams, and his wife sitting there laughing at his unusual behavior it occurred to me… Not everyone may be as excited as I am about the technology available, but everyone, even a quiet old man and his wife can find joy in the experience it brings.