Tap Happy

Years ago, when I lived in Manhattan, I drug some friends to 34th Street, where a record number of tappers were dancing along the pot-holed streets in front of Macy's. I remember wanting to join in.

It's taken several decades, but yesterday my feet were two among 80 others with metal-plated shoes flapping, slapping, digging, brushing, scuffing, shuffling — tapping away. The sound alone altered reality.

Add to that the hopping and twirling, the sheer exhilaration of moving the body through choreographed steps in unison — and fortissimo — and, well, it's impossible not to be happy when tapping.

It's been almost six months since I started taking dance lessons. Life hasn't been especially easy since then. But tapping has been.

(Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the late Shirley Temple in the famous stairway tap-dancing scene from "The Little Colonel." Photo: Cinewiki.)