By Tim Sanders

I had initially planned to use this week’s column to explain my inability to dance. No matter what my wife may tell you, there is more than just congenital awkwardness involved. It all stems from a traumatic childhood incident when my pet red squirrel escaped from his cage. Harvey ran up my dad’s pants leg and caused him to generate way more pelvic action than a middle-aged Baptist minister should ever display–even in the privacy of his own kitchen. Dad’s frantic Mad Squirrel Boogaloo scarred my psyche for years.

My wife complained about my dance-impairment just last week. We’d recently attended the concert which Jane Poovey Realty and the Chamber of Commerce presented in Cedar Bluff. It was a fine concert, with The Georgians Orchestra and their vocalist, Cherokee County’s own Mary Leigh Hill, performing selections ranging from Country to Rock to Big Band Swing tunes. At several points during the concert, Marilyn asked if I wouldn’t like to dance. I told her yes, I wouldn’t. I explained that I had pulled a hamstring reaching for the remote the night before. I lied. I simply did not want to embarrass myself.

To Marilyn’s credit, she did join a few other folks on the pavilion floor during a Twist number. She and a couple of other middle-aged ladies twisted again like they did 40 summers ago, and it all turned out well. There were no fouls–at least no intentional fouls–and no injuries or penalties. And to my own credit, I actually danced a reasonably slow dance with her later, and am proud to report the X-rays show that her foot was not broken, only bruised.

But things happen that cause humorists to shift gears. Things like Hurricanes.
Now, as the full extent of Katrina’s devastation to our Gulf Coast unfolds, that silly dancing column seems rather inappropriate. Believe it or not, even we humorists have hearts.

Last week, like millions of other Americans, I watched Biloxi resident Harvey Jackson tell a reporter from Mobile’s WKRG about the last time he saw his wife, Tonette.

Jackson said that as his house was torn in half by the savage storm surge, his wife told him, "You can’t hold me. Take care of the kids and the grandkids."

He continued: "I can’t find her body. She’s gone," and added, plaintively, "I’m lost. That’s all I had. That’s all I had. I don’t know what I’m going to do."

The frightened little boy clinging to his side made the scene all the more heartbreaking.

So, even though griping and complaining are a humorist’s stock in trade, I won’t complain further about my inability to dance. And I won’t complain about my wife’s complaints about my inability to dance, either. I won’t complain about the water quality, or high electric bills, or the channels not available on our cable TV. I won’t complain about our cell phone service, or our Internet provider, or the inordinate amount of time I have to spend sitting in the doctor’s waiting room. I won’t complain about the traffic in Birmingham, or the price of gas. I won’t complain about my wife’s shopping habits, or the long checkout lines at Wal-Mart. I won’t complain about the mosquitoes flying around our deck light at night, or about the fact that the grass in my backyard seems to be dying. I won’t complain that the dehumidifier in our basement isn’t working, or that there might be a leak in the utility room roof. And I won’t even complain about how we occasionally have to jiggle the handle to stop our commode tank from running. Not this week. Not now.

This week, even a humorist with little enough sense to joke about serious things like a foul-tempered squirrel in a pants leg, or dancing in the dark, knows enough to realize he’s one of the lucky ones. I’ve seen images on TV the last few days that just a week ago would have been unimaginable. Hundreds of miles of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coastline have been decimated. The city of New Orleans is now a stagnant lake where bloated bodies float. The cost in human lives will probably never be counted, but it will surely be in the thousands.

We Americans are technological marvels. In five minutes or less we can microwave a meal, access information on the Internet, program our cell phone, or drive to our local supermarket.

And in that same amount of time, it can all be taken away.

So this week I’ll shut up about my two left feet, and leave off complaining for awhile. Maybe I can’t dance, but at least I can walk ... safely, without hip boots.
I doubt that even the hardiest soul will be dancing on Bourbon Street tonight.